Xbox Live not Microsoft's killer app?

@37 You do know that MS just extended the warranty for the 360 to one year. Everybody who has the box, now gets a year from the date of purchase. So, if you've already handed over the $140 to MS, expect a refund. :) Have a nice day.

C'mon Ed -"the only 360 owners who don't play online are the technically incompetent, or those who don't have broadband options available to them...and yes, there are still plenty of folks in that boat. It's a BIG country." I don't think that first comment is too fair really, but I digress.

I know that my friends and I all have gold accounts, and though I don't play online a lot per se, I do when I have the time. See, time is an issue for some folks out there.

I know that the short amount I have is not enjoyed listening to mental midgets or 12 year olds calling everyone noob and fag when a game starts. So if I'm not playing with people I know won't make it a lame experience, I often choose to spend my time in singleplayer rather than wade through the newest batch of online miscreants. I know there are many others who feel the same way.

A lot of folks who have the money to pay for these new machines do so because of having jobs, and lives outside of the game. When I come home from what are often 14 hour days, I don't wanna hear what a lot of those jerks want to scream in my ear. I think that you can find a lot of dormant online account holders are in the same situation, and yet we still pay for the availability to play how we like.

@ 48

It's because of all the extras. Live gives you a unique gametag that can be used in any and all online games; you have a friend's list that is, again, common all games/systems; your dahsboard shows you what friends are online, what they are currently doing online, and if they aren't online when they were last on; the dashboard also keeps tracks of the people you played with recently in online games; you can sumbit player reviews and choose to prefer or avoid other players... this means that in future online games the match making system will avoid putting you in games with people you have chosen to avoid and will put you in game with people you have preferred; speaking of the match making system... games that support that feature match you with opponents of similar skill level; gamers also choose a 'zone'. The zones just divide gamers by online gaming philosophy (e.g. trash talker vs family oriented). The zones also help determine who you are matched up against in online play; the list goes on and on and on.

So,yes, you can play for free on a PS3 or PC (not in all games though), but you aren't getting the same seamlessly unified gaming experience.

I think Microsoft really suffers from ignorance on the part of a lot of people who write and talk about games. For example:

"Just because getting online is easier than ever now and will only get easier in the future does not mean that in the future most people will want to play videogames online."

For me, Xbox Live is the killer app of the system, but I only play online multiplayer about once every week or so. But for the other nights I game, I'm downloading free trailers and demos, playing arcade games that I downloaded through the service, going back through old games I'd normally have set aside forever to rack up achievements, etc., etc. I even use it as the primary way to talk to a couple of my friends, saving minutes on my cellphone in the process. We can talk to each other even when we're not playing the same game. And the downloadable content is nice when it's done well (the stuff for Oblivion that wasn't the horse armor, for example.) Xbox Live is about so much more than just playing games against other people.

Also, there's this:

"I agree with that the 360s Live isn't that big a deal. The fact that Microsoft charges for it, when Sony and anyone who uses a PC can get the online content free, is beyond me."

Xbox Live is a vast improvement on what Sony is doing or what you can find on the PC. But for whatever reason, multiplatform game reviews where the writer reviews the game on an Xbox 360 will often say stuff like, "Multiplayer gaming is great, but it's free on the PlayStation 3 and Wii" or some such thing. I even saw a review that said Madden online play was free on the Wii, which doesn't even offer it yet. Uninformed people who haven't compared the services (even just by reading about them) just naturally assume that the PS3's offering provides an identical experience, even though many titles that are online on the 360 don't provide as good of an online experience on the PS3.

It's not like company A wants to let you drive its Chevy Cavalier for free an company B wants you to pay it to drive its Chevy Cavalier. There's a difference in quality/depth of service.

XBox Live is more than just online play. The marketplace plays a role, as well. I don't play games online, so that aspect doesn't do anything for me, but the downloadable content does. I would buy marketplace games, movies, tv shows and add on content even without having a gold membership.

Don't worry Ed - he didn't hand over $140 to MS for anything. He's full of **** and nothing he posted made any sense (unless of course he had modded his Xbox 360, thus voiding the warranty - which I suspected is quite likely).

"So of the millions who can potentially use it, at least 4 million are already paying $50/year. You cant run a hosting service for $200 million per year? I understand Youtube's hosting is about $1 million per month, and I'm sure no-one uses as much bandwidth as they do."

Posted at 9:46AM on Dec 22nd 2006 by Surur

HAHAHAHAHA that's hilarious, dude. I guess arguments are easy when you make up numbers like $1 million per month overhead for YouTube.

That cracked me up though. If only you knew how wrong you were...

A couple of posts (36, 47) have hit on this: the key to great live gaming is developing a friends list with like minded and like skilled gamers. When NFL 2K5 came out I fell in with a group of adult gamers through the 2K leagues. Then we started playing some of the shooters and racers. One of the guys even started our own message board over at proboards.com. Now on any given night I could play a game with guys I've known for the last few years. Very rarely do I ever go into a public game.

The Idiot Brandon Paddock said:
'HAHAHAHAHA that's hilarious, dude. I guess arguments are easy when you make up numbers like $1 million per month overhead for YouTube.

That cracked me up though. If only you knew how wrong you were...'

I guess Forbes is not a credible source then.
"The site, which has raised $11.5 million in venture capital in the last year, didn't see a penny in revenue until March, when they cautiously began selling ads. Meanwhile the site's bandwidth costs, which increase every time a visitor clicks on a video, may be approaching $1 million a month--much of which goes to provider Limelight Networks. "
YouTube, which is streaming 40 million videos and 200 terabytes of data per day, may be paying between a tenth of a cent and half a cent per minute.
Its probably a whole lot more now. Maybe you know better. I doubt it though. You probably want to buy a PS3 too.
http://www.forbes.com/intelligentinfrastructure/2006/04/27/video-youtube-myspace_cx_df_0428video.html

thats the problem ihad with Gears of War. It seems that it was tailored with multiplayer and the single player was slapped on. This is the backwards way to go game as everyone whove i played it says that it gets boring really quickly if you play singleplayer. Thats not good as casuals will want single player experience first then the multiplayer, if at all. Most people want enjoy the game at their own pace, not get fragged back to back and become frustrated

Why do I keep on feeling, reguarding peoples comments on how wonderfull X-Box Live is, that X-Box owners never played CounterStrike/UnrealTourny/Quake 3 or an MMO RPG on a PC...

Just a hunch. Because everything you can do on live you can do on the PC...for free. @,@;

@15

I was making a bad joke because "role-playing" was misspelled as "roll-playing" in the quote from David Cole. Get it, ROLL playing like racing games, cars roll... ummm I guess it was too subtle since spelling mistakes here are are actually the norm.

nah, i know plenty of people that would like to play madden over the internet & crap like that. i just think that the premium subscription price will deter a few people. granted, they wouldn't be joining halo clans anyway, but they still would make use of it.

sorry for my english but you are all noob!xbox live is crap!no MOD,no amateur map,restrain serveur(cod2 4 vs 4)
return to lobby for statistic of shit,no clan match,and I pay for that...the most funny thing is a waiting game like gear of wars for 4 vs 4!!!!(microsoft is cheap on sever and dont want many games?)

you say you are hardcore gamer!hahaha playing halo,vegas,cod3...
half-life PC own halo
vegas WOW!we can only play to respawn because team deadmatch return to lobby
cod3 pathetic

hardcore gamer are on true game!not the shit on 360!
Oblivion is the exception!

go play soccom and resistance!32 and 40 players online,no lag!friend list!clan match!no waiting for players to start the game!no return to lobby after!

and PC own all!