Differences between xbl and psn(online only)

[AzBat]

As for the rest of your post, I have already said that instead of spending those subscription $$$ on demo bandwidth, they can spend it on something more worthwhile (e.g., contribute towards dedicated server infrastructure).

I'm kinda glad your not on Live. There's no way in hell I'm giving up my free demos for dedicated servers! LOL Your suggestions to remove features & replace with new features will never work. Users have become accustomed to all the features Live offers. Microsoft will just continue do what they do: keep adding value while keeping the same features.

Tommy McClain

 

[RobertR1]

Microsoft has the server infrastructure but it doesn't mean they can serve up content liberally. When demoes are first released, it will cause (big and small) spikes in traffic. Why is it a non-peak service automatically ?

As for the rest of your post, I have already said that instead of spending those subscription $$$ on demo bandwidth, they can spend it on something more worthwhile (e.g., contribute towards dedicated server infrastructure).

patsu, sounds like you hate being wrong or you love Sony so much that like a fanatic football fan who's team is 4-10 and he's still trying to convince people they're a shoe in for the playoffs, you are willing to make up these theories and keep aruging in spite of everything presented to stating the opposite.

At this point, after all the goalpost shifting and spin, you finally found something to cling onto for the foreseeable future. ded servers. I do hope Sony changes their bandwidth fee's issue down the future and we can hope for mandatory PSN game demo's. It'll be fun to see how that gets spun around.

 

[DrJay24]

Many games on PSN do have demos yet you stil havent bought any anyway

Demos convince me to not buy games more times than not. Most of my favorite games have no demos or really bad ones. I use reviews and word of mouth, not demos to decide when to buy.

Wasn't it Tomb Raider that had an exclusive 360 demo and then sold worse because of it? :smile:

 

[Squilliam]

I can't remember what the % was, but I remember Microsoft stating that they had > 50% demo to purchase conversion ratios. It was in one of their GDC conferences. Also they noted that smaller games tended to have better ratios as people tended to cancel or lose interest (short attention spans) when the game took too long to download.

 

[patsu]

I don't think the average gamer knows the difference between dedicated servers vs peer to peer games.

That article is old and outdated. MS decided against de-listing due to the outrage among the user and developer community -- in fact, it resulted in a run on people downloading poorly rated games just in case it happened. They ended up changing the console interface to make it easier to sort through the huge catalog. They also added a feature to their website to allow searches, end-user ratings, and most importantly, the ability to purchase, setup to download (demos, full games, etc) all XBL offerings from a web browser. This effectively negated any need to delist games to reduce clutter.

Yes, I knew MS changed its stance later. However if they planned to delist games in the first place, it would mean that those games were not positive. In general, no business people would reject money. XBL interface gets revised twice a year anyway, so they would know that the search problem can be alleviated. Afterall, MS has a search engine.

I'm kinda glad your not on Live. There's no way in hell I'm giving up my free demos for dedicated servers! LOL Your suggestions to remove features & replace with new features will never work. Users have become accustomed to all the features Live offers. Microsoft will just continue do what they do: keep adding value while keeping the same features.

Yes, MS has to carry that baggage now because they have effectively trained every XBL users in expecting demoes. Of course I'm not suggesting MS remove demoes for real, but they could have done that when early in the game.

patsu, sounds like you hate being wrong or you love Sony so much that like a fanatic football fan who's team is 4-10 and he's still trying to convince people they're a shoe in for the playoffs, you are willing to make up these theories and keep aruging in spite of everything presented to stating the opposite.

What has been presented to show demo is effective in selling games ? Please provide a link.

At this point, after all the goalpost shifting and spin, you finally found something to cling onto for the foreseeable future. ded servers. I do hope Sony changes their bandwidth fee's issue down the future and we can hope for mandatory PSN game demo's. It'll be fun to see how that gets spun around.

