At the heart of it technology is still at the core of video games. While it's true that practically all major studios buy into middleware, this doesn't remove technology from the equation, nor does it open the door for incapable coders to create games. Even your average UnrealScript guy needs a heck of a lot more programming expertise than he is likely to gain from a game school certificate. A strong understanding of code, even if the coder is not operating at a very low level, is absolutely necessary. The NWN modules you're talking about, while excellent, are of a very limited scope (extra levels for a game, essentially) and revolve more around game design than the programming of it.
Not to mention that there's a lot of room in this industry for some fresh technology. Technology can still do a lot for gaming, and I'm afraid it's not getting a lot of attention these days. It's come down to the shiniest graphics, the largest levels, and whose characters have a bigger sword to mow down the bajillions of identical enemies with. There are a lot of good game ideas that can be opened up with the right technology.
Moreover, I do not see game schools as providing coders with the education they need to be game programmers. We're talking about strictly intermediate, cursory knolwedge of C++, little to no education in algorithms & data structures... These guys are the VB programmers of the industry, their education covered none of the CS basics that are wholly necessary in apps as optimized and low-level as performance 3D apps. the only good coders I've seen come out of game schools are the ones that went in experienced programmers already, and drove themselves to learn everything on their own, the school can take little credit for that one.
I disagree with TFA that there are an astounding number of people trying to break into the industry. Game development is the 20-somethings' equivalent of "I wanna be an astronaut!". A lot of people say it, a lot of people fantasize about it, but mostly everyone has no hope in hell of doing it, nor would they stay if they got there. In terms of the real contenders, I think we're doing just fine.
Nintendo fanboys can have it both ways: First it's "Wii is innovative, online is free, and cheap for developers!". After this much hype and justification of the Wii with online being a major bullet point, you can't turn around and claim that, because of the price point, lack of multiplayer (for 3rd parties) is somehow justifiable.
I commend Valve for doing the right thing and delaying the game to avoid compromising its quality. I enjoyed HL2, though I haven't had a chance to play Episode 1, Valve games are consistently great.
That said, we've been building games for what, 20 years now? While it's commendable to do the right thing when a delay inevitably hits, the industry as a whole has more delays than on-time releases, or something. Is it not possible to do it right the first time AND hit the schedule?
Where's the problem coming from? Overaggressive scheduling?
Since I dont' know you, I don't know if you are unique enough to escape the death grip that is wealth. But statistically the odds are against you, from my experience. Of the modest-turned-wealthy people I know, I can count the ones that've successfully avoided falling into the money pit on two fingers.
While your spirit is admirable, it probably won't last if you ever got rich. I've known some people who claim to only want a low-key lifestyle for themselves, modest car, etc, but when the money started rolling all of that went ouf the window.
- Feed cat
- Breakfast
- Take over enemy base
- Soil your adult diapers while camping out at the sniper's nest
- Continue taking over enemy base
- Feed cat again
- Dinner
I hate to continue a dead thread, but this just invited for some response...
Walk into your local EB, pick 100 random games for PC and consoles. How many originate from a Japanese studio? Very few I'd say... Besides the obvious ones like Final Fantasy and Metal Gear Solid, the VAST majority of games come from good old-fashioned American (and Canadian, and European) studios. It's not "80%", it's more like "10-15%". The vast majority of the gaming you've been doing for the past decade has been American in origin, unless you happen to have a region 2 PS2 and do a LOT of importing.
Your linux fanboyism has nothing to do with this. Ask anyone about Xbox Live (who's actually used it) and they'll tell you that the Xbox Dashboard is one slick little puppy, easy to use, and doesn't fuck up.
Let's look at Xbox360 homebrew. MS is releasing a managed code runtime for the 360, as well as a full IDE that integrates the entire art pipeline into one piece of software, making it trivial to compile your assets directly into the binary blob that will be your distributable. It also lets you, for $99/year, run, test, and debug your homebrew games on your $400 retail console (all the while without destroying your ability to play retail games), and allows you to feed binaries from your dev PC directly to the console. Hell, it also allows you to compile for Windows and Xbox360 at a touch of a button.
