Originally posted by Deepblue
Um, actually Xbox Live just passed 2,000,000 people suscribed... Meaning it has many more people than PS2 online and is the most successful console online gaming service ever.
Fair enuff. That's still a very low % of the installed user-base then (I think 21m Xboxes have been sold). Although Xbox live is technically the only console gaming 'service' because no other console charges for it (Ms justify charges by describing it as a 'service', and do so to specifically differentiate from free access). I've not found a number-by number breakdown of online users between consoles (they're all within paid marketing surveys it seems), closest is a 2004 figure of 1.4m for the PS2. Which admittedly did ****-all to try and get people to play; whether thats a sign that you don't need a service to draw a certain kind of people into it, is a matter of opinion. (and a question I just thought up)
And at the part about playing with buddies, that's why there is the friend system. If you know enough great people on Live you can set up custom games and leave out the idiots.
How do you meet people on Live? By playing public games perhaps? Presumably you see the catch-22 I refer to.
At the complaint of lag... On most servers it doesn't exist. At least I have not experienced great amounts personally.
I've read different, that lag can be a problem. Lag is an inevitable consequence of using online connections, particularly with UDP.
About the price. The price of Xbox Live is very reasonable if you think about it. It costs $50 for a full year. You can easily spend that much on a new game, and chances are that game will not last a year.
And on competing consoles (PS2, PC, even IIRc the gamecube) it's free. Plus the subscription is self-renewing unless you cancel it, which is a major pain in the arse and a blatant trick to catch people out. And I'd say £40 (UK) is a lot; it's the cost of a new game. Excluding, of course, the cost of broadband connections in the first place.... and any household with broadband as a matter of course will probably have a PC and thus access to all those free multiplayer games.
Presumably, though, you can understand my point. I don't believe online gaming is going to be a key selling point in
any area of less than, say, 50% broadband penetration. Xbox live may be very nice and without serious competitors, but it's still only got 2.6m (at last count/highest number I found) of something like 20-odd million - to me that indicates I'm at least partly right in this.
(incidentally, is the 2m figure subscribers or current subscribers?)
