Xbox Live Price Hike

[Qroach]

Lisa joy,

yes but there is no fee to sell or make a PC game, making an Xbox game does, and its much higher than what it costs to add Gamespy support.

We were comparing online gaming between platforms, exactly what do license fees have to do with this? Anyway, yes console games have a license fee, but console game manufacturers still sell far more console products then the majority of PC makers. I dd point out development wise it costs less to include xbox live then it does to include online support in most PC titles (if you want match making and the type of features it offers), but that was still related to comparing online gaming between platforms.

Also new PC games sell at a completely different (lower) price point compared to new console games. So even with license fees, a publisher is going to typically sell more, and make more off a console game since pirating isn't factorig in nearly as much as the PC world.

Regarldless your point is moot, as we were discussing the value of paying for xbox live compared to not paying for PC online games. For what you get with xbox live with it's ease of use, compatability through all live enabled games, stat tracking, competitions, and everything else, it's far better than not paying and getting what you have on the PC online gaming with all it's bugs, compatability issues, graphical glitches and other issues.

 

[cthellis42]

Most of which have no connection to "online gaming" at all, of course; just PC gaming in general.

 

[PARANOiA]

Cthellis, here's a question for you.. name the last three or four PC games that have had no issues at all out of the box AND enabled online play?

All of them--demos included. Like I said before, I seriously haven't had anything that made me blink for years. (Wheel of Time was the last one that kept sucking, but that's because their online coding itself seemed to be abysmal--I could stay on a server long.) And I play just about every MMORPG to boot. (And most demos.) I've had connection problems with one of the MMORPGs in beta (It was Mimesis--no great showing) and possibly one of the lesser-known demos I ran across, but those weren't finished--or very good--projects anyway. I DO have problems online with games like MMORPGs, but that comes from the nature of the games--not any difficulties with me connection online to them. They'll have bugs, server stability issues and the like... but none of that came from my end. (And starting MMORPGs are festering piles of coding issues--you kinda have to take it as it presents itself.) I have oh-so-many more problems that come from the usual culprits in PC-dom: my video card, sound card, Windows, some random resource conflict--if I'm getting anything at all. (And most games are pretty good and give me the occasional artifacting problems, but not fatal issues. I haven't had major critical errors since my TNT card and back in the days of Quake III's launch, except for a faulty install one or twice, and problems I create for myself through experimentation. )

And getting online has amounted to "plug cable into modem," "plug modem into router," "plug router into computer" and go. (The router serves as DNS, and so long as the comptuer is set to look for a DNS server, everything pretty much synchs up immediately. And this includes people moving their laptops in and around frequently between their home networks and mine, and semi-frequent LANning.) I haven't had a game have any issues with this for ages, be it FPS (various UT's, Half-Lifing around with assorted mods, Planetside, BF1942, America's Army, and AvP2 among others), RTS (Warcraft III, the Empire Earths, Age of Wonders, the Total Wars, and even older games from all the Total Annihilations on), strategy (MoO3, Empire: RotMK, Civs, etc), space sims (not so much anymore, but I played a lot of Tachyon back in the day ), and a ton of MMORPGs (including other MMOs like Magic Online and The Sims).

No, I never really have problems. I have problems with my computer in general, and Windows most certainly, and certain things with games on occasion, but really nothing looking just at the online portion. Irregardless of how capable I am of handling problems that arise.

Games I've liked to play on PC in the last twelve months, and issues I've had:

Max Payne 2: Works perfectly (as stated by me earlier). My favourite pick of all games I've played in the last year.

Counterstrike: Works poorly with Radeon series compared to Geforce series (performance compares to a Geforce3). Escape bug in video drivers causes computer to crash with the fastest performing drivers. Current drivers cause poor performance, and PC blacks out for several seconds at the menu. Refresh rate reverts to 60Hz on going to menu, then returning to game. Getting onto a public server is easy - even though Steam is a borking waste of time - but setting up private play for friends is pretty impossible. They really did seem to try and mess this right up in the last year. Can't use microphone for voice chat because of hardware incomptabilities. Cheating online makes playing not worth-while after prolonged play.

UT/2k3/2k4 demo: Locks up my computer with two monitors enabled. Must disable second monitor before booting.

Fary Cry demo: As above.

Knights of the Old Republic: Shadows did not work on my Radeon out of the box, worked on other hardware.

Halo: Performance makes playing not worthwhile on a "low-end" 9500Pro, even at 640x480. *Boots XBox*

I also wanted to play Neverwinter Nights, but heard too many ATI horror stories on R3D which made the affair seem not worthwhile.

My point is, pretty much ALL PC games I play are flawed in some way which makes XBox (particularly Live) gaming pleasantly headache free.

 

[cthellis42]

Congratulations for naming all video card/driver/system spec particulars, excepting the one point I've already conceded regarding online play, where certainly it takes more effort to get specific private games for restricted people running. (Though I haven't actually seen that on whatever Live games offer it to note their process offhand.) Not that it's really difficult to have a dedicated, password-protected server on a constant name or IP running, but if you do everything on the fly it would certainly take more coordination.

We're comparing the particulars of the online gaming that each present. Do not confuse the nature of PC gaming in general along with, because if one can't handle or detests THAT, then you're nowhere near gaming online on the PC either. We all already know the particulars of gaming on consoles versus gaming on PC's, but I thought I'd made it abundantly clear what is being compared. If you get seriously bogged down by the rest, it's affected you long before you get online, and most problems have absolutely no connection to online gaming.