Now let's look at Wii homebrew. Suffice to say, it doesn't exist. Nintendo has made the (good) move to offer cheaper dev kits, but we're still looking at $1700 for a dev kit, which is simply an unprotected Wii with debug features (like all dev kits). Code will still be reserved for the expert-level coder, being consisted of complex C++ libs instead of a consistent, managed API. Testing cannot occur on commodity hardware either. Got 2 programmers on your team? $3400 of hardware instead of... $800 of hardware + $200 of subscriptions. The Wii opens the door for low-funding independent developers to get onto the console, but the door is still shut for the average joe.
That's the difference. Check your facts before spouting off about the supposed absurdity of MS and homebrew communities. If you didn't know, MS has always offered Visual Studio Express (a toned-down version of the commercial VS product line) for free so hobbyists can code. It's not as slick as the commercial version, but it's no slouch. Hell, MS has been maintaining the Code4Fun MSDN site for years, which contains specific tutorials, articles, and goes around to university campuses giving lectures and tutorials about amateur game development (with a DirectX bent, but that's understandable). They have in fact been supporting homebrew (albeit on PC) for a very good long time.
Microsoft is in fact in a better position to tackle gaming. They have the extensive toolchain experience that no other company has. While the PS3 was yabbering about Cell low-level opcodes, MS is touting high-level language runtimes that allow you to develop for PC and Xbox for the price of one. The PC-like nature of the hardware only makes it simpler for PC developers to get into the business. PC programmers are easy to find, to commoditize them in the game industry brings up the bottom line, reduces labour costs, and is a win-win for everyone. "slapping a bunch of computer parts" into a box is probably the best thing they've ever done, and is pretty much the same thing the PS3 is doing now. None of the next-gen consoles are as integrated and customized as ye olde SNES or even the PS2, all are now using commoditized, standardized equipment.
As for your game of numbers. Let's play:
- Population of USA+Canada: 330 million, according to the ESA, 75% of American adults play console or PC games. That's about 170 million people.
- Population of EU: 456 million, 25% of whom, according to Google Answers, own a console. That's 114 million people.
- That's a conservative estimate of 284 million people in the US, Canada, and Europe who play
Funny, 'cos I could've sworn the engineers that worked at my last place of employment regularly did 80h, unpaid OT, and regularly worked weekends too. Glad to see the Chinese "sweatshop" labour beats out good old fixed-salary American employment!
I suggest you familiarize yourself with MS's less commonly known products. Microsoft isn't just Windows and Office, there's a lot in that company that would place the company in a better position to tackle gaming. I say that MS is better able to target homebrew because they've been doing that on the PC for a good long while, with MS Visual Studio Express. They know how to make good developer tools - I've been coding a good frickin' long while, and MSVC is still the best IDE I've used. Supporting homebrew is all about giving indies and average joes the tools to build games on your platform, and I simply don't see Sony being able to do that. They may be able to release specs and open a particular standard, but they don't have the ability to provide tools to the extent MS can.
Video games and Japan go hand in hand? Now you just sound like a hopeless Japanophile. Sorry buddy, but there are a lot more gamers out there than there are Japanese people. Nintendo and Sony may have been large forces in the industry, but there's nothing to say that America is somehow *unqualified* to make a console. That just reeks of "OMFG KAWAII~ NIHON~~~!" fanboyism.
Does it matter? Sony rips off Nintendo motion sensing, Microsoft rips off Apple iPod, yadi yada. Now if OSX cloned a XP or Vista feature, all of the Applebots on/. would keep pretty fricking mum about it. I'm an Apple fan (look in my post history if you want), but this is the way technology moves forward. People take ideas from each other, build on top of them, adding and removing aspects as the market demands. It can only be good for the consumer to have more choice.
That said, Zune sounds like it's going to suck hard. All plastic? I hope they mean shiny plastic a la iPod, 'cos we have WAY too many of the "faux brushed aluminum" things floating around as it is. It's not sexy enough to have style. When your audio player looks like a cheap Logitech keyboard, YOU DID IT WRONG. The features do sound solid, but honestly, it's the style that counts.
The fact that they have no resources to support the homebrew community to the extent MS can. MS has the advantage of being a tools developer for a VERY fricking long while, with a huge amount of experience gained from Visual Studio and all its derivatives. Sony is not a tools provider. Not to mention MS has been running its own very large service networks (Hotmail, MSN, etc) for a long time and are in a better position to support a mass distribution system such as Live.
