Gates: If you want to play online, get an Xbox

Nintendo is really going to have to make sure they h ave a good system for online play and interaction. My personal guess is that they are trying to make sure they have something functional and easy to use. The online store is a step in the right direction.

As of now, none of us really know how their online setup is going to be. It hasn't really been implemented yet. We have one game currently that even thinks of using it (Elebits). Nintendo has stated many times that they're expecting to have online available in the second quarter of the year. My guess we won't see online games until May or June of this year. I can wait that long. Especially since I waited for Sega with the Dreamcast. Waited for Microsoft with the original Xbox Live. In the end both experiences turned out to be pretty good.

What I would recommend is that we try to give Nintendo good feedback on what we want instead of constantly complaining about things we don't really know anything about.

He's right. The PS3's online is laughable compared to Xbox Live. If the Wii's is anything like the DS's, then the same applies there.

The PS3 may have more options, but utilizing them isn't very user-friendly. I don't feel I should have to dedicate an entire day to get my PS3 setup how I want it. I didn't have to do that with the 360...

If Bill Gates is now suddenly such an expert on the gaming industry then why is it that the Xbox brand is still billions in the red?

US - 4.5 million
Europe - 1.3 Million
Japan - 269,525
Central and South america - 4 million +-

10+ Million Wordwide

bill in your living room. not cool. not cool!

Man, I feel dumber for just having read through that fanboy-3-way-clusterfuck. Who cares how many consoles each company sold...again? It doesn't have anything to do with this story whatsoever.

I think the most important part about this whole article is that everyone needs to go out right now and get Viva Pinata. I mean, Bill Gates and his kids play it and you don't hear any of them howling like retarded monkeys about NPD numbers on a web forum, do you?

I rest my case...

I called it when I said the Microsoft/Nintendo honeymoon would end as soon as people realized that the major sales battle of this generation WILL simply boil down to Graphics v. Gameplay

Xbox Live v. Wii Remote

And i still say Wii Online would be perfectly adequate IF YOU COULD JUST TALK TO THE DAMN PEOPLE ON THE OTHER SIDE (Grr)

please, Nintendo, just add in chat and make it optional via Parental Controls, then Wi-Fi Connect will be just fine...

(and those who talk of Xbox Live Silver, Wi-Fi Connection as it stands beats Live Silver hollow, since the whole point of online play is player v. player, which Silver does not offer, if i had it my way, silver would offer PvP play and that feature only, and gold would offer that plus all the other frills)

I currently own a 360 and a wii. The wii is great, but being so "young" it needs more software - seeing what Nintendo has done eith the DS, I can clearly see how much fun this console is going to be. Lesser graphics are not a deal breaker, but going from Gears to Rayman isn't easy on the eyes. Online for the Wii? I have no big hopes - if SSB, and Mario Kart Wii (whenever that'll come) have great integrated online play I'll be pleasantly suprised, but I'm not holding my breath.

I love playing online with XB Live, it's so community-centric and feature rich that I don't even think about the yearly cost - I get my money's worth a thousand times over. The ps3 online? It's functional at best, but some issues like COD3 not having voice chat, no unified structure, the friends and messaging functions being removed from gameplay will not win me over. Not to Sony bash (enough of that goes on), but their online is free and you're getting what you pay for - once you've been on Live it's hard to go to a lesser set up. If Sony can give me a gaming experience I can't already get on my 360, I'll start listening - but that's not happening anytime soon. I'll be playing Gears while chatting w/ my buddy watching a movie while listening to my custom soundtrack.

If you don't value online play/downloads then Xlive is a waste of money. If you do value online then Wii/DS is a waste of time. There is no reason not to expect Nintendo and Sony to compete with microsoft online. The fact that they seem unable to do so is sad. I think the Wii graphics are a travesty. I would have payed same price as 360 for a HD Cube with no Wiimote. I realise Ninty didn't need/want to go with that particular suicide/stategy but it's what I wanted. Unless they come out with some amazing new IP's I'll skip a generation.

If Wii graphics suck, then graphics on the Xbox, GameCube, PS2, and everything before that sucks. What were we thinking? And to think you people wasted years of your life arguing over crumbs of worthless looking games.

For all you complaining about xbox live costing a "fortune" why not stop complaining and get something like XBConnect which is free and just as good as live.

so give me one good reason why bill gates would know anything about video-games?

I love how fanboys are commenting "Fuck bill gates" and MS is LAME!!1111ONE11 and shit but admit it, Gates speaks the truth. If you want to play online what system should you get? Surely not the Wii with a total of 0 online enabled games so far and not the PS3 or PS2 with its limited line up and poor execution. Live offers a great variety of games and most with little lag or interuption. Live is just a seemless online gaming experience even better than PC. I'm not saying the games are better, but the online experience on Live is much easier than anything else, although I prefer CS: S still :)

bill gates nutswingers.

Maylon, you do realize that just because its on wikipedia doesn't mean its true don't you?

XBoxes support multiple players per box. We've got four on my system at home, so my single system = 4 players, then 10 million players might result (as an example) from only 2.5 million functioning boxes.

What *does* suck is that the $50 per year is per USER not per box, so that raises the cost. Fortunately, I'm the only one who wants the multiplayer action games. For the free XL silver, my wife can play hearts and do the arcade stuff ($50 for Uno? You were robbed), and my daughter can trade pinatas with friends.

And a quick followup: MS's vision for the XBox platform goes way beyond games. It's an answer to NetFlix and TiVo, for example, with the media extender functionality.

Bill Gates can fucking die, his plans for xbox live are just fucking retarded. there is no reason y u should have xbox live and not be able to play on multiplayer games! so much for your 1 month gold trial, i thought silver would be the next-to-almost best thing next to gold, it says on the fuckin xbox 360 box itself, play online multiplayer games and chat with your friends with this 1 free year silver membership. i thought after gold AND silver memberships were up THEN you had to start paying....heh BULLSHIT!