Where is the shifting goal post ? People just move from topic to topic. My only point is demo is not necessarily an effective way to sell games. It can be the opposite.

EDIT:

I can't remember what the % was, but I remember Microsoft stating that they had > 50% demo to purchase conversion ratios. It was in one of their GDC conferences. Also they noted that smaller games tended to have better ratios as people tended to cancel or lose interest (short attention spans) when the game took too long to download.

Now this is MUCH better than people who can't provide any links or hard info. Do you have a URL ?

 

[AzBat]

Where is the shifting goal post ? People just move from topic to topic. My only point is demo is not necessarily an effective way to sell games. It can be the opposite.

You're a smart guy, but comments like this just make me laugh & wonder. You're the one who brought up the whole notion about removing demos. Something we keep telling you that consumers(not developers or people looking out for developers) will always prefer to have a demo rather than not. I still can't fathom how you can sit there & still not agree to something as simple as that. Can we get a simple "yes I agree"? Or are you too stubborn?

Tommy McClain

 

[patsu]

Read my posts again. I have always said I prefer or I'd rather instead of Microsoft should/must do such and such. As Joshua mentioned, the demoes are funded by the user fees. If I were paying, I'd rather MS spend the dollars on something else. They can certainly fund the demo bandwidth for XBLA games, but it may be more effective for some games to try something else.

All these discussions are moot anyway because MS can't backtrack now. That's why I suggested that both PSN and XBL will simply evolve to resolve any user complains and wish lists. You pointed this out above by saying essentially the same thing.

 

[AzBat]

OK, I chalk up your long involved answer as "Yes, I agree, demos are something I and other consumers want". All the other crap about swapping it out for something else can just be left out. Thanks!

Tommy McClain

 

[patsu]

???

Rather than meaningless and childish comments, I think these links capture the essence better:
http://www.joystiq.com/2006/10/25/ability-to-demo-more-important-than-price-in-selling-games/

Ads, reviews, and other vehicles are relatively more influential to the heavy gamer, but to attract more casual players, getting games into their hands so they can experience the fun first-hand is essential.

http://multiplayerblog.mtv.com/2008/04/14/study-publishers-shouldnt-release-demos-just-trailers/

While demos may be effective at producing word-of-mouth, the EEDAR found that the highest selling games on both Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 produced buzz via Xbox Live Marketplace and PlayStation Network with trailers alone.

Of course, individual games may deviate from the average. And this is probably still an on-going development.

In fact, the user ratings mentioned in makattack's post is a good mechanism to help close game sales too. I think PSN should have that feature (because I'll hunt online for comments and feedback anyway). Finally, contrary to some of the allegations, the discussion does not have to be XBL or PSN slanted.

 

[Acert93]

Microsoft has the server infrastructure but it doesn't mean they can serve up content liberally. When demoes are first released, it will cause (big and small) spikes in traffic. Why is it a non-peak service automatically ?

While I don't work for MS and I wasn't at a primary content provider (qualifiers) my understanding of the business end of data centers I worked with/for is we were paying $x for OC.xxx connections. It was the same deal if you go with a network facillity and order a 10mb unmetered line versus a 100mb line with a monthly transfer cap. Essentially MS as owning and leasing datacenter space I truly doubt they are paying much for the bandwidth but are primarily footing the bill for the availability.

So now as MS you have some buildings with OC128s or whatever fiber they have and yeah, during a peak load (e.g. a big name demo like CoD4MW) you really saturate that service. But in between these big demos you have big lulls where you WANT to utilize your bandwidth--and it takes a LOT of 200MB demos to reach the type of saturation of a big demo like a CoD4 Beta w/ all the online play (hosting audio, parties, messaging, matchmaking backend, etc on top of downloads).

The "sweet" part is if everyone is downloading the CoD4MW beta the % of people downloading other stuff goes down. But that is besides the point--MS has really increased their peak capacity. The number of movies you can download, game videos, and various other services is pretty staggering. They now have IGN videos, very frequently Xbox Insider and MM episodes, etc. Most XBLA demos are smaller than some of the feature videos. If MS needed to cut fat there is a TON of video content to cut.