As for the HD DVD comment... We're at a era in gaming where developers are struggling with skyrocketing costs, and you're here telling them to produce MORE content? Every bit that sits on a disc has to be created by someone, and the larger your game, odds are the higher your costs. Filling a BR disc would take an IMMENSE amount of manpower that simply isn't economically feasible.
Except one thing: Usability. I've encountered few pieces of FOSS software that I would consider truly usable. Firefox is a delightful exception, as well as Adium (IM client for OSX), but for the most part it's just a dreadery of buttons and panels that only a coder could grok.
That's all fine and dandy for the "background" type of FOSS, things like Apache, MySQL, PHP and whatnot, where your target audience are of the technical inclination.
That is also why I have serious doubts about the ability for FOSS to unseat consumer-level software. Until FOSS administrators and coders wake up and realize that usability is a key cornerstone of effective software, people will continue paying for proprietary software that gives them just that.
Unfortunately kids aren't as stupid (or gullible?) sometimes as we'd hope. A phone like the Firefly is essentially an electronic wireless dog-leash for the parents, and the kids won't be very fond of it. They would likely "accidentally" leave it at Timmy's house, or "forget" to turn it on, etc.
IMHO such a device, good idea as it is, has to offer something to the kids. An incentive for them to keep it on themselves and have it on. Most kids do not appreciate the need to be able to phone the cops or the parents in a contingency, so there's gotta be a bit of something in it for them. MP3 player? Apple-like style-ego-stroke factor? I dunno, but something.
What about Microsoft Points? Gambling with fake money, even if it is purchased with real money... how does that work out legally? Though technically casinos do the same thing...
When I ordered a mini-DVI to DVI adapter from Apple (it fits in my hand... it's just two ends with a little 2" stretch of wire) it came in the box that looked like it could ship a couple large tech manuals. Why? I never understood.
Your college science class must've failed to teach basic scientific method. The whole "lightning strike" thing is one of many theories about how life began, each with supporting and refuting evidence. The key here is that science acknowledges that it doesn't know what actually happened, readily accepts alternate theories, and when the leading theory is debunked it is celebrated and nobody gets burned at the stake.
That's the difference between blind belief and educated belief. Educated believers are willing to be challenged, and accept anything that has sufficient evidence.
Evolution on the other hand is an educated theory based on sound observation and evidence. Evolution does not define the origin of life, but rather it defines the phenomena that is readily observable whereby populations and species change over time. The exact mechanism of this process is arguable, though natural selection is the leading explanation, and has a extremely large amount of evidence in its defense.
You say it as if it doesn't, but it does. Science inherently threatens any form of ill-founded blind belief, and seeks to find support and evidence for all ideas. While I say this is not inherently incompatible with faith in general, it seems to be incompatible with most people's faith.
As a brave AC said above, Live has multiple "zones" that cater to different styles of players, casual, competitive, and hardcore and whatnot. It also evaluates your stats and tries to pair you up with people of similar skill level, so the hardcores aren't pwning n00bs all day and the n00bs can have other n00bs to shoot at.
Personally I've never used the IM feature much, though I can understand its niceness.
Not only that, but the matchmaking features make the "Random Game" button quite useful, whereas on a PC you have to filter through massive lists of servers, each of whom may run their own server mods and rules and whatnot. Live simplifies this to "I want to play online" and removes the technical aspects from it. PC gamers may be put off by this, since they've grown to want the strict manual controls, but most online gamers like it.
The whole Dashboard integration works well too. There's a unified account for everything and that is always running in the background. No logging in for each game, the Xbox OS handles all logins and the account is universal. I don't know about Nintendo's system, but I'd be hella annoyed if I had to sign up for an account with every different game and log in every time if I wanted to play each of them.
Depends. If Ninty's online service is of the same calibre as Live (instead of just a random PC-like matchmaking service) and becomes HUGE, I can see Live becoming free. But as of now MS is the only one that has proven themselves capable of making a good console online experience.
Slashdot Mirror
At the heart of it technology is still at the core of video games. While it's true that practically all major studios buy into middleware, this doesn't remove technology from the equation, nor does it open the door for incapable coders to create games. Even your average UnrealScript guy needs a heck of a lot more programming expertise than he is likely to gain from a game school certificate. A strong understanding of code, even if the coder is not operating at a very low level, is absolutely necessary. The NWN modules you're talking about, while excellent, are of a very limited scope (extra levels for a game, essentially) and revolve more around game design than the programming of it.
