D@mn it is? Well dang. I thought it was like a MMORPG when played online. Single player offline; MMO online. I only saw one of my friends play its predecessor Morrowwind on his XBox 1 and it seemed that's the direction it would head to if he had Live. You learn something everyday.

That's why I want to learn about XBox Live. I thought the majority of the games had online multiplayer for the games that allowed multiple players. Like Street Fighter II and you get to play against anyone in the world whenever you get the whim to test your Ansatsuken skills. Like it could be full-fledged MMO style games or just global people to choose from to fill in the 2P, 3P or 4P spot. Like online Bomberman and you get to round up a squad of topline B-Man players at will to see how good you really are.

I would think they would make/recode the majority of the games to work that way.

Let me go to YouTube. Maybe I can see how it looks in action. I'll be back.

John Lucas

Live isn't that special.  For games that have multiplayer it offers a matchmaking service (as all online games have for years), messaging, patchs, new content downloads, and demo downloads.  Lately they added movie and TV show downloads.  To charge $50 a year for that seems ridiculous to me. 

Seems to me it's battle.net (which also had rankings and records so that covers achievements as well) with movies/shows downloading included.  For those that might not know, battle.net is the service that Blizzard supplies for Diablo, Warcraft, and Starcraft games.  I haven't used gamespy but I believe that service was very similar as well, and also free.

FishyJoe:  from what I've read lately the Live service has a lot of lag because of the lack of dedicated servers.  The host has the slight advantage in this case.  The PSN, while free, generally has no lag.  To me, you are paying for achievements because looking at Stof's list that's the only thing that gets added besides actually being able to play games when you go from Silver to Gold. 

I've never played Gears online, but from playing Resistance I can attest to the lag-free PSN.  Live just seems like a ripoff no matter how you look at it.  When Sony adds the trophies with Home (as well as the many other freatures while including everything Microsoft has), it would seem Live would have nothing over the PSN, and one is free.  The first game with Trophies will be Lair, btw.

Wow. This was enlightening. I'll have to gain more feedback on the issue. Thanks windbane. We might not fully agree about Nintendo's importance to this industry but I appreciated your insight here on Sony's & Microsoft's online services.

John Lucas 

6 million of 10 million which means that 60% sign up rate for at least silver.  I wonder how many are gold?

Whereas Sony's free service has 1 million of 3 million, which is 33%

I think MS is doing quite well

I wonder how many Wiis are on-line tho... does connec24 count? Wii browser? everyone votes?

I don't pay for live (hell, I don't own an XBox) but I believe that for the people who are paying for live the service is worth the minimal fee ... Being able to see and communicate with your friends regardless of whether you're playing the same game (or even playing online) and invite them to play a game with you is one of the coolest features I have ever heard of in a service like this.

Comparing the online services is very interesting, because its one area where each company is testing out a different business model...

XBox Live--Gold is an expensive-to-implement centralized service paid for by subscriptions, with the free Silver providing access only to the stores. They'll also generate income from stores selling games, "microtransaction" game content, video and music. (Correct me if I'm wrong.)

PS Network--Though currently giving away the Jr. version of XBL Gold for free, they eventually plan to launch Home, an extremely-expensive-to-implement centralized service which supposedly will be paid for with advertisements. They'll also sell games, microtrans content, video and music.

Wii--No centralized service + friend codes + WiiConnect24 = cheap to implement. The online "channels" are also cheap to implement, and the VC, focused on amassing content but not features, is the only stream of income Nintendo will create with their online plan, and features only games, nothing else. Their struggle will be if people feel their services are simply not adequate.

I can say for certain that the model which WILL work is Wii's. The VC will make plenty of money to fund all the other services, and if it doesn't, they've got hardware profits, meaning they won't be scrambling. Even if the channels and the multiplayer are flops, they'll come out golden.

However, I think either Home or Live is going to have to change, and I think its more likely Home does. Sony is taking bigger losses already, as a company they can less afford to take those losses, and their service is going to be more expensive to implement. Even if advertisements produce enough cash to fund their online services, I think its likely they'll charge for Home anyways, because they need cash from every avenue possible. Only if Sony offer Home for free and its a hit will MS need to adjust.

But either way, it may be nothing more than mutually assured destruction. I think everyone agrees that the mass market customer doesn't want to be paying for online gaming even now, let alone 5 or 10 years from now. And I think we're destined to either have two pay-services, or two services which fail to produce enough revenue if not to pay for their own costs, then to offset other losses. If thats the case, Wii may end up being the most influential console in regards to online, simply because it doesn't try to develop a new business model, and is careful to be low-cost.

God help them if they get any of the SWG developers or management to work on Home.

    eheheh

ALL games are better with a wiimote...also flash games...

for surfing online I mean only simple browsing...