[bryanb]

I believe that some major players in the industry believe that online gaming provides too much value. If you look at recent comments by Nintendo on XBox Live you will see that they feel there is a possibility that Microsoft will be cutting into their hardcore gaming market via XBox Live. The reasoning is quite simple: online play extends a gamer's interest in a game beyond the point that the gamer would normally tire of a particular title. This means that that gamer is going to purchase fewer titles.

There are key questions here:

(1) Can the revenue from the smaller number of titles sold be recovered in the online fees? The jury is out on this one. Microsoft's highly subsidized Live network is surely not a feasible economic example. At the minimum we will have to see how many subscribers Live maintains next year, when Microsoft institutes a rational monthly/yearly fee.

(2) Could the option of online play somehow mean _more_ titles are sold? This to me seems unlikely now but eventually possible if Broadband was less expensive. The only way this could possibly happen is if the option of online play greatly extends the gaming market. The barrier to entry that the high price of broadband and its narrow market penetration present are just too significant.

For example take the well known online game Counter Strike. This game is of immense value to the online gamer who enjoys first person shooters. But NO ONE is making significant revenue from Counter Strike. Its more or less a revenue black hole. And putting this game on the XBox will not attract its current PC fanbase to XBox Live.

And what does XBox Live mean for 3rd party software developers? When combined with giving away 2 to 4 free games per console, XBox Live is an independent game company's worst nightmare.

So my conclusion is that Microsoft is potentially taking a signficant gamble with XBox Live. Both Sony and Nintendo while inching forward on online play, in order to remain competitive if the idea succeeds, are waiting to see how the XBox Live experiment turns out.

[zurich]

I don't know about you, but I'm infinitely more interested in a few titles now that they're XBL-enabled, like CvsSNK2 and SB2. And I think MS neutered MechAssault enough that players will tire of it fairy quickly :P

[bryanb]

Originally Posted by zurich

I don't know about you, but I'm infinitely more interested in a few titles now that they're XBL-enabled, like CvsSNK2 and SB2. And I think MS neutered MechAssault enough that players will tire of it fairy quickly :P

CvsSNK2 is interesting but has anyone played online fighting game? Even over broadband the lag would severly change game play. I'm not sure that I would want to play a fighting game when the lag was dictating strategy and making it an entirely different game.

The "I just died cause my block command wasn't transmitted" problem would piss me off to no end.

It will be interesting to see the economic viability of simplified online games like MechAssault. They don't provide enough depth for the hardcore fans to justify paying for them. They only make sense when they are in the background of a larger XBox Live type gaming network. Will the ISV that makes such background games actually see enough increased unit sales to make up for the development costs for the online play?

[zurich]

I suspect (atleast in the beginning), MS will be subsidizing any and all XBL-related development costs.

One of the strengths of the console world vs the PC world is the varried types of games available. On the PC, for online games, you were pretty much restricted to tactical FPSs, arcade FPSs, strategy games, and RPGs. On a console, you can have all of the above (sans strat) plus racers, fighters, sims, etc. As long as MS keeps the game types spread out, users will purchase more, different, titles in order to cover all the bases of the XBL experience.

On top of that, the perception of 'online play' adds immensely to the replay value of a game, and thus many 'renter' titles will get bumped up into the 'buy' catagory. Like MotoGP and MechAssault.

[bryanb]

Originally Posted by zurich

On a console, you can have all of the above (sans strat) plus racers, fighters, sims, etc. As long as MS keeps the game types spread out, users will purchase more, different, titles in order to cover all the bases of the XBL experience.

Except that the jury is still out on the viability of many console games transfering their game play online. Take fighting games for example. They don't make sense to me in an online world where I need to execute multiple commands per second for extended periods of game time.

And the RTS and strategy game players of the world will never be happy with the simplified experience that the console provides.

[Qroach]

I think you're going to see different styles of online games in the future. at least somewhat different then what we're accustomed to on the PC. I don't think it will happen for a few years at least, since "most" developers are used to thinking PC style death match online games for the most part.

I would personally like to see an online coop/competitive platformer. I have one in mind, but it won't be happening anytime soon.

[ERP]

My opinion on online gaming is that in 5-10 years every title will be online in some respect.

That's not to say that the single player game will vanish entirely more that all games will allow for direct online interaction of some sort, from multiplayer lobies to discuss the game, to shared multiplayer versions of the experience.

And I agree with Quincy the vast majority of these experiences will not be of the PC Deathmatch variety.

[V3]

The lost Vikings co op sounds good to me.

[DVFtaxman]

I think that we're more likely to see time lapse games where the XBlive is only enabled/useable until the followup is released. This way any Co. that has a line of games (a la FIFA) will know that anyone that wants to play over the net will always buy the sequal.
As a PC CS player I'd say that I'd get it for Xbox IF they can guarantee that cheating will be totally eliminated. Banning of anyone that cheats from the entire network should give a good enough incentive to stop people from cheating.