Not to mention that there's a lot of room in this industry for some fresh technology. Technology can still do a lot for gaming, and I'm afraid it's not getting a lot of attention these days. It's come down to the shiniest graphics, the largest levels, and whose characters have a bigger sword to mow down the bajillions of identical enemies with. There are a lot of good game ideas that can be opened up with the right technology.
Moreover, I do not see game schools as providing coders with the education they need to be game programmers. We're talking about strictly intermediate, cursory knolwedge of C++, little to no education in algorithms & data structures... These guys are the VB programmers of the industry, their education covered none of the CS basics that are wholly necessary in apps as optimized and low-level as performance 3D apps. the only good coders I've seen come out of game schools are the ones that went in experienced programmers already, and drove themselves to learn everything on their own, the school can take little credit for that one.
I disagree with TFA that there are an astounding number of people trying to break into the industry. Game development is the 20-somethings' equivalent of "I wanna be an astronaut!". A lot of people say it, a lot of people fantasize about it, but mostly everyone has no hope in hell of doing it, nor would they stay if they got there. In terms of the real contenders, I think we're doing just fine.
Nintendo fanboys can have it both ways: First it's "Wii is innovative, online is free, and cheap for developers!". After this much hype and justification of the Wii with online being a major bullet point, you can't turn around and claim that, because of the price point, lack of multiplayer (for 3rd parties) is somehow justifiable.
I commend Valve for doing the right thing and delaying the game to avoid compromising its quality. I enjoyed HL2, though I haven't had a chance to play Episode 1, Valve games are consistently great.
That said, we've been building games for what, 20 years now? While it's commendable to do the right thing when a delay inevitably hits, the industry as a whole has more delays than on-time releases, or something. Is it not possible to do it right the first time AND hit the schedule?
Where's the problem coming from? Overaggressive scheduling?
Since I dont' know you, I don't know if you are unique enough to escape the death grip that is wealth. But statistically the odds are against you, from my experience. Of the modest-turned-wealthy people I know, I can count the ones that've successfully avoided falling into the money pit on two fingers.
While your spirit is admirable, it probably won't last if you ever got rich. I've known some people who claim to only want a low-key lifestyle for themselves, modest car, etc, but when the money started rolling all of that went ouf the window.
- Feed cat
- Breakfast
- Take over enemy base
- Soil your adult diapers while camping out at the sniper's nest
- Continue taking over enemy base
- Feed cat again
- Dinner
"If there was the slightest possibility this could fly..."
Woah there buddy, are you telling me the snake oil wouldn't fly?
That's kind of obvious. It's a snake *and* a liquid, I'm pretty sure they don't let either of those on board planes nowadays.
I hate to continue a dead thread, but this just invited for some response...
Walk into your local EB, pick 100 random games for PC and consoles. How many originate from a Japanese studio? Very few I'd say... Besides the obvious ones like Final Fantasy and Metal Gear Solid, the VAST majority of games come from good old-fashioned American (and Canadian, and European) studios. It's not "80%", it's more like "10-15%". The vast majority of the gaming you've been doing for the past decade has been American in origin, unless you happen to have a region 2 PS2 and do a LOT of importing.
Your linux fanboyism has nothing to do with this. Ask anyone about Xbox Live (who's actually used it) and they'll tell you that the Xbox Dashboard is one slick little puppy, easy to use, and doesn't fuck up.
Let's look at Xbox360 homebrew. MS is releasing a managed code runtime for the 360, as well as a full IDE that integrates the entire art pipeline into one piece of software, making it trivial to compile your assets directly into the binary blob that will be your distributable. It also lets you, for $99/year, run, test, and debug your homebrew games on your $400 retail console (all the while without destroying your ability to play retail games), and allows you to feed binaries from your dev PC directly to the console. Hell, it also allows you to compile for Windows and Xbox360 at a touch of a button.
Now let's look at Wii homebrew. Suffice to say, it doesn't exist. Nintendo has made the (good) move to offer cheaper dev kits, but we're still looking at $1700 for a dev kit, which is simply an unprotected Wii with debug features (like all dev kits). Code will still be reserved for the expert-level coder, being consisted of complex C++ libs instead of a consistent, managed API. Testing cannot occur on commodity hardware either. Got 2 programmers on your team? $3400 of hardware instead of... $800 of hardware + $200 of subscriptions. The Wii opens the door for low-funding independent developers to get onto the console, but the door is still shut for the average joe.