But as I pointed out above they really don't need to. Unlike the "fat" the games are a) marketing and market appeal b) build inroads with devs and foster new gaming experiences, unique ones if theirs is a "safer" route and c) MS actually makes MONEY on these. They make a cut on Live points and they make a cut on every game sold.

The infrastructure is there for this purpose and it has proven to be pretty popular. This summer saw some great gaming experiences on XBLA. As long as devs see it as an appealing platform that they can make money on and I as a consumer get gaes I want it is a win-win. Per MS if they had to make "cuts" to offer more Ded Servers (which is NOT a universal solution so I don't know why you continue to go back to it... how did Ded Servers make BF1943 better than Halo 3? It DIDN'T! But you wouldn't know that) the fat would be movie streaming, IGN videos, insider videos, MM, game perview vids, etc.

Per ded servers it is ironic: PC games often have ded servers and yet PC games cost less ($50 to $60 at launch, PC has more piracy and costs go down quicker as well). Consoles sell more titles and have a lower online-to-offline ratio if my experience is anything. Finally, MS allows ded servers -- MS isn't going to host servers for other people's games. If EA wants servers for BF1943 they need to do it on their own. The only time MS can be blamed for NOT having ded servers is when their published games don't have them. Halo 3 was fine with the design w/o servers sans some lagginess on the Sidewinder remake. FM2 was fine with 8 cars which appears to be more of an engine limitation (collisions with 2 player splitscreen was pretty rough at times) and my online experience with FM2 was very good, but then again I have a solid connection.

At the end of the day your "cut demos to get ded servers" doesn't relate to the complexities of the market.

It is Sony FUD points really. The problem from MS, of course, is they charge $3-5/mo for online play and the sunk cost really is going toward the overall platform growth, including branching out to media. How quickly we forget how MS was the first console with DLC TV and movies, Netfix support, etc. Those party server, audio chat and messaging across all games, leaderboard, matchmaking, video chat, and general upkeep along with new features and services along with the marketplace have a cost.

MS just chooses to take something desirable, online gaming, and subsidizes the entire platform with it.

The problem is, and if you want to argue quite this part, MS isn't on the losing end on the demos. Infrastructure is already there, they make money on the MS Points, they get a cut of the games sold, it provides compelling/unique content, builds dev relations, on and on. The only reason you are having a cow about "free demos" is because Sony's stance is to charge devs up front (more initial risk) instead of MS putting the risk on the backend. The cost of instant 1080p streaming, first to market with DLC movies and TV, and improving gaming (coms, parties, etc) features that 3 years later Sony STILL struggles with, well, all that costs $$$$$$. If the product wasn't desirable people wouldn't pay for it, but as much as I don't like to, I do.

Anyhow, cutting free demos doesn't magically make ded servers pop out of thin air. And if the goal is to build an online library keeping the cost of entry low is a sound business approach.

As for the rest of your post, I have already said that instead of spending those subscription $$$ on demo bandwidth, they can spend it on something more worthwhile (e.g., contribute towards dedicated server infrastructure).

And demos of games aren't worth while? As I said before the Live Arcade setup has got me to buy about a Dozen games. Ask NavNuc--I said I would probably never buy a XBLA game last summer. The ability to DL demos has snagged me in as a consumer and I am sure those purchases have netted MS a nice penny. if I have spent $100 on XBLA (a little more due to some movie rentals here or there about once a month) and MS nets $30 that is a LOT of bandwidth I would need to soak up to hurt MS's bottomline. They have certainly profited from me above and beyond advertising and the benefit to the nebulous "platform."

And you continue to evade the obvious: 360 games do have ded servers and it isn't MS position to fund ded servers for non-MS pubbed games.

