Who is thinking of signing up for Xbox Live? (1 Viewer)

[Tom Vodhanel]

Is Halo online(using the xbox) really a year away? I haven't had time to keep up much on the *live* thing...but I thought they intended to have the whole shabang ready for the consumer in the fall/2002? I signed up to be a beta for them,but haven't heard a peep...has anyone?

TV

 

[Adam Tyner]

XBox Live isn't far off. A version of Halo that can take advantage of the system is.

 

[JoshF]

I won't be signing up for Xbox live until there's a game a I need to play online. I'm not a Halo fan, and I did Phantasy Star a long time ago on the Dreamcast. I don't really want to give Microsoft $50 just to have the chance to play games that aren't out yet, or to get a cheap headset. I already got two of those from my wireless provider. I wish they would stop sending me them. Give me a free phone!

I will, however, be all over FFXI, Twisted Metal:Black Online, and Madden 2003 on the PS2. I think out of all of those I'll only need to pay for FFXI.

 

[Romier S]

Madden 2003

You let me know when you wake up out of that dream thats telling you EA will let you play Madden online for free. j/k

 

[JoshF]

If they charge, I'll pay. Madden's my favorite football videogame, and I'd love to play it online.

 

[JasonKrol]

damn...i havent heard that EA was gonna charge for Madden 2k3 for the PS2. That really sucks if they do.

I for one and starting to get a little anoyed at all of these different types of games all charging a monthly fee now. (i know, Im not nieve, i understand the enormous fees involved in online gaming - company side that is) but cmon, lets say Im a gamer, and I like a little bit of everything gaming wise...so I have a FPS, Football game, RPG, MMORPG, and a driving game. I could possibly be facing $50+ / month just to friggin play online "every once and a while".

the only reason I have a real hard time paying monthly fees to play games online is because I dont really play them that much, and if I was paying..id feel obligated to play them all the time. (take counterstrike for example, thats probably the only game Id pay to play online, since I play like every single day!)

hrmph. maybe Im just being stupid or selfish. but I think charging monthly to play a game online would just bring the death of the game sooner. If im paying..and I go maybe 2 weeks without playing..im thinking "g, im wasting my money..i should just cancel my subscription" then maybe 2 weeks later..i might feel like playing again, but I realize i canceled my subscription and then not feel like playing it..and bam..the game collects dust on my shelf after maybe a month.

someone should come up with a pay/pay model..where you setup and account with them...and say you pay 10c or something (i dunno) each time you logon to play. set it up so when you sign up, you pop 20$ into your "account" and each time you play it deducts. Once your account hits 5.00 or lower, it auto "charges" your account to bring it back up to 20.00 again. This way, the most youll ever be out is 20.00. -- or something like that, that was just off the top of my head. (trying to do an EasyPass type thing for the TurnPike)

 

[Kelley_B]

I didn't think EA was supporting Xbox Live with their games.

Phantasy Star Online doesn't begin to "do it" for me.

You know I thought that too until I played it and then it took many many many hours of life away from me. It was really about finding people who you liked playing the game with.

But I'm still with you on the fact that consoles don't really have anything coming that makes me say, "I must have that online game!"

I think on-line will still be ruled by the PC this round.

 

[Romier S]

damn...i havent heard that EA was gonna charge for Madden 2k3 for the PS2. That really sucks if they do.

Let me clarify, there has been no announcement of EA charging for Madden 2003. That comment from me was #1 a joke #2 I personally don't think Madden will be free. Just my opinion.

 

[Edan W]

I didn't think EA was supporting Xbox Live with their games.

You're right, they aren't (announcement around E3, sorry no link)

I don't think Madden will be free either. No way EA is going to spend the money incorporating the online aspect and building the infrastructure required to run the thing and not charge a fee (beyond an extra 5 or 10 bucks per copy I mean). I think that's part of the reason why they are skipping the Live service.

 

[Morgan Jolley]

And just how many of Sony's online games are going to be 1st-party??? And who's to say that Sony could start charging a fee somewhere down the line??

SOCOM is looking pretty good and Frequency will be playable online when you buy the network adapter. Both are free to play online. They might charge down the line, but they are trying to get people to actually buy the adapter and/or HDD first.

I will pay to play some games online, though I'm not sure I'm going to play games online for that long. I barely play Final Fantasy games for more than a few weeks (until I beat it), so why would I want to play one for over a year?

 

[Dave E H]

I'mn definitely in. However, if it's $50 for the first full year of service that you get, then I'm going to wait until there really is a great game for me to play online (probably Halo, I'll admit). The last thing I'd want to do is get Xbox live and then wait wait wait until there is something I want to play (much like my investment in the DC Broadband adapter.)