That's the difference. Check your facts before spouting off about the supposed absurdity of MS and homebrew communities. If you didn't know, MS has always offered Visual Studio Express (a toned-down version of the commercial VS product line) for free so hobbyists can code. It's not as slick as the commercial version, but it's no slouch. Hell, MS has been maintaining the Code4Fun MSDN site for years, which contains specific tutorials, articles, and goes around to university campuses giving lectures and tutorials about amateur game development (with a DirectX bent, but that's understandable). They have in fact been supporting homebrew (albeit on PC) for a very good long time.
Microsoft is in fact in a better position to tackle gaming. They have the extensive toolchain experience that no other company has. While the PS3 was yabbering about Cell low-level opcodes, MS is touting high-level language runtimes that allow you to develop for PC and Xbox for the price of one. The PC-like nature of the hardware only makes it simpler for PC developers to get into the business. PC programmers are easy to find, to commoditize them in the game industry brings up the bottom line, reduces labour costs, and is a win-win for everyone. "slapping a bunch of computer parts" into a box is probably the best thing they've ever done, and is pretty much the same thing the PS3 is doing now. None of the next-gen consoles are as integrated and customized as ye olde SNES or even the PS2, all are now using commoditized, standardized equipment.
As for your game of numbers. Let's play:
- Population of USA+Canada: 330 million, according to the ESA, 75% of American adults play console or PC games. That's about 170 million people.
- Population of EU: 456 million, 25% of whom, according to Google Answers, own a console. That's 114 million people.
- That's a conservative estimate of 284 million people in the US, Canada, and Europe who play
Funny, 'cos I could've sworn the engineers that worked at my last place of employment regularly did 80h, unpaid OT, and regularly worked weekends too. Glad to see the Chinese "sweatshop" labour beats out good old fixed-salary American employment!
And *you* come off as a super duper Sony fanboy ;)
I suggest you familiarize yourself with MS's less commonly known products. Microsoft isn't just Windows and Office, there's a lot in that company that would place the company in a better position to tackle gaming. I say that MS is better able to target homebrew because they've been doing that on the PC for a good long while, with MS Visual Studio Express. They know how to make good developer tools - I've been coding a good frickin' long while, and MSVC is still the best IDE I've used. Supporting homebrew is all about giving indies and average joes the tools to build games on your platform, and I simply don't see Sony being able to do that. They may be able to release specs and open a particular standard, but they don't have the ability to provide tools to the extent MS can.
Video games and Japan go hand in hand? Now you just sound like a hopeless Japanophile. Sorry buddy, but there are a lot more gamers out there than there are Japanese people. Nintendo and Sony may have been large forces in the industry, but there's nothing to say that America is somehow *unqualified* to make a console. That just reeks of "OMFG KAWAII~ NIHON~~~!" fanboyism.
Does it matter? Sony rips off Nintendo motion sensing, Microsoft rips off Apple iPod, yadi yada. Now if OSX cloned a XP or Vista feature, all of the Applebots on /. would keep pretty fricking mum about it. I'm an Apple fan (look in my post history if you want), but this is the way technology moves forward. People take ideas from each other, build on top of them, adding and removing aspects as the market demands. It can only be good for the consumer to have more choice.
That said, Zune sounds like it's going to suck hard. All plastic? I hope they mean shiny plastic a la iPod, 'cos we have WAY too many of the "faux brushed aluminum" things floating around as it is. It's not sexy enough to have style. When your audio player looks like a cheap Logitech keyboard, YOU DID IT WRONG. The features do sound solid, but honestly, it's the style that counts.
"What stops Sony from doing the same."
The fact that they have no resources to support the homebrew community to the extent MS can. MS has the advantage of being a tools developer for a VERY fricking long while, with a huge amount of experience gained from Visual Studio and all its derivatives. Sony is not a tools provider. Not to mention MS has been running its own very large service networks (Hotmail, MSN, etc) for a long time and are in a better position to support a mass distribution system such as Live.
As for the HD DVD comment... We're at a era in gaming where developers are struggling with skyrocketing costs, and you're here telling them to produce MORE content? Every bit that sits on a disc has to be created by someone, and the larger your game, odds are the higher your costs. Filling a BR disc would take an IMMENSE amount of manpower that simply isn't economically feasible.