For Sony's PSN policy, I believe they would double the marketing budget of an exclusive PSN game to help market it (e.g., spend on demo bandwidth if it's effective for that game).

And MS just says, "Hey guys, we have the servers, we have the bandwidth, we want all you indie folks and small devs to build on our platform. No risk up front."

There is a reason the PC is such a rich source of new game designs and ideas. Of course maybe all those massive Flash sites should be charging the devs to have their games there... or maybe advertising really does offset such... if a small mom and pop website can stay afloat I am sure those fancy MBAs can figure out how to leverage devs building up your platform with content.

There are PSN games that disable the sharing feature. So it should be well within their control. I assume the developers can talk to Sony about it ?

Is it enabled by default?
When was the ability to disable made available?
Are there work arounds?
Is it readily transparent to developers that people are distributing their games?
Is there a penalty for disabling this feature?
Do you have to ask Sony to disable it?

Not a lot of answers for a feature that allows consumers to steal content.

 

[Scott_Arm]

Is this thread a joke? Is this like the debate team, where one side has to defend a position that is almost indefensible?

 

[patsu]

Joshua, MS is building a CDN network with servers all around the world. The more people download, the more server hardware and peak bandwidth it will consume at the "edges". The content has to be hosted/cached on an edge server, it's not just bandwidth cost. These downloads don't have to naturally occur off-peak. MS has some control but sometimes it can be unexpected.

Also, it is not just a case of I have a lot of bandwidth, let's use it. As I understand, it is possible for demoes to slow sales for some games. Anyway, just read my last post for reference.

Is it enabled by default?
When was the ability to disable made available?
Are there work arounds?
Is it readily transparent to developers that people are distributing their games?
Is there a penalty for disabling this feature?
Do you have to ask Sony to disable it?
Not a lot of answers for a feature that allows consumers to steal content.

I have no idea. I just know people have done it. It's something to discuss between developers and Sony. It is a loss of revenue for Sony too.

 

[makattack]

All this discussion (including the tangential threads) leads to an interesting real debate of games with centralized servers vs. peer-to-peer models.

There are advantages and disadvantages of each. I personally prefer a robust, well-developed "peer-to-peer" system, complete with migrating hosts, should a primary host be required. I put the term "peer-to-peer" in quotes because ultimately, it is a centralized server that most P2P models use.

As detailed in an earlier post, my reasoning for preferring a P2P system is mainly that I don't have to worry about an expiry date for a game -- when whoever is hosting those dedicated, centralized servers go out of business, decide they don't wish to support them, etc. then what happens? The online portion of that game effectively is disabled or severely restricted. EA does this with their sports games. They will turn off access to their servers. They may well use a P2P system underneath it all, but they use their own centralized servers to perform the match-making which allows them to disable access to the old FIFA, NFL, MLB, NBA, NHL, NCAA, et al. games from years past.

How is this good for the consumer? How is it good for the developer/publisher/console company to have to dedicate resources to the maintenance and operation of those servers?

The argument exists that those games that allow end-user PCs or even their consoles to host dedicated servers may be the answer. In the case of end-user PCs being used to host, you introduce other issues such as the security risks of allowing code that can be easily modified serving as the authoritative server. You also have the same bandwidth limitation issues in P2P setups. In my opinion user hosted dedicated servers are really no different from P2P performance-wise.

I believe the reason why Microsofts platform hasn't been popular for MMORPG type games is for the simple fact that:

1) It's expensive and resource intensive to setup centralized servers capable of handling large loads
2) It's going to add more complexity to an online infrastructure and may alienate and degrade end-users experiences online because any complex, high availability, high load application will also counter-intuitively not last without evolving. This means everything from fixing bugs when they occur, supporting changes to the environment they exist in, supporting newer iterations of clients, to eventual retirement. With the rate at which online games come out, many times with a new iteration every year, can you imagine the infrastructure needed to support each and every game with dedicated servers? I don't think all the datacenters in the World will be enough to host all this! I of course, have no empirical numbers to back this up... but some simple macro calculations will make you realize that this just simply isn't practical unless you move to the "cloud" model where everyone accesses the software from a centralized "cloud" using thin clients.

