MS says Sony has no strategy for on-line

[NavNucST3]

The user experience of paying $50 for a buddy list?

I'm pretty sure I recall one of your posts earlier saying you had a Powerbook, as a Mac user myself, I would have thought it obvious that some people are willing to pay for a "better" user experience. You may only see it as a buddy list, but I see it as much more than that and yes I am willing to pay for it. As a matter of fact, I bought the $70 live package so I could get the extras. So for the price of a first-party game/ year I get what I would consider and almost complete experience (complete would be background downloading).

 

[expletive]

I'm pretty sure I recall one of your posts earlier saying you had a Powerbook, as a Mac user myself, I would have thought it obvious that some people are willing to pay for a "better" user experience. You may only see it as a buddy list, but I see it as much more than that and yes I am willing to pay for it. As a matter of fact, I bought the $70 live package so I could get the extras. So for the price of a first-party game/ year I get what I would consider and almost complete experience (complete would be background downloading).

Slightly OT, new dashboard update coming very soon, rumored ot contain background downloading...

 

[wco81]

Yeah maybe I'm a little jaded. Friends list have been around for a long time, going back to the MPlayer and Zone days. AFAIK, they're not dedicating any servers like say SOCOM does. SOCOM does let hosts kick out players or let the players in a game vote out people. And SOCOM doesn't charge anything.

I mostly play Madden online more than anything else and there are hundreds of PS2 leagues which run by using email and AIM.

But there are some online genres on the Xbox that I wouldn't mind, like Crimson Skies (if only AC had online mode).

Plus I like what MS did with NHL Rivals, which allowed up to 6 different players to join a single game, from 6 different consoles, I believe. EA is too lazy to do anything like that.

A lot of XBL subscribers are under the mistaken impression that XBL is a dedicated network, walled off from the Internet and offering better performance. If that was the case, it might be worth the subscription but it doesn't even have that many dedicated servers.

If Sony tries a subscription, I would balk. Maybe look at getting a new PC at that point. They have repeatedly said they don't think they should charge to connect people who want to play an online game.

 

[rabidrabbit]

By the way, what happened to one of the Live's features that was much touted prior to xbox360 launch.
The ability for the user to upload self created conted for others to buy over Live?

It was said to be one of the big reasons traditionally non-gamers would get interested, like the example they gave of a "girlfriend who could design clothes for game characters and sell them online to Live users".

I guess it's just a matter of whether a game supports such feature or not, but as far as I know none of current games yet support the feature of gamer uploadable content.
So the Live "Marketplace" is really still just a one-way marketplace.

Do you think this feature will ever be implemented in Live, would it need some firmware update, or was it just empty Microsoft hype talkin'

 

[expletive]

By the way, what happened to one of the Live's features that was much touted prior to xbox360 launch.
The ability for the user to upload self created conted for others to buy over Live?

It was said to be one of the big reasons traditionally non-gamers would get interested, like the example they gave of a "girlfriend who could design clothes for game characters and sell them online to Live users".

I guess it's just a matter of whether a game supports such feature or not, but as far as I know none of current games yet support the feature of gamer uploadable content.
So the Live "Marketplace" is really still just a one-way marketplace.

Do you think this feature will ever be implemented in Live, would it need some firmware update, or was it just empty Microsoft hype talkin'

Theres an update to Live planned shortly and from what ive heard (friend of a friend) theres quite a few major updates coming soon. So just becuase we dont see this now, it by no means signifies we'll never see it. My guess is we'll see that, and plenty of things we dont even know about yet.

 

[scooby_dooby]

This doesn't mention user content specifically, but it does allude to a spring launch of additional Live! features:

EGM: Right now Xbox Live Marketplace is home to icons, themes, Live Arcade games, demos, and trailers. In the future, will you be able to buy anything more significant that may affect actual gameplay, like say, cars in driving games, or...

PeterM: Oh, absolutely. I don't know what our schedule for release is, but as early as this spring, you're going to have the ability to buy and download tracks, cars, characters...all kinds of different things that'll refresh the game experience. There'll be a combination of stuff that will be for purchase, for points, and some stuff that may be free. The great thing about Marketplace is that it allows us to continue to interact with the gamer, [not only] to refresh the experience, but to make the games better.

 

[Dave Baumann]

RR6 has gamer points for collecting all the cars of certain categories, however it states "excluding those downloaded". I think thats an indication of RR6 having extra on Live.

 

[ban25]

Do you have a background in software? I'm just trying to get a feel for why your gut tells you it's easy, when my software development experience tells me it's not. I am willing to hear your reasoning, as maybe I'm over thinking it.

Extensive experience. It's not very complex. The messaging is peer-to-peer, a centralized server is only necessary to store the user lists and their current status. Sure, there's some cost there, but it's marginal -- you're talking the richest company in the world having to run a couple of servers.

There are all sorts of IM networks available on the PC, including private ones for corporate LANs. Try playing a PC game online sometime, you'll find everything on the Xbox and more, but without the cost. Heck, Guild Wars is almost a full fledged MMO, but with no monthly fee.