 

[JoshF]

I don't think Madden will be free either. No way EA is going to spend the money incorporating the online aspect and building the infrastructure required to run the thing and not charge a fee (beyond an extra 5 or 10 bucks per copy I mean). I think that's part of the reason why they are skipping the Live service.

Erm, couldn't they charge a fee for Xbox online play too?

 

[Morgan Jolley]

I think that EA decided that they would rather put Madden online on the currently more popular console (PS2) and charge people for it to be online than put it on the X-Box and cut their user base significantly. Everyone who has a PS2 and any internet connection can play online, but only X-Box users with XBL and a BB connection would be able to play it.

 

[Romier S]

I think that EA decided that they would rather put Madden online on the currently more popular console (PS2) and charge people for it to be online than put it on the X-Box and cut their user base significantly. Everyone who has a PS2 and any internet connection can play online, but only X-Box users with XBL and a BB connection would be able to play it.

You'll also want to remember that EA also cancelled the PC port of Medal of Honor Allied Assault, which was to be online compatible on XBL. They then decided to simply port MOH Frontline to the X-box.

This has more to do with the X-bx live setup than any systems userbase. Looking at it more closely how would they cut the userbase for Madden by making it XBL compatible? EA would have had the PS2 userbase happily playing Madden along with the X-box crowd. If anything they would have added more customers.

Thats not the issue here, my belief would be that this is a "control" issue more than anything. EA could easily put Madden on the X-box but they want to control the network/servers themselves and charge what price they see fit. No interference from Microsoft or Sony. Unfortunately thats not how Microsoft wants things. Sony on the other had gave them exactly what they wanted. Hence why there will be no EA games on XBL for the foreseeable future. Its an understandable point of view from a large third party like EA.

You could also take into consideration that EA may have wanted Madden 2003 online to be cross-platform. That is all PS2, PC, and Xbox players playing together. With the setup of X-box live that may not have been possible.

Food for thought....

 

[Aaron Copeland]

My point was that I do not foresee a time when that activity would occur nor be tolerated in the console marketplace. There is no excuse for such product to be released. Let me revise, there is no excuse for that to occur with PC titles either but when dealing with multiple hardware configurations, which consoles do not have, patches are at the very least understandable.

Patches will (or should) occur with console online games. I agree that there should be no need to fix bugs that occur due to different hardware configurations on PC games, but you enter a whole new realm with online games, especially MMORPGs.

PC games are often patched to fix balance issues. Sometimes it's simply impossible to catch everything until you have thousands of people playing together in an online environment. Again, this occurs all the time and has nothing to do with hardware bugs. Then what about hackers and cheaters? The ability to patch could have helped save PSO after it was ruined by the cheaters. I'm afraid that the console gaming crowd is going to have to either learn to accept patches for online games, or they are going to have to live with balance issues and hackers that will suck the life out of their online gaming experience.

Aaron

 

[Romier S]

Aaron,
*sigh* Once again I think you have completely missed my point. Let me quote myself from my earlier post:

Quote:

 

[Edan W]

Erm, couldn't they charge a fee for Xbox online play too?

Would people pay more to play Madden when Fever 2003 and 2K3 are not charging extra monthly fees to play over XBL? I know Madden is still the most popular football game, but that would be a tough sell...

 

[JasonKrol]

someone made a good suggestion that its possible that they will just charge more for the game, initially, instead of the monthly fee, etc.

that kinda makes sense to me..and Id be glad to pay an extra 5 or 10 bucks over the 50 for the game, considering it will support full online play etc.

 

[Morgan Jolley]

If they did this, it should ONLY be done for online-only games that don't require online fees. I will never pay more than $50 for a regular game (not including tax or shipping if from the internet) unless I'm getting something special (like getting the game early or a special package).

Then again, this will probably only happen with sports games or PC-derivatives. And I just so happen to not like sports games, nor do I like many PC games.

 

[Derrik Draven]

To be honest, the whole entire "online" thing never did it for me. Maybe it was one too many deathmatches but, boy did that shit get boring. Run, jump, shoot, run, jump, shoot over and f'ing over again. *yawn*

If there's some cool racing games, maybe it'll be alright. The online Star Wars game sounds intriguing. And, as much as I wave Halo's flag for the uninitiated, unless the boys at Bungie come out with something ALOT cooler than just running around shooting at each other with walkmans on our heads, I'm still not totally sold on online Halo.

I'm gonna hold off 'till Xmas and see what's happening. We're already on the DSL highway here so, if The Box looks like it's going to have a kickass online presence, I'll give it a go.