What are the chinks in XB360's armour?

[Wicked_Vengence]

Didn't Phil Harrison (it might have been the SCEA VP) hint that Sony was planning on keeping it's existing online strategy of leaving implementation up to the Devs? If they keep that up, I'll buy live twice over just to save the headaches...

 

[scooby_dooby]

nothing is free, without the HD the xbox would have been cheaper..
i don't think so many people spends 80 € in memory cards btw.

Well XBOX launched for the same price PS2 launched for, so as far as I'm concerned as the person paying the money, it was free.

Also, here in Canada, 2 memory cards are at least $80, at least they were when i owned a PS2. That's enough for a game, or a couple controllers, or a network hub, cabling and a nic. It really matters when you're already spending upwards of $550(system+controllers+2games).

 

[mckmas8808]

Hey scooby I don't think alot of people mind having game saves on the same memory stick as videos or pictures. They really don't take up too much space.

Didn't Phil Harrison (it might have been the SCEA VP) hint that Sony was planning on keeping it's existing online strategy of leaving implementation up to the Devs?

Yeah I recall him saying that too.

 

[Sis]

Hey scooby I don't think alot of people mind having game saves on the same memory stick as videos or pictures. They really don't take up too much space.

Never played KOTOR? Those saves are HUGE. I actually ran out of disk space on my Xbox because I wasn't careful about how many saves I was making.

Still agree with your point though.

Didn't Phil Harrison (it might have been the SCEA VP) hint that Sony was planning on keeping it's existing online strategy of leaving implementation up to the Devs?

Yeah I recall him saying that too.

But they've talked about adding support for microtransactions, which to me implies a common infrastructure.

.Sis

 

[Shifty Geezer]

There was a post advertised for a network software programmer type thing at Sony, to create a network infrastructure for PSP and PS3 (in not so many words). All I've heard to date points to a Live! like service, though perhaps an aspect is the software devs providing their own interfaces and servers, accessed through a common gateway? This Harrison stuff is something I've meissed.

 

[jvd]

There was a post advertised for a network software programmer type thing at Sony, to create a network infrastructure for PSP and PS3 (in not so many words). All I've heard to date points to a Live! like service, though perhaps an aspect is the software devs providing their own interfaces and servers, accessed through a common gateway? This Harrison stuff is something I've meissed.

It could be just what you siad . They wnat someone to make a infastructure for psp to ps3 hook ups so you can easily stream content . IT may have nothing to do with the actual internet and they may choose to have devs handle thier own online parts .


Hopefully they don't and they make a live service. Its much easier if all the games have the same infastructure

 

[Shifty Geezer]

It was certainly a content delivery platform too, so it covers internet infrastructure of a sort. But I imagine they wouldn't provide hosting for servers (expensive? Would need subscription fee?) and leave that to per-game efforts.

I imagine an interface on PS3/PSP with content download, game access, and when you choose to network a game you're directed to the developer's hosting facilities. Which could be bad as a lot of developer's own-brand network gaming is pretty naff. But then Sony's own network efforts/software efforts haven't been particularly sterling either.

Though with any luck as you say, the position is more substantial and a strong interface taking it's cues from Live! will provide an effcient, stable platform. Maybe wanting to avoid a subscription model Sony steered clear this generation, but with the revenue of microtransaction will be able to pay the cost of dedicated servers without need for subscriptions?

 

[jvd]

But I imagine they wouldn't provide hosting for servers (expensive? Would need subscription fee?) and leave that to per-game efforts.

For me to go out and rent a cs source server for 32 people it would cost me 135-175$ for a good system that wont lag up a month . Mabye 80$ for a system that starts to show problems around 28 people on at once.

So it is expensive and i would really think they would charge you for it. Its why ms charges you thats just a huge cost to eat and we are going to be seeing games of 50+ people at once .


This is the one area that i'm worried about in terms of sony . I think this will truely be the place ms has the edge over them with . They have live that was working great and now they made it better from what i can tell. Sony would have to start from the ground up .

