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Microsoft is Screwing Up Live on Vista
Joe The Dragon wrote with a link to an ExtremeTech article lambasting Microsoft for its confusing rollout of the Live service on the PC. While the vision of achievements, a gamerscore, a consistent friends list, and one sprawling multiplayer network is tantalizing, the reality falls somewhat short of that goal. "The biggest mistake Microsoft is making with Live on the PC is the way they're treating the PC as if it's a console platform they can control. They're trying to lock out the rest of the world and to charge for features that PC gamers have had for free for ages. It's a shortsighted, greedy scheme that could only come from a product manager or VP who simply doesn't "get" PC gaming. The free Silver level of Xbox Live lets you log in on the PC and earn Achievements just like you do on the 360--but only single-player Achievements. Multiplayer Achievements are only for those $50-a-year Gold members. Player matchmaking is for Gold members only. Voice in games is for Gold members only. Cross-platform play between 360 and PC is for Gold members only. In fact, the only thing silver members can really do is view a server list and hop onto a specific server." Article author Jason Cross warns Microsoft at the end of the piece that it is 'not too late' to turn things around. Vista is still a young platform, and once driver issues are ironed out and Vista becomes the standard there are still opportunities for success.
What, right now? Which channel is it on?
Only three things are certain; death, taxes, and apocryphal quotations - Ben Franklin.
When I first saw this, I thought it was a videocast: "Watch MS screw up LIVE!!"
u-bend
And how, exactly, is that going to happen with people actively turning back to XP in droves?
Get real, this is only temporary. Once Microsoft has patched Vista enough to make it vaguely palatable, and newer PCs ship with enough extra oomph to run the OS as fast as XP on today's hardware, people will just get used to it. Don't kid yourself, the forced upgrade scheme will be going as planned.
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
A bit OT, I know, but every time I see a Vista story on Slashdot, I think of the line from Bill Cosby's act, "Let the beatings begin!"
And I smile...
Ignore anything I said above, I actually agree with everything you believe - mod accordingly.
microsoft thinking they own and can control the PC platform like it's a console? Is anyone really surprised by this? It's probably the number one reason to not support microsoft (even by running pirated copies) in any way. This is the same kind of crap they do in every business they try to force their way into and all it does is degrade the user experience AND cost more.
Maybe I'll start up an XBL-like service for Linux that actually works and is open. So I'll finally be able to tell if my friends are playing Tux Racer or Tux Kart!
The Farewell Tour II
As a PC gamer, I sincerely hope it fails. Battle.net was the first example of free online play, but other games are following suit. Microsoft is pulling this shit right as it's become standard for RTS's (at least) to include a free online service. In addition to that, it'll create more lock-in for gamers. The upside is that it'll standardize things like in-game voice chat and online play, but it isn't enough.
and other free things that pc games have had for a long time. That want to lock things down to there way and as it is that will be very bad for pc gaming. EA games likes to nickel and dime you on there xbox 360 games.
It would suck to have a MMORPG type game where you would have to pay The full cost of game, live gold, the games Monthly Fee, and live points for content updates.
M$ need back down on pushing game to be dumbed down to support xbox controllers, be more open to cheaper ESRB stile ratings organizations, support the use of user made mods and user made maps online with out any kind of lock down, Let developers have games that can be Cross-platform with pc - xbox 360 - mac os x - ps3, and so on.
Some of the Platform standards for a games of windows are good but they should add a common update system that is easy for games and other apps to use and is free for developers to use to make easy to keep all of your games up to date.
If it is just matchmaking and a score-board, yeah $50 is a bit much. But if Microsoft is hosting the games on their servers and checking to make sure nobody is cheating (as much as you can for PC games), then it might be worth the $4.25 a month they want.
I do agree however, that they *need* the Live interface to be part of Vista and not just something that you run from inside games. Being able to see if my friends are playing a certain game while I'm downloading porn...um, checking my email would be nice.
My bet is that Live Vista will suck for the first couple of months. In a year, it will be acceptable. And in 2 to 3 years it will become the standard. Being able to see that your friend is playing Shadowrun while you are playing WoW will be the killer app.
Spell cheek you've failed me four the last thyme!
Hmm. As for Creative, an alternative driver does exist, the latest beta (3538m, find it in the forum) of which does support Vista on all SoundBlaster Live! and other unsupported cards. They work great.
I'm aware that there are other devices that don't work with Vista, but I've got all of mine (some of which are quite old) to work, either with Vista-supplied drivers, or with Windows XP drivers. The situation is hardly as bad as it is sometimes made out to be.
Actually, according to all the speed testing thats been done, framerates are actually better on XP because it doesnt clog up a system as much as vista does. The only reason gamers want DX 10 is because they'll be forced to get it if they want to play the new shiney game at all, because it absolutely won't work on older machines. I can't see any developers wanting to cut out 90% of their market for a 0-5% performance gain.
Dell has reintroduced PCs running Windows XP on its website due to customer demand.
Dell To Offer Win XP On Consumer PCs Again
Sure it's a test on some models, but imagine what Dell will do if these models (with XP) sell considerably better than the comparable other models (with Vista).
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
Device drivers had to be rewritten going from 98 to XP. Some device drivers had to be rewritten going from 95 to 98. The obsolescence you are describing has been going on for a decade. History has shown it will be no obstacle to Vista's acceptance.
How is this a problem? If the free Silver account allows you to freely view and join servers, just the same as most PC games do now, how are you losing anything? Are you bitching that adding extras like matchmaking and voice chat, not to mention a mechanism to ban known cheaters, will cost you less than 5 bucks a month?
The vast majority of current PC games supporting free multiplayer seem to provide the same thing that the free Silver account will. Also keep in mind that the Account is the same for your Xbox 360 and original XBox. Personally, having one consistant identity, with the same reputation and buddy list, across 3 different platforms is pretty much worth the money to me already.
The arguement in the article seems to be "Some PC games provide some of this functionality for free, therefore any system bringing it all together should be free too!"
Microsoft have decided to put a "Windows Live" icon on the Mac version of MSN Messenger. It doesn't do anything, it's not clickable or selectable in any way as far as I can tell.
It was added in one of the annoyingly regular 'you must upgrade NOW or you'll never be allowed on MSN again' updates that Microsoft like to do for no clear reason (as opposed to the spurious 'upgrade to the latest version' messages that you get when someone tries to send you an animated gif that tries to get you to install the PC version).
Does anyone know why it's there?
A pizza of radius z and thickness a has a volume of pi z z a
I thought Windows Live Gold was free to anyone who already had XBox Live Gold? Isn't that sort of the whole point? You already have an XBox, but maybe you want the PC version of Oblivion versus the Console version? While I understand that there are people out there who don't own an XBox and might just want to be able to play Halo 3 with their buddies, most of the people that I know that want this already have an XBox and XBox Live...so I guess I just don't see the big deal on the price.
"Life's short and hard, like a body building elf." -- The Bloodhound Gang
Yup, an alternative driver exists that is of excellent interest to musicians and general use, but totally useless for gamers, as it has basically no EAX support, which is the only reason a gamer will get a Creative card anyway.
Not knocking on the kX project itself here, I think it's fantastic, but let's not mix apples and oranges.