Poll: Should Xbox Silver have Multiplayer?

[WOPR]

NO, that's what Gold is for.

In life you get what you pay for.

Paying for an online service = tech support, regular updates, improving service, server upkeep etc

Steam is free and does all of that and more - much of it better, too.

OT: Yes, of course. I've bought the game, I see no reason why I shouldn't be able to play the other half of it.

My only experience with steam was trying to get the latest total war, the whole thing crashed and was down for over 24 hours.

XBox live has never crashed out for me when a game/update has been released in nearly 6 years of use.

Steam doesnt also include video chat, 8 person party chat either as far as I know.

this is a bit off topic but

Skype does, and that's free
and most of my steam friends are skype friends as well

EDIT: so on my left I have a group video chat
in front of me I have my steam game online
and on my right I have the TV all lonely waiting for me to play Castle Crashers (or Dead Space)

 

[Woodsey]

NO, that's what Gold is for.

In life you get what you pay for.

Paying for an online service = tech support, regular updates, improving service, server upkeep etc

Steam is free and does all of that and more - much of it better, too.

OT: Yes, of course. I've bought the game, I see no reason why I shouldn't be able to play the other half of it.

My only experience with steam was trying to get the latest total war, the whole thing crashed and was down for over 24 hours.

XBox live has never crashed out for me when a game/update has been released in nearly 6 years of use.

Steam doesnt also include video chat, 8 person party chat either as far as I know.

OK it loses video chat (as far as I'm aware, although why you'd want that whilst you're playing a game...?), but you can have as many as you like in a conversation ala MSN.

 

[lostzombies.com]

OK it loses video chat (as far as I'm aware, although why you'd want that whilst you're playing a game...?), but you can have as many as you like in a conversation ala MSN.

The video chatting is via the dashboard

MSn isn't voice chat is it?

the xboxlive video chat is between 2 people, the 8 person party chat is all voice chat

 

[BlackHat11]

NO, that's what Gold is for.

In life you get what you pay for.

Paying for an online service = tech support, regular updates, improving service, server upkeep etc


Imagine if WOW was free to play, no updates, no fixes of bugs, no online support, no large servers, no dedicated servers (if there was they would be small and laggy/unstable) etc etc..


Sorry but I have both a PS3 and 360. XBox live is far, far better that PS online. There is simply no comparison in terms of quality of service.

It's why in the real world you don't hear people complaining about their rolls royce/bentley but talk to someone with a trebant/skoda and they can give you a list of faults.

STEAM as stated above has excellent customer support etc.

DDO and EQII are examples of other games that are massive, free to play and have excellent support. In fact the average support response time in DDO is under 20 minutes for an incident report vs the 43 hours you need to wait to talk to a blizzard employee, which there are many more of.
So wait 20 mins for a bug fix in a game i'm not paying for or wait 2 days for a huge glitch to be even acknowledged, not fixed, in a game I've been paying for, for more then 3 years?

Free service can be more than just competitive in the current game market.

 

[WOPR]

OK it loses video chat (as far as I'm aware, although why you'd want that whilst you're playing a game...?), but you can have as many as you like in a conversation ala MSN.

The video chatting is via the dashboard

MSn isn't voice chat is it?

the xboxlive video chat is between 2 people, the 8 person party chat is all voice chat

Again Skype has all of the chat functions and more

and not a single one of my Steam friends DON'T have a skype (oddly...)

so maybe it's unfair to use 2 programs

but as for the 8 player party chat

Steam has voice chat that I have yet to max out the amount of people
sure there's no video chat (+1 point for gold) but skype does, and that seems to be a fairly used program by steam users

again just saying
I'm not going to combo point steam because of another program

just like I won't point the PS3 and the PSP-Go because they're 2 separate things
(come to think of it I could use that on the 360's Kinect... ACK getting off topic)

 

[jamradar]

You want to be able to play games online for free on a console made by Microsoft.