Except one thing: Usability. I've encountered few pieces of FOSS software that I would consider truly usable. Firefox is a delightful exception, as well as Adium (IM client for OSX), but for the most part it's just a dreadery of buttons and panels that only a coder could grok.
That's all fine and dandy for the "background" type of FOSS, things like Apache, MySQL, PHP and whatnot, where your target audience are of the technical inclination.
That is also why I have serious doubts about the ability for FOSS to unseat consumer-level software. Until FOSS administrators and coders wake up and realize that usability is a key cornerstone of effective software, people will continue paying for proprietary software that gives them just that.
Unfortunately kids aren't as stupid (or gullible?) sometimes as we'd hope. A phone like the Firefly is essentially an electronic wireless dog-leash for the parents, and the kids won't be very fond of it. They would likely "accidentally" leave it at Timmy's house, or "forget" to turn it on, etc.
IMHO such a device, good idea as it is, has to offer something to the kids. An incentive for them to keep it on themselves and have it on. Most kids do not appreciate the need to be able to phone the cops or the parents in a contingency, so there's gotta be a bit of something in it for them. MP3 player? Apple-like style-ego-stroke factor? I dunno, but something.
"Compare that to an MP3, which can be streamed that same distance in only half a day!"
... A record player hooked to a radio transmitter could claim the same thing (given enough broadcast power)
What about Microsoft Points? Gambling with fake money, even if it is purchased with real money... how does that work out legally? Though technically casinos do the same thing...
"The Voice100(TM) employs Selected Ion Flow Tube..."
It's a bunch of tubes I tell you!
When I ordered a mini-DVI to DVI adapter from Apple (it fits in my hand... it's just two ends with a little 2" stretch of wire) it came in the box that looked like it could ship a couple large tech manuals. Why? I never understood.
Your college science class must've failed to teach basic scientific method. The whole "lightning strike" thing is one of many theories about how life began, each with supporting and refuting evidence. The key here is that science acknowledges that it doesn't know what actually happened, readily accepts alternate theories, and when the leading theory is debunked it is celebrated and nobody gets burned at the stake.
That's the difference between blind belief and educated belief. Educated believers are willing to be challenged, and accept anything that has sufficient evidence.
Evolution on the other hand is an educated theory based on sound observation and evidence. Evolution does not define the origin of life, but rather it defines the phenomena that is readily observable whereby populations and species change over time. The exact mechanism of this process is arguable, though natural selection is the leading explanation, and has a extremely large amount of evidence in its defense.
Question: Would the average American deal with more science in their working lives if they were capable enough?
"Science threatens their faith"
You say it as if it doesn't, but it does. Science inherently threatens any form of ill-founded blind belief, and seeks to find support and evidence for all ideas. While I say this is not inherently incompatible with faith in general, it seems to be incompatible with most people's faith.
You mean like...
- Geometry Wars
- Hexic HD
- Uno
And for the *slightly* more complex gamer, Marble Blast Ultra?
Plenty of casual games on the 360, just not the type you would buy off a store shelf.
As a brave AC said above, Live has multiple "zones" that cater to different styles of players, casual, competitive, and hardcore and whatnot. It also evaluates your stats and tries to pair you up with people of similar skill level, so the hardcores aren't pwning n00bs all day and the n00bs can have other n00bs to shoot at.
Personally I've never used the IM feature much, though I can understand its niceness.
Not only that, but the matchmaking features make the "Random Game" button quite useful, whereas on a PC you have to filter through massive lists of servers, each of whom may run their own server mods and rules and whatnot. Live simplifies this to "I want to play online" and removes the technical aspects from it. PC gamers may be put off by this, since they've grown to want the strict manual controls, but most online gamers like it.
The whole Dashboard integration works well too. There's a unified account for everything and that is always running in the background. No logging in for each game, the Xbox OS handles all logins and the account is universal. I don't know about Nintendo's system, but I'd be hella annoyed if I had to sign up for an account with every different game and log in every time if I wanted to play each of them.
Depends. If Ninty's online service is of the same calibre as Live (instead of just a random PC-like matchmaking service) and becomes HUGE, I can see Live becoming free. But as of now MS is the only one that has proven themselves capable of making a good console online experience.