 

[Acert93]

Read my posts again. I have always said I prefer or I'd rather instead of Microsoft should/must do such and such. As Joshua mentioned, the demoes are funded by the user fees. If I were paying, I'd rather MS spend the dollars on something else. They can certainly fund the demo bandwidth for XBLA games, but it may be more effective for some games to try something else.

Not exactly what I said. Maybe too many words, thoughts, and concepts, so I will keep it simple.

• There is not a direct relationship between "cut free demos" and "get free ded servers." If this was the case every PS3 game would have ded servers ...
• Free demos are supported via many avenues. Part of it is the business model where it is provided as low risk to devs and consumers, MS eating the "cost." They of course control the "money" in MS points and can take a margin there and can take contractural cuts on sold items. This isn't harming consumers as XBLA game are not more expensive than PSN games and if the old news was accurate PSN bandwidth is *expensive* compared to potential conversion ratios for large downloads. The bigger the platform your costs become more elastic and economy of scale is an impact. Especially if other factors, like advertising, begin impacting the equation.
• Demo downloads, in the larger scheme of text and audio messaging, video chat, private and 8 person party chat, match making, video marketplace, DLC and expansion, marketplace and avatar features, all the demo and "insider" videos, and general platform expansion and feature development, are a very, very small part of the expense of XBLA. And as I mentioned they are primarily using a sunk cost (fiber connection) at non-peak hours so the issue is one of utilization of resources NOT expending ADDITIONAL resources.

Sony, as a smaller and newer platform, has more up front costs MS offset back with the first XBox and early this gen and has fewer features and content as well as having massive fiscal issues. They are making less money on PSN (subscriptions, purchased content, and advertising) and have smaller cash flow. They are in a different position and have chosen to go with a free service to increase interest and to offset these expenses due to being behind by allowing their software partners to pay for certain accessibility.

MS has more resources and more ways to fund projects and features. Just like Google, the bigger you get you often have "excess" resources that allow projects that, on their own, could be expensive but within a framework are nominal because they fit with the strategy. Downloadable demos are a drop in the bucket considering the general strategy MS has employed and there is just no relationship between dropping demos and 3rd parties getting ded servers.

I have been vocally irritated with paying for Live long before I got a 360 but your points don't really follow the business reality. Unfortunately it is the same misguided reasoning Sony gives but it really is a defensive position to justify not giving consumers access to more content and devs more access to more consumers. Complain as I will, the 360 has a boatload of Live (Silver and Gold) customers for pubs to sell to. As a pub I just want to make money and ESPECIALLY with XBLA style content you want LOW risk. PSN adds a couple additional levels of risk to pubs.

I see nothing good about that.

Especially when the number of online MP gamers, like myself, is a fraction of the market...

 

[patsu]

Joshua, the download servers in the edge network would be separate from the chat servers, login server, game servers, etc. They should be pretty busy and heavily used at designated time (e.g., when big demoes are available).

I have been vocally irritated with paying for Live long before I got a 360 but your points don't really follow the business reality. Unfortunately it is the same misguided reasoning Sony gives but it really is a defensive position to justify not giving consumers access to more content and devs more access to more consumers. Complain as I will, the 360 has a boatload of Live (Silver and Gold) customers for pubs to sell to. As a pub I just want to make money and ESPECIALLY with XBLA style content you want LOW risk. PSN adds a couple additional levels of risk to pubs.

The only reasoning I applied are tied to the articles regarding demo effectiveness (or lack thereof in some cases). They apply to both PSN and XBL.

Businesses like MS and Sony base their decisions on collected numbers and stats. What Sony has done essentially is to discourage cross platform development (since they give marketing budget to exclusive developers to offset the PSN cost).