Hahahahahahahahahaha

 

[thahat]

NO, that's what Gold is for.

In life you get what you pay for.

Paying for an online service = tech support, regular updates, improving service, server upkeep etc


Imagine if WOW was free to play, no updates, no fixes of bugs, no online support, no large servers, no dedicated servers (if there was they would be small and laggy/unstable) etc etc..


Sorry but I have both a PS3 and 360. XBox live is far, far better that PS online. There is simply no comparison in terms of quality of service.

It's why in the real world you don't hear people complaining about their rolls royce/bentley but talk to someone with a trebant/skoda and they can give you a list of faults.

soo how about the pc games never pay for multiplayer XD? according to me, the price of multiplayer is already in the price of your game ( roughly 60 bucks times ohh maybe a few million does that for a person.. )

 

[Woodsey]

OK it loses video chat (as far as I'm aware, although why you'd want that whilst you're playing a game...?), but you can have as many as you like in a conversation ala MSN.

The video chatting is via the dashboard

MSn isn't voice chat is it?

the xboxlive video chat is between 2 people, the 8 person party chat is all voice chat

It's voice or typed. And MSN has voice, typed and video chat. And if you have to video chat from the dashboard anyway then use MSN or Skype - same thing, but free(ish).

 

[Azaraxzealot]

NO, that's what Gold is for.

In life you get what you pay for.

Paying for an online service = tech support, regular updates, improving service, server upkeep etc


Imagine if WOW was free to play, no updates, no fixes of bugs, no online support, no large servers, no dedicated servers (if there was they would be small and laggy/unstable) etc etc..


Sorry but I have both a PS3 and 360. XBox live is far, far better that PS online. There is simply no comparison in terms of quality of service.

It's why in the real world you don't hear people complaining about their rolls royce/bentley but talk to someone with a trebant/skoda and they can give you a list of faults.

soo how about the pc games never pay for multiplayer XD? according to me, the price of multiplayer is already in the price of your game ( roughly 60 bucks times ohh maybe a few million does that for a person.. )

well, unlike with PCs, for consoles you don't have to worry as much about another player having an unfair advantage because they have a "better system" with "higher specs"

but you SHOULD have to pay for Gold since the console itself is making microsoft lose money (they sell it cheaper than it costs to produce)

and if you dont like it? invest in single-player games (that works just fine)

 

[carpathic]

I feel pretty cheesed by this actually.

A lot of games REQUIRE multiplayer, and these I just don't buy. Even if I want to play them.

That said, I understand microsoft has costs associated with servers etc, but I have costs associated with games too.

 

[FolkLikePanda]

A way that we can play online and still feed Microsoft's greedy little mouth is probably limit the number of hours a person can play Live on Silver a day maybe? But I still think it should be entirely free.

 

[Buizel91]

I think you should be able to Multiplayer, but for the older titles.

Can i ask? What is the point of Silver anyway? :S is just for Demo's and stuff?

 

[Buizel91]

NO, that's what Gold is for.

In life you get what you pay for.

Paying for an online service = tech support, regular updates, improving service, server upkeep etc


Imagine if WOW was free to play, no updates, no fixes of bugs, no online support, no large servers, no dedicated servers (if there was they would be small and laggy/unstable) etc etc..


Sorry but I have both a PS3 and 360. XBox live is far, far better that PS online. There is simply no comparison in terms of quality of service.

It's why in the real world you don't hear people complaining about their rolls royce/bentley but talk to someone with a trebant/skoda and they can give you a list of faults.

soo how about the pc games never pay for multiplayer XD? according to me, the price of multiplayer is already in the price of your game ( roughly 60 bucks times ohh maybe a few million does that for a person.. )

well, unlike with PCs, for consoles you don't have to worry as much about another player having an unfair advantage because they have a "better system" with "higher specs"

but you SHOULD have to pay for Gold since the console itself is making microsoft lose money (they sell it cheaper than it costs to produce)

and if you dont like it? invest in single-player games (that works just fine)

I agree with that statement^

And really? i didn't know the system was losing Microsoft money :O

If anything, they are being kind of generous selling it cheaper than it is to produce, although it's probably because of their rivals (Nintendo and Sony etc)

 

[lostzombies.com]

OK it loses video chat (as far as I'm aware, although why you'd want that whilst you're playing a game...?), but you can have as many as you like in a conversation ala MSN.