[bryanb]

Originally Posted by DVFtaxman

As a PC CS player I'd say that I'd get it for Xbox IF they can guarantee that cheating will be totally eliminated. Banning of anyone that cheats from the entire network should give a good enough incentive to stop people from cheating.

As a PC CS player myself, I don't see XBox Live truly supporting CS.

CS changes every 6 months when major redesigns and map changes are rolled into new versions. Even with the XBoxes harddrive, I don't see XBox Live supporting this degree of core game evolution; the harddrive isnt big enough and the service won't be free wheeling enough to support the constant changes that CS demands.

And of course a real CS player would never put up with dual analog XBox controller.

[Qroach]

Well, as always with consoles having less memory means you need to be more careful with it. A lot of PC games are totally bloated when it comes to this sort of thing (Max Pane) being a perfect example. The conversion to PS2 was hell for those guys. Not to mention the file names that were actually sentaces...

[hughJ]

MMORPGs i think could hugely benefit from online consoles.. the lax-sitting-on-your-couch type gameplay, without the need for high-speed reaction, concentration.. and not to mention that they could likely charge extra monthly fees since people get addicted to it easily and would be willing to pay a small extra fee for something so involving.. can't even begin to imagine what kind of following EQ or SW:Galaxies could create on a large console player base.. sounds kind of frightening now that I think about it, lol..

[Tagrineth]

Originally Posted by hughJ

MMORPGs i think could hugely benefit from online consoles.. the lax-sitting-on-your-couch type gameplay, without the need for high-speed reaction, concentration.. and not to mention that they could likely charge extra monthly fees since people get addicted to it easily and would be willing to pay a small extra fee for something so involving.. can't even begin to imagine what kind of following EQ or SW:Galaxies could create on a large console player base.. sounds kind of frightening now that I think about it, lol..

Three words.

Phantasy Star Online.

[zurich]

Ehh, having gone through the whole EQ addiction thing, I don't think PSO can compare to the 3000 person, thriving communities that companies like Verant built. PSO comes off as more of a Diablo type online RPG than an MMORPG.

[DemoCoder]

I think your wrong about fighting games. I've gotten into some close-quarter combat "brawls" in Whacked! and had no issues with lag. 50ms roundtrip packet is beyong the reaction time of most people, which is on the order of 300ms between the time they see something and the time their muscles can react. I played Epic's "One Must Fall" online and I didn't have any issues.

IMHO, CvsSNK is going to be a killer title that paves the way for DOA, Soul Calibre, Virtua Fighter, et all to go online. After that, I think you'll see Korea cybercafes loaded with X-Boxes.

I also think the CS comments are off. CS's "core" changes rarely (only up to CS 1.5, and it only changes maybe once or twice a year). The hard drive is more than big enough to hold enough cached maps. The broadband download of CS maps won't take long at all. Even today, I have no where near all the 200+ CS maps on my PC and I am still prompted to download CS maps all the time. On average, it takes me about 3 minutes to download one, and I'm sure this could be optimized if the maps were hosted on MS's servers for download.


CS map sizes range from 122kb for iceworld to almost 6mb for cs_railroad. You could fit 1,000 average CS maps in 1gb of storage. There is more than enough space to hold all current CS maps on a fraction of the XB's HD.

[archie4oz]

I think your wrong about fighting games. I've gotten into some close-quarter combat "brawls" in Whacked! and had no issues with lag. 50ms roundtrip packet is beyong the reaction time of most people, which is on the order of 300ms between the time they see something and the time their muscles can react. I played Epic's "One Must Fall" online and I didn't have any issues.

IMHO, CvsSNK is going to be a killer title that paves the way for DOA, Soul Calibre, Virtua Fighter, et all to go online. After that, I think you'll see Korea cybercafes loaded with X-Boxes.

I agree, I used to have some pretty hairy battles in Capcom Vs. SNK 2, on my DC over dialup against other DC and PS2 players... I had a blast with NFL2K1 on DC dial-up as well. But sports asside there's quite a lot of potential with other genres. Racing games have barely touched the subject (I had no problems with Automodellista), music based games offer the opportunity of internet jamming (expanding on Frequency), group adventures, Chess, Go, Shogi, video poker, puzzles (linked Tetris was blast), episodic games (like BS-X or .Hack without the satellite or multiple disc releases)...

[V3]

50ms roundtrip packet is beyong the reaction time of most people, which is on the order of 300ms between the time they see something and the time their muscles can react.

Some people react in fighting game such 2D ones, but in Virtua Fighter, its just flow chart input + reading/guessing. And 50 ms roundtrip would kinda screw up that bit. And would slow down the game into reacting one, which isn't that fun.