Why do Online Console Games have Fewer Players than Online PC Games?

[BenQ]

With PC online games 32 and 64 players is standard. But then we look over to Xbox Live and see fewer numbers. 8 and 16 players was the standard for Xbox.

Now we see CoD 2 ( 360 ) with 8 players online..... what's the technical reason for that?

Is it the 360 itself? Perfect Dark Zero has 32, with a patch coming to support 50.

Is it a limitation with XBL?

 

[scooby_dooby]

peer to peer hosting environment?

I think for $60/year, MS could set-up come central servers...

 

[pegisys]

I thinks it's because PC's use dedicated servers, and xbox live seems to use some type of peer to peer transfer instead of hosting

they could probably have someone host a game on thier system and others could join, but I think they did it the way they did so that who ever started the game could leave when they want but the game won't end

 

[weaksauce]

Can't they make it so you can have a dedicated on your PC?

 

[archie4oz]

You mean Xbox owners set up their own dedicated live servers?

 

[Kb-Smoker]

peer to peer hosting environment?

I think for $60/year, MS could set-up come central servers...

Yeah,

If they are going to charge you at least host the servers.

 

[Synergy34]

I honestly don't know the answer to this and having been wondering what the deal is myself. Up until SOCOM 3, I though 16 online at a time was the limit, but then Zipper gave us 32 player games. Whatever they did, they did good cause I see more times that not lag free games in full rooms. SOCOM's biggest problem is framerate drops, often mistakenly called lag.

I was pretty disappointed when i read 8 players for CoD2 online.

 

[weaksauce]

You mean Xbox owners set up their own dedicated live servers?

Hm, now that you say it, Live..

I don't know really.. I mean, wouldn't it just be possbile, to download some "server", set it up on your PC, and they just connect with your console and play?
Alot of people on the PC are setting up dedicated servers, maybe they can set up for consoles too?

Maybe this would be easier with ps3? Linux servers?

Since cell was developed with "networking in mind" or how it was, what do you think it'll mean for online gaming?
Sometimes I'm thinking sony or someone would set up Cell servers for online games, that could hold thousands of people (mmo), for example. But is that just bandwidth(broadband) limited?

Maybe some online games could dedicate one SPE?

 

[Guden Oden]

Since cell was developed with "networking in mind"

That's pretty much entirely marketing buzzwords and hype.

or how it was, what do you think it'll mean for online gaming?

You can't get around physical limitations. Many people have very limited upstream bandwidth on their supposed broadband connections, you simply can't host particulary many people connecting to you on say a 128kbit/s upstream link.