HA xbox live makes me appreciate Steam

[-[SiN]-bswearer]

[url]http://videogames.yahoo.com/events/plugged-in/microsoft-raising-xbox-live-membership-prices/1409254[/URL]

just imagine if we had to pay subscription fees just to play against other real people. maybe this will help bring more people back into PC gaming?

 

[Nenjin]

It's not totally unreasonable that they choose to charge more for their service. They've gone 8 years without raising the price.

But that's why I never got into Xbox Live, ever. The price was too steep for access to an unknown quantity of fun, and I sort of refuse to fuel the drive toward "making people buy two xboxes instead of letting games have split screen."

Besides, I already pay for access to the rest of the world to game with. It's called a cable internet bill.

 

[smokeythebear]

You can still get 12month prepaid cards from amazon for 40$

I had a lot of fun online with the forza motorsport series. Theres a big difference between a racing game on my PC and being able to lie down on a couch with a big screen tv.

 

[Reddog]

In terms of actually just playing a game online PSN is exactly the same and costs you nothing!!!

I can understand making people pay for premium content and exclusive demos etc, but having to pay just for the right to play a game online I consider pure profiteering and will never, ever pay for XBL Gold.

 

[dogbadger]

i've asked a few ppl why they play + pay on xbox live when online with the ps3 is free. asides from the factor of freinds also being on that platform, the online service is apparentely much more stable and reliable with live.
That said, i've heard 1 or 2 ppl say they have no end of problems getting decent lag free maatches on certain popular shooters.

PC's big problem is the huge diversity of choice spreading players thin.
I for one would prefer a lot of titles (generic shooters for the most part) not to appear on PC at all, rather than tempt PC gamers who deep in thier hearts know there are better games with dwindling playercounts.

 

[Reddog]

Owning both platforms I can tell you there is very little difference, you join games, you make friends, add them to your freinds list and join games with them. Some PSN games actually have dedicated servers (like Killzone 2) but most stuff is listen server based, just like on XBL.

In fact the only time I've played on XBL is with my free month of gold I got with GTA4 and three separate free months of gold you get by making new separate accounts on XBL. I played GOW 1/2 and GTA4 online, they were all horribly laggy and near unplayable.

Also GOW is just a big bag of **** anyway and I don't understand it's popularity

 

[nath2009uk]

You can still get 12month prepaid cards from amazon for 40$

I had a lot of fun online with the forza motorsport series. Theres a big difference between a racing game on my PC and being able to lie down on a couch with a big screen tv.

I had 360 Gold for sometime, I saved up tons (like, 6 million) on Forza 2 after I completed to buy this custom Ford GT. The only thing people do online is race around the Oval in their Ford GT's, while the one with the best tuning can hit 260.
Xbox Live IMO was never worth the amount charged, all it has is more younger players, every match of CoD would still have a bunch of glitchers or people who would skip vote to their favourite CoD map, although it's not much different on the same games on PSN.

Also, aren't Microsoft like, 2nd richest company in the world?

 

[Grobut]

It's not totally unreasonable that they choose to charge more for their service. They've gone 8 years without raising the price.

What is unreasonable is that they chose to charge for it in the first place, XBL isen't doing anything that others haven't been doing free og charge for ages.

They even tried to do this for the PC, at it's inception GFWL would require a gold account to play online, but they had to scrub that, because PC gamers where not about to pay for something they got for free elsewhere, and had gotten for free since the start of online gameing, but ofcourse, Xbox owners have no alternative if they want to play their Xbox online so they gotta pay.


Personally, i don't understand why the Xbox 360 became so popular, it's been plagued by faulty hardware since day 1, MS tries to charge you for everything you do (from playing online, and all the way down to "custom avatars" and the like), and it's nothing special, it's not like it's leaps and bounds ahead of the PS3, infact the two systems are quite equally matched.

I guess what it all comes down to, is that MS where more succesfull at bribing publishers and developers to favour their platform, more exclusives, earlier releases, better marketing, more "lead platform" status, all that shady stuff, and people, beeing suckers, fell for it en masse.

 

[Peter.Steele]

Also, aren't Microsoft like, 2nd richest company in the world?

How do you think they got that way? And they certainly wouldn't STAY on top of the heap without at least halfass trying to make more money, now would they?

(And no, I don't have an Xbox of any flavor. Never have, don't plan to in the future, either.)

 

[Shepherd]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inflation

Not that charging for online is a good idea, mind you.

I guess what it all comes down to, is that MS where more succesfull at bribing publishers and developers to favour their platform, more exclusives, earlier releases, better marketing, more "lead platform" status, all that shady stuff, and people, beeing suckers, fell for it en masse.

Allegedly it's easier to develop games for the 360. I can believe that, I mean, look at multiplat games on the PS3, they look like a$$. Also, an earlier release and the 360 being $200/200

 

[Nenjin]

Allegedly it's easier to develop games for the 360. I can believe that, I mean, look at multiplat games on the PS3, they look like a$$. Also, an earlier release and the 360 being $200/200

 

[Shepherd]

So because Sony is treating the PS3 like a left-handed ginger stepchild and keeps making bad decisions at marketing their product, Microsoft is somehow responsible for developers flocking to their platform. Sounds about right.

Oh yes, isn't Halo Reach about to be released this month? Might have something to do with the markup.