For you and me changing between counter strike , battle field , unreal 2k4 , painkiller and using the diffrent interfaces is no problem. I think to all of us here its no problem . But how about one of our cousins or uncles or whatever that doesn't really know what they are doing ? Having one format is the best way to go to hit hte casual . A live type system is better than each dev making thier own software for it

 

[Bobbler]

But I imagine they wouldn't provide hosting for servers (expensive? Would need subscription fee?) and leave that to per-game efforts.

For me to go out and rent a cs source server for 32 people it would cost me 135-175$ for a good system that wont lag up a month . Mabye 80$ for a system that starts to show problems around 28 people on at once.

So it is expensive and i would really think they would charge you for it. Its why ms charges you thats just a huge cost to eat and we are going to be seeing games of 50+ people at once .


This is the one area that i'm worried about in terms of sony . I think this will truely be the place ms has the edge over them with . They have live that was working great and now they made it better from what i can tell. Sony would have to start from the ground up .

For you and me changing between counter strike , battle field , unreal 2k4 , painkiller and using the diffrent interfaces is no problem. I think to all of us here its no problem . But how about one of our cousins or uncles or whatever that doesn't really know what they are doing ? Having one format is the best way to go to hit hte casual . A live type system is better than each dev making thier own software for it

Well, to be fair... You cannot simply compare the prices of a single server a third party is charging you to host and that of a server infrasctructure that Sony or MS or Nintendo would/could/do/etc host. They won't be charged anywhere near that cost per mb/s of bandwidth and server speed. They aren't even in the same realm of pricing strategies (they wouldn't be going through an extra party like you would) -- they are buying 'bulk' and would be hosting it themselves. Bandwidth is costly, but having your own servers and buying bandwidth from companies you have past relationships with will get you a good price and a much higher ROI even if you do have a lot of the service free (the few people that pay make up for it in spades).

However, I do agree that Sony would have a lot of work to live up to Live! -- It's quite acheivable though, they just have to think it is worth the time and investment (I really don't know -- from their pre E3 conference they made it seem as if their SonyWorld thing was going to be a big part of it but they were waiting til later to release more info -- probably around Xbox360 launch would be my guess ). I doubt they will require any sort of online support for all games like Xbox360 is -- we probably would have heard about that from devs squeeling by now.

I think we really just have to wait and see what they have up their sleeve. I would be a bit surprised and disappointed if Sony didn't end up with something similar to Live!. Nintendo Also. Live! will probably still be more mature, but I think we may end up with 3 similar online strategies.

 

[jvd]

Well, to be fair... You cannot simply compare the prices of a single server a third party is charging you to host and that of a server infrasctructure that Sony or MS or Nintendo would/could/do/etc host

No you can't . However live costs 50 a year i was told ? (i don't have live ) that works out to a little more than 4$ a month So while ms has to be getting a great deal to make a profit off it or to break even its still going to cost alot of money to run the servers .

They still need to buy the servers (the server we use is a dual opteron 2.4 ghz and 2 gigs of ram . ) and they still need the connections so while i doubt it costs them 175$ its still going to cost them alot more than what most people think and then add the fact that they have to provide enough servers for thousands of people . So in the end it evens out well .

However, I do agree that Sony would have a lot of work to live up to Live! -- It's quite acheivable though, they just have to think it is worth the time and investment

I dunno if its acheivable in one generation . I don't see them going from nothing to something as poslished as the next generation of live .


If sony really had something to counter live they would have been screaming it from the mountian side like the did everything else at e3 .

 

[Bobbler]

Well, to be fair... You cannot simply compare the prices of a single server a third party is charging you to host and that of a server infrasctructure that Sony or MS or Nintendo would/could/do/etc host

No you can't . However live costs 50 a year i was told ? (i don't have live ) that works out to a little more than 4$ a month So while ms has to be getting a great deal to make a profit off it or to break even its still going to cost alot of money to run the servers .

They still need to buy the servers (the server we use is a dual opteron 2.4 ghz and 2 gigs of ram . ) and they still need the connections so while i doubt it costs them 175$ its still going to cost them alot more than what most people think and then add the fact that they have to provide enough servers for thousands of people . So in the end it evens out well .

However, I do agree that Sony would have a lot of work to live up to Live! -- It's quite acheivable though, they just have to think it is worth the time and investment

I dunno if its acheivable in one generation . I don't see them going from nothing to something as poslished as the next generation of live .


