EA will NOT Charge for online play on PS2! (1 Viewer)

[JoshF]

It's true! Madden Online for free! Read about it here:
http://www.ea.com/easports/articles/ps2online.jsp

 

[Jeff Kleist]

I'm sure Sony is subsidising it too

 

[JoshF]

I doubt Sony is subsidizing it, but in the end, I don't care as I won't have to pay a monthly fee to play Madden online. As a gamer, that's all that matters to me.

Now if we can just get Square to offer FFXI online for free...

 

[Damien]

i think sony and ea must have something planned out with sony's whole online scheme, as ea is a big company

 

[JoshF]

Not sure what you mean, Damien - I'm sure they all have big plans. Can you elaborate?

This is good news.

 

[Morgan Jolley]

Companies will only charge if they run their own servers. FFXI requires online servers, but games like TimeSplitters 2 and probably Madden don't. If a game uses peer-to-peer connections, there's no reason for an online fee.

 

[Ryan Peter]

I thought the plan was to let Madden be free and then once the release all their games online they will have a pay-to-play network?

 

[JoshF]

Ryan: Nope, all EA online games will NOT require a fee of any type aside from what you pay for the game retail.

 

[Chris Duran]

Most of Sony's online games are going to be peer to peer, which would mean it would be free for you, but in the end you will have to deal with lag, some more then others, espically if you are playing against someone with a dial-up.

 

[JoshF]

Chris: Read the article - EA says the experience is great even for people on dialup. I'm pretty psyched about this news. I hate the idea of feeling like I "have" to play a game because I'm paying for a subscription.

 

[Dave F]

EA says the experience is great even for people on dialup

What else would you expect EA to say? Sports can work well on dialup (Sega's NFL2k's were great), but EA's claims can't be taken as an impartial opinion.

-Dave

 

[Dave E H]

hmm... I'm still skeptical how many people will be buying the add on - and this from a person who's already pre-ordered his adapter... we'll see.

 

[Chris Duran]

Chris: Read the article - EA says the experience is great even for people on dialup. I'm pretty psyched about this news. I hate the idea of feeling like I "have" to play a game because I'm paying for a subscription.

Josh, of course EA is going to say that, they are not going to diss there own product that wouldn't be good for sales, and in a perfect world yeah maybe that would be the case, but I've played online with games numerous times, and there has been experience with lag with my broadband, and then someone with a dial up that simply can't handle the bandwidth. I'm not saying the experience is going to be horrible, just saying that it will have it's problems because of it being peer-to-peer, that's why I like Microsoft's plan of having there own dedicated servers, kinda like what Sega did with Sega.net, plus with the XBOX you don't have to worry about an add on that might or might not be successful.

 

[Morgan Jolley]

I'm not saying the experience is going to be horrible, just saying that it will have it's problems because of it being peer-to-peer, that's why I like Microsoft's plan of having there own dedicated servers, kinda like what Sega did with Sega.net, plus with the XBOX you don't have to worry about an add on that might or might not be successful

Yeah, but the PS2 online adapter is $10 less than the annual fee for XBL (that is, unless it goes to the $10 a month thing after the first year). If you don't like XBL and don't renew the service, you have to pay another $50 to start it up. With PS2, you can just hook the adapter back up and you don't have to pay anything.

 

[ChristopherS]

If you don't like XBL and don't renew the service, you have to pay another $50 to start it up.

Are you saying the second year would also be $50 then? That would seem to me to be much less than $10/month but I think that is unlikely. If you are saying XBOX Live will cost $10/month plus a $50 activation fee I would like to see a link that supports this. Until MS knows how popular its XBOX Live service, I doubt they will commit themselves to any price.

I do think EA will be very successful with its online Madden series. It is a great game to play and any online play is simply going to make it better. Even though I had problems with Sega's online play in NFL 2k1, I still played the game. I am just thankful that these same problems will (should) be eliminated with XBOX Live.

Chris

 

[Damien]

the only thing about that is I very much doubt that you'll be playing free PS2 games online for long. EA is going to GET STORMED, hundreds of thousands of people are going to be online, so that's what i meant before how the hell can ea and any other company afford to do this. this generation ea has decided to whore with sony so i wouldn't doubt if sony is helping them financially to keep madden free

 

[JasonKrol]

i think more people will be buying the adapter after more and more games start bragging about online support.

as it is right now, those of use who get the adapter on August 28th will only have Madden and SOCOM to play (and Tony Hawk, but thats old).

Only one of the 2 games mentioned above is more than enough for me to pickup the adapter and be online that night!! (especially SOCOM!!)

 

[Andre F]

I'm just hoping for Knockout Kings 2003 online so I can whip some butt!

 

[Morgan Jolley]

EA is going to GET STORMED, hundreds of thousands of people are going to be online, so that's what i meant before how the hell can ea and any other company afford to do this

EA isn't setting up servers for their online games. As long as there are no servers, they don't have to worry about it.