 

[Nenjin]

MS and Sony came out of two different places when they hit the 3rd gen of consoles. And MS has always had the advantage that their architecture can easily be extended to PCs. As things get continually more wired, it makes sense the system that resembles most other technology in use is the more widely-purchased one.

Unfortunately MS understands that and can bend the console market over the table and successfully make money.

 

[Byte Me]

I bought a 360 a couple years ago because I could not afford the gaming PC I wanted. I liked it for what it was, but now that I have a really good PC, XBL is simply not worth the price. PC's can simply do everything a console can, but much better. The only thing I will miss about XBL is that I could stream Netflix to my TV (which I could still do, but I'd rather not have wires all over the place).

From now on, the only games I would consider getting for a console, or possibly buy a console for, would have to be first party Nintendo games. Those games play great on consoles with their controllers because they are designed solely with that setup in mind.

 

[-[SiN]-bswearer]

exactly, i mean some games are more fun on consoles.....i happen to like playing sports games on consoles like Madden or Tiger Woods, but fps games on a console? why bother when mouse/keyboard is so muc smoother? i just think it's absurd to have to pay to play online using XBL. so you pay your cable/phone bill with XBL and PC, but also for XBL another month/yearly fee for access to online play? totally not worth it.....even with netflix etc... you can get all that online with a PC anyway. if you've got a laptop connecting it to watch on a bigger TV is relatively simple

 

[Rak]

PSN ftw.

As Pachter says, Microsoft charges more because they can.

 

[Shepherd]

it makes sense the system that resembles most other technology in use is the more widely-purchased one.

You lost me there. There are a boatload of reasons the 360 outsold the PS3 for quite some time but I don't think the look and feel of the 360 has anything to do with it. Okay, now they are trying to imitate the Wii after its success but Sony got on that train as well. The PS3's marketing bombed hard the first 3 years and now they are catching up: They started to release games. If anything made Microsoft number 2 in the 'console war' it's Sony's terrible marketing and lack of games when it was released.

Don't quote Pachter, he's only ever right about the most obvious things and hasn't got a clue about video games. Check out his comments about PC gaming. He's a suit through and through.

 

[Peter.Steele]

I bought a 360 a couple years ago because I could not afford the gaming PC I wanted. I liked it for what it was, but now that I have a really good PC, XBL is simply not worth the price. PC's can simply do everything a console can, but much better. The only thing I will miss about XBL is that I could stream Netflix to my TV (which I could still do, but I'd rather not have wires all over the place).

From now on, the only games I would consider getting for a console, or possibly buy a console for, would have to be first party Nintendo games. Those games play great on consoles with their controllers because they are designed solely with that setup in mind.

I've got a Wii, and I love it. I have an absolute blast with Mario Kart Wii.


As for watching Netflix on your TV ... you should still be able to do it. Just get something like TVersity or PlayOn ... you should still be able to stream stuff to your TV no problem.

 

[Byte Me]

I used to justify the price before because of dedicated servers. However, for some reason, a lot games don't have them. It is awesome when you can set up a large game with yourself practically as an admin. Keeping the tards out, and making whatever rules you want. Unfortunately with listen servers it is just a lag fest. Except for the host of course, who will always be amazing since his ping will actually be reasonable.

Plus matchmaking ruins multiplayer, and every single console game seems to go for that now. No real helpful filters are given and you have to try several times to get a good server. What the hell is wrong with a server list which you can apply filters to? It's just like matchmaking except there is less suck.

You lost me there. There are a boatload of reasons the 360 outsold the PS3 for quite some time but I don't think the look and feel of the 360 has anything to do with it. Okay, now they are trying to imitate the Wii after its success but Sony got on that train as well. The PS3's marketing bombed hard the first 3 years and now they are catching up: They started to release games. If anything made Microsoft number 2 in the 'console war' it's Sony's terrible marketing and lack of games when it was released.

I agree, 360 succeeded in spite of itself. Sony shot themselves in the foot several times for a couple years after the 360 was released. As for Nintendo... complete ****ing luck. Had the motion controller failed, the 360 would have been the undisputed champion and all other consoles would be a Sega Saturn. But it didn't and now "casual" games (and "casual" options for hardcore games) are taking over like the bubonic plague.

 

[Nenjin]

You lost me there. There are a boatload of reasons the 360 outsold the PS3 for quite some time but I don't think the look and feel of the 360 has anything to do with it.

Has nothing to do with the look and feel. 360s are just reshaped PCs at their core, with a custom built MS OS. MS makes the dominant PC OS on the market, DirectX, and their console relies on a lot of the same tech and software. As opposed to Sony, which as been doing it's own thing for quite a long time.

So it makes sense the 360 overtook the PS3. There's more crossover between the tech in the console and the PCs people still rely on. Which is why you'll see cross-platform gaming from MS long before you see it from Sony...and MS will probably get an even bigger share of the market because of it.

So yeah, it's no shock they got publisher's attention, with the ease of cranking out cross-platform games. And that's why PC ports are now the norm instead of the exception. Since what publishers choose to make ultimately defines what the market offers...MS wins.

If MS had waited to try charging for GFWL until more devs and publishers bought in, they could have made a killing, even with a $5 annual fee. As it is, they jumped the gun completely and were years too late to getting started, now that Steam is around. So they'll just turn the screws down on their console audience instead.