If sony really had something to counter live they would have been screaming it from the mountian side like the did everything else at e3 .

I have a feeling Live! is the kind of service they want to merely break even with (at least the first generation of it) -- the profit margins probably aren't very high, like you said. 2 Million x ~$4 a month though? 8 Million a year to run those servers; I think they managed pretty well off. The profit margins will probably go up as the population and demand increases (since all they have to do is build on it, the initial investment is done) with this next generation.

Also...
What I meant, in second quote you quoted, was a Live! like service -- not as mature as Live! necessarily but offered the same functionality. (Sorry, I was unclear about that here, but in the later parts of my post I think I cleared it up a bit).

 

[Shifty Geezer]

I'm pretty sure MS makes a substantial loss at only $40/50 a year. Something like EQ is in the region of what...$150+ a year? They're turning a profit and if MS just went with breaking even it'd be cheaper, but I'd wager they're losing a good 50 bucks oer annum per Live! subscription at the moment. I think the idea is to provide the infrastructure and then cash in on the downloads. That's where the money is, and if pulled off successfully a subscription model would be obsolete I think. Sony seem to have big ideas for internet connectivity, but as jvd says, from zero to big success in one move? Sony? They haven't even managed a good PSP movie convertor yet...

 

[jvd]

have a feeling Live! is the kind of service they want to merely break even with (at least the first generation of it) -- the profit margins probably aren't very high, like you said. 2 Million x ~$4 a month though? 8 Million a year to run those servers; I think they managed pretty well off. The profit margins will probably go up as the population and demand increases (since all they have to do is build on it, the initial investment is done) with this next generation.

Rmember this generation it will be worse as weekends should be free .... ouch haha

I'm sure however most of the infastructure can be reused and even if games like halo 3 for 50+ player matches need newer servers that are more powerfull the older severs can be used for smaller games or for downloading things..

Also...
What I meant, in second quote you quoted, was a Live! like service -- not as mature as Live! necessarily but offered the same functionality. (Sorry, I was unclear about that here, but in the later parts of my post I think I cleared it up a bit).

They could. They may manage something as good as the first version of live . I would be satisfied with that .

I'm pretty sure MS makes a substantial loss at only $40/50 a year. Something like EQ is in the region of what...$150+ a year?

eq2 is 180$ a year . But they also have an expansion pack every 6 months and download packs every 3 months . The expansions are 30$ and the packs are 15$ . So they make more money there. Then for certian features like online item database so y our friends can see your character and the items on it are 1$ more a month and they have 5 of these so thats another 5$ or so a month depending .



Microtransactions are huge . The new eq2 bonus packs that are 15$ are selling very very well about half the population has bought it . So that is around 200k or so which is around 3 million for basicly 1 dungon which most likely took 3 or 4 lvl designers 2 or 3 months to make .

 

[Bobbler]

I'm pretty sure MS makes a substantial loss at only $40/50 a year. Something like EQ is in the region of what...$150+ a year? They're turning a profit and if MS just went with breaking even it'd be cheaper, but I'd wager they're losing a good 50 bucks oer annum per Live! subscription at the moment. I think the idea is to provide the infrastructure and then cash in on the downloads. That's where the money is, and if pulled off successfully a subscription model would be obsolete I think. Sony seem to have big ideas for internet connectivity, but as jvd says, from zero to big success in one move? Sony? They haven't even managed a good PSP movie convertor yet...

It's hard to say. Something like EQ has a different load and the server infrastructure is very different (each server is very connected to the next and they have to pass a lot of info between them -- characters zoning from one zone to another (which are in a lot of cases hosted on different racks in the server farm)). Having several huge servers compared to many many tiny ones? There is a difference -- I'm not sure how that affects it either way though (having ~3k users on one 'server' is going to require a different type of infrastructure than 100 seperate servers that only require 4-20 people). They also don't need the dev support to create new content. In addition to that, near half of the ~$150 per year for EQ is profit (last I heard running the servers/paying employees/etc cost slightly over half -- with 400k users they were making ~1.8 mil profit and around 2.2mil was cost of keeping the game running and paying the live team, etc). So cutting that in half -- we have around ~$80 per year EQ would need to break even (this is some speculation, but based on some solid info) -- 50 and 80 are not all that different depending on a few things (like how costly the infrastructure was for Live! and EQ, etc).