The video chatting is via the dashboard

MSn isn't voice chat is it?

the xboxlive video chat is between 2 people, the 8 person party chat is all voice chat

It's voice or typed. And MSN has voice, typed and video chat. And if you have to video chat from the dashboard anyway then use MSN or Skype - same thing, but free(ish).

thats pretty cool, I like the fact xbox live is in a package as a whole though. for about £2 a month you really can't beat it

 

[RikSharp]

absolutely silver (or free as it is being renamed) should have multiplayer, as mentioned above, it's free pretty much everywhere else. of course if it was, there would be far fewer gold subscribers.

i for one am not renewing my gold account when it expires as i just dont use it enough.
i can get the same games on steam and play multiplayer on that for free.

 

[Robyrt]

I am in favor of Microsoft charging for online multiplayer because it is a good business decision for the company.
Each of the following answers would tend to support this argument EXCEPT:

A) Microsoft is earning scads of money from these fees.
B) Customers will be more likely to purchase an Xbox if the price is lower, even if they have to repay that price later in multiplayer fees.
C) Most customers are not likely to avoid purchasing an Xbox because of these fees.
D) Microsoft is an evil corporation whose only purpose is to suck its customers dry.
E) Most customers are either unwilling or unable to assemble Steam, Skype and MSN into a Voltron capable of replacing Xbox Live's features.

The correct answer is D. Thank you.

...Yes, I have been studying for the LSAT. Why do you ask?

 

[The Ambrosian]

Just wondering what people think

I personally do NOT want to pay money just to play online

Computer = free online multiplayer
Wii = Free online multiplayer
PS3 = Free online multiplayer

so why should we have to pay for Xbox Gold for multiplayer?

I think they should do what the PS3 did and make Gold members get beta's and demos and stuff like that much sooner then the general public

but I don't think we should have to PAY MONEY to PLAY ONLINE

Because, and this is from an owner of all current-gen consoles and a decent PC, XBL is extremely streamlines, and cross game chat is awesome, if you spend a lot of time on it, and a lot of friends have it, Gold is worth every penny. It's actually pretty cheap as well.

 

[jimduckie]

gee i pay enough just to have the net ...bout $80 a month and get dinged xtra for going over bandwidth limit and thanks to the crtc(canadas fcc) regulate to shit out of the net and geo-blocking too plus games being expensive ...yeah it should be
gee i wonder if mr.gates and m$ executives get gold for free?

 

[Woodsey]

OK it loses video chat (as far as I'm aware, although why you'd want that whilst you're playing a game...?), but you can have as many as you like in a conversation ala MSN.

The video chatting is via the dashboard

MSn isn't voice chat is it?

the xboxlive video chat is between 2 people, the 8 person party chat is all voice chat

It's voice or typed. And MSN has voice, typed and video chat. And if you have to video chat from the dashboard anyway then use MSN or Skype - same thing, but free(ish).

thats pretty cool, I like the fact xbox live is in a package as a whole though. for about £2 a month you really can't beat it

And yet we've just shown that you can, with an entirely free service with a better online store and cloud gaming.

 

[TPiddy]

Actually, the Slim models are produced at a level that Microsoft doesn't lose money. Sony, on the other hand, is losing it's shirt with every PS3 sold. SCEA lost $400 million last year. If anything, Sony SHOULD charge for PSN, and not the other way around. Microsoft, on the other hand, are just being dicks by raising the price $10.