These two things (demo effectiveness vs Sony's PSN policies) should not be confused.

 

[Acert93]

And when big downloads come they there is diminishing downloads of other stuff (just as in retail stores objects with high profile floor space and word of mouth dwarf other sales/activity). But as I mentioned the number of things MS is offering for DL is massive. I just downloaded 2 ~7GB videos this month. XBLA and Indie games are nothing compared to that and other DL content they are doing (mentioned above). You can ignores this if you want, I am sure readers have caught on. As a business approach, even if in theory Live fees were funding Indie games the benefit to the general eco system and desirability of the platform and general fallout (advertising, peripherals, sales cuts) against the numbers of downloads (very, very small, something flash sites dwarf and yet make a profit on adverts *alone*) doesn't really add up. The problem is when you look at it as a linear 1:1 cost that someone has to pay because you refuse to pay for it through other channels or use other considerations in how you disperse cost.

As for Sony's business model, yeah exclusives are important for them, and it probably is a losing battle trying to keep pace with content when MS has a more open policy (they are at home on the PC afterall) and have encouraged indie devs to go nuts distributing content (which they do pay a small fee). Of course aiming for exclusives and penalizing everyone else is a poor strategy when you are clearly lagging in market presence.

Btw, please ask Sony regarding the sharing issue. I would be interested to hear their feedback, although I am sure the long history of console piracy and potential benefits to platform expansion make it a dicy topic for Sony to address directly if they have no plans of shutting down an obvious exploit.

 

[Tap In]

I believe the question has been raised by some developers before. Sony justified it by saying, based on their stats, only a very small % of people do that because it's inconvenient to use (Only one can play at a time). I believe it's a spokeperson who mentioned it briefly in a Q&A. May be hard to google.

It's a small system to have some viral effect or allow price sensitive people to bite or for personal use.

If it's a problem, Sony would have shut it down. It's not like they have not offended gamers before. ^_^

Yes I understand the money and the logistics I was referring to it in contrast to you pointing to it as a viable alternative to a demo.

Which I thought was a faulty assumption.

 

[patsu]

Btw, please ask Sony regarding the sharing issue. I would be interested to hear their feedback, although I am sure the long history of console piracy and potential benefits to platform expansion make it a dicy topic for Sony to address directly if they have no plans of shutting down an obvious exploit.

I have no access to Sony. You'll probably be more successful at getting a response than me.

My original point remains. According to some studies, demoes can be "counter-sales". The developers should be given the choice to decide whether they want/need a demo.

Yes I understand the money and the logistics I was referring to it in contrast to you pointing to it as a viable alternative to a demo.

Which I thought was a faulty assumption.

Ah... I mentioned that for price sensitive people, it is their way to consume PSN games. Without which, they may not buy as much. There will be some loss of sales from the upper end but if it continues to be small, I doubt Sony will care. For "big" titles, the hole will be plugged anyway -- since Sony rev shares with the devs.

 

[betan]

Is this thread a joke? Is this like the debate team, where one side has to defend a position that is almost indefensible?

What the hell are you talking about? I've learned a lot from this (soon to be closed) thread:

0) Demos are bad or unnecessary

1) XBL demos have more than 50% purchase conversion rate (which implies publishers are idiots not to release demos on PSN)

2) p2p is better than dedicated, possible because EA cannot discontinue p2p service.

3) mandatory demos are good without exception, well, except for big budget titles because they have more marketing budget, or we can simply rent so demos are not necessary for them.

4) users should pay for PSN delivery costs of content instead of publishers

5) Sony should use MS like "once-a-year-copy"-protection instead of 5 active account policy (which has the side effect of sharing (dangerously))

6) it's awesome to pay for an online service because of 1-5?

 

[RobertR1]

7) Sony could put shit on a stick and the faithful will try to pass if of as a popsicle.