You bring up a good point -- it is quite possible that they could be losing money (although I think losing double over is a bit extreme). It's hard to speculate when you don't have all the sides of it to look at.

 

[wco81]

What's probably kept XBL subscription prices down is the fact that Sony is free. New XBL subscriptions are $70 and the renewals are $50. And there are more people playing online on the PS2 than Xbox.

I think SOCOM 2 probably has the most extensive online infrastructure. It was hosting over 20k simultaneous players at launch. They charged $10 extra than other SCEA games. Now, SOCOM 2 is $20.

I don't know how they make the economics work. Maybe the shrink wrap revenues are enough to cover the costs, although I don't think SOCOM2 was a huge seller. Over a million but not multimillions like Halo2 or GTA.

But then, Sony hasn't found a way to make GT online and the PD guy alluded to the kind of online infrastructure they wanted not being ready. Other developers like Lucas with their Battlefield imitation game also had free online play but I'm not sure there were that many people who went online with it. Again it was free.

Nintendo IIRC will be using the GameSpy infrastructure, which is also used by some PS2 games.

Frankly, I don't want to give anyone my credit card info., the way these companies who store our credit card, address and social security numbers are having their security compromised left and right. I don't want to give my info. for the "free" XBL Silver subscription and I didn't give my info. for the "free" EA Premium Pass.

Hey if they let me connect to someone by IP address, that would be fine with me.

 

[Sis]

And there are more people playing online on the PS2 than Xbox.

This was true at one time, possibly, but is it still true post-Halo 2? Looking at Bungie.net's stat page on an early Sunday morning in the US, they have 25,000 players currently online. I believe on Friday/Saturday evenings it goes in excess of a 100,000.

.Sis

 

[blakjedi]

To me the inclusion of a 20GB hard drive in x360 eliminates the necessaity for four types of media storage that are in PS3. $25 for a 64 mb card= hundreds of dollars for equivalent media storage on PS3.

I dont tend to take my videogmae stats/characters around anyway... if want to play someone using my custom car, character whatever.. i would just play them online which Live allows me to do out the box...

The idea should be to move away from removable media imho or offer one standard solution

 

[wco81]

Hey I would prefer to have the HDD too. But it's not a deal-breaker for me.

The one thing I wonder is has a console HDD ever failed?

If microtransactions become a big deal and people are storing gigs of stuff you purchase or win, is there a way to back it up in case of HDD failure or damage?

I remember reading an article once about how disk makers were looking for growth in consumer electronics, as opposed to the traditional computer market.

I believe they were designing simpler drives, with fewer platters and other limitations. These limitations were probably for cost-reduction but maybe they result in greater reliablity?

Would be nice if you could at least write CD-Rs so that you can back up the HDD.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

The memcards for PS3 IMO are a good addition. You can take media on memory card (pictures from a digital camera, music from an MP3 player, etc) and play it for public viewing, which is where Sony are positioning their 'entertainments computer'.

Mem costs are dropping dramatically. SD is available at 128 megs for £8 in the UK (c. $14), a gig for £50 ($90). In a couple years time we'll be looking at half this. For save games and media I don't think memcards a bad idea. £8 for 128mb is plenty for saves, and in the future £25 for a gig is definitely accomodatable.

 

[Tap In]

Hey I would prefer to have the HDD too. But it's not a deal-breaker for me.

The one thing I wonder is has a console HDD ever failed?

If microtransactions become a big deal and people are storing gigs of stuff you purchase or win, is there a way to back it up in case of HDD failure or damage?

I remember reading an article once about how disk makers were looking for growth in consumer electronics, as opposed to the traditional computer market.

I believe they were designing simpler drives, with fewer platters and other limitations. These limitations were probably for cost-reduction but maybe they result in greater reliablity?

Would be nice if you could at least write CD-Rs so that you can back up the HDD.

The fact that you can connect X360 directly to a windows XP machine to stream and copy music gives my hope that you may be able to move data around for back up and transfer back to a replaced HDD (which is a snap literally).