XBL Beta

[zurich]

Just got into the XBox Live beta. Better be worth it, frigging FOURTY DOLLARS AMERICAN for shipping, CHRIST.

I'm supposed to get MotoGP, NFL Fever, and Revolt? The site mentions that they'll be good 'during the beta'. Does this mean that come November 15th they'll want the 35,000 beta testers to go out and buy the retail versions? I should hope not.

zurich

 

[Blade]

They are losing like $100 per Xbox, y'know.

Think of those betas as "playable demos"!

Bah, I'm kidding.

 

[Glonk]

I've had the beta for a couple weeks.

Just where exactly do you live for $40US shipping?

Mine was far less than that and I live in Canada.

Anyway, XBL Beta comes with MotoGP (online only, limited tracks/racer selection),Fever 2003 (online only), Whacked (demo/online), and the full version of ReVolt. It also comes with an 8MB keychain memory card, XBL software, carrying case, and the headset.

It's better than I thought to be honest.

You can also play the retail versions of NFL 2K3, MotoGP, etc all online via Xbox Live already.

I'm pretty sure only Fever 2003 will expire once the beta is over, since Whacked & MotoGP demos are being given out in all retail kits too.

 

[zurich]

Glonk,

I had no choice but to choose World Wide Express for shipping (only Canadian option), and it was $40 USD. And I live in the fifth biggest city in North America, Toronto namely

Bloody ridiculous. Oh, and those memory cards are only for phase one beta

zurich

 

[Glonk]

That's really odd they charged you $40US shipping...

I live in Calgary and they charged me ~$12US shipping, via UPS, and it was here in a couple of days...

 

[zurich]

Weee just got the kit today! Pretty fun!

Whacked is just retarded, NFL Fever is like *boggle* as I avoid sports games like the plague, but MotoGP is pretty damn fun. The general theme seems to be 'lets gang up on the voice-maskers and Road Rash them to death'

I didn't get ReVolt though I hear it was just a network tech demo? And they're taking the servers down in January? Wierd. What will retail XBL ship with then??

So while the beta games don't really excite me, I'm very stoked for MechAssault and UC now!

zurich

ps: also nice to see that XBL rates my hulking DSL line through the roof in terms of speed/quality

 

[fbg1]

Weee just got the kit today! Pretty fun!
I didn't get ReVolt though I hear it was just a network tech demo? And they're taking the servers down in January? Wierd. What will retail XBL ship with then??

So while the beta games don't really excite me, I'm very stoked for MechAssault and UC now!

Agreed, I'm a beta tester too. XBL is a really nice service with some great features. MS is right on with the required voice communication. It adds so much to the experience. Funny that nobody uses voice masking, though. Most people hate it. It'll be cool once there are some good games like UC and MA.

I didn't know about the servers going down in January, though. Strange, and bad timing, imo. You know anything more about that?

Also, I was surprised to find XBL is a peer-to-peer network rather than client-server, but I suppose that makes some sense. It's probably more scalable that way, since games are hosted on an individual's Xbox rather than on MS's servers. Only problem is that it seems to limit the max users per session to just 16 (at least with MotoGP and UC).

Also, if peer-to-peer is going to be the standard network architecture (what do online PS2 games use?), then Sony's vague plans for the Cell make a little more sense. They want each PS3 console to be as effecient a host as possible, making that one of their chief design goals.

 

[zurich]

Well, it depends. Some will be P2P, some will be hosted, ie: Star Wars Galaxies/True Fantasy Online.

zurich

 

[fbg1]

Yeah, MMORPGs would have to be hosted on a central server, wouldn't they.

 

[zurich]

I'm pretty curious about Battlefield 1942 though, that definitely cant be P2P. On top of that, EA's been pretty anti-XBL since they can't control the billing/accts/etc, so I wonder how it'll turn out. I wouldnt be surprised if it'll get axed though

 

[fbg1]

Actually I just read the XBL FAQ and it says that publishers have the choice of hosted or P2P. UC will actually be both, for example. I guess MS will just charge extra for games they host on their servers (hopefully charge the publishers, not the gamers).

I heard about EA being anti-XBL for the same reason. I suppose that huge publishing companies with a lot $$ can afford to set up their own servers, but I'm sure XBL makes a lot of sense for smaller publishers.

Also, here's an interesting writeup of a tour of XBL headquarters. I always wondered what MS meant when they said that XBL has "military grade security". I always assumed they were referring to whatever anti-hacking safeguards they had in place on the network, but that didn't make a lot of sense if given MS's poor record in that respect. Now I see that they were referring more to the physical security measures, like bullet-proof glass, security guards, and biometric screening locks to keep people physically out of the building. Wonder if they've done anything special to pre-empt hackers, though (other than host a lot of games p2p).

http://www.xbox365.com/news/zcomment.cgi?article=EpFulkVyyZLQOtrjlq