Poll: Should Xbox Silver have Multiplayer?

[AmayaOnnaOtaku]

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.

Plus the crazy as hell sales steam has on games compared to the same 360 game. Between this and paying for free downloadable content I am becoming a PC elitist

 

[WOPR]

If silver had multiplayer too, what would be the point of gold?

Early betas
Early demos
Prize opportunities

stuff like that (which PS3 plus does)

 

[WOPR]

After having both XBL and PSN I can definitely say in my account XBL is just a bunch of stuff I don't need. PSN is equal in performance for most games I have seen, there's nothing worth an extra $60 a year on XBL that I don't already get for free on PSN. I would say free multiplayer silver and make your customers very happy!

Only my 2 cents.

it would boost Xbox sales that's for sure

 

[Timbydude]

I have a PS3 and an Xbox, and it seems that the service I pay for is infinitely better.

PS3 online play is horrendously laggy, nobody has headsets, and it's an overall more annoying experience than Xbox Live. For the price of a single game per year, paying for an online service is not outlandish.

 

[Phoenixmgs_v1legacy]

I don't get why people pay Microsoft money to play online because it's just plain bullshit. Microsoft has to pay for the upkeep of servers on their first party titles I would assume, but very few, if any, Microsoft first party games use dedicated servers in the first place, and 1 of the players in the game is the host so the bandwidth costs are all on the ISP of the host. The game servers just collect and track the player stats and that's all. And paying Microsoft money to play a 3rd party title online is basically the equivalent of bat-shit, insane crazy in my opinion as Microsoft has no expenses whatsoever when people play CoD or Bad Company online. Just tell me one difference between playing CoD on the 360 and PS3. I don't understand cross-game chat whatsoever, I don't wanna be talking to my friends when I'm playing a different game, and the only reason I would talk to them while playing the same game is just for teamwork purposes. I talk to my friends when we hang out together.

PS3 online play is horrendously laggy, nobody has headsets, and it's an overall more annoying experience than Xbox Live. For the price of a single game per year, paying for an online service is not outlandish.

How is the PS3 laggier? One of the players in whatever game you are playing is the host; the laggy-ness of the game is dependent on the player who is the host, not Sony or Microsoft. Very few games use servers as dedicated hosts, it's not like playing CoD on the PS3 is using Sony's servers and playing CoD on the 360 is using Microsoft's servers. And, so what if less PS3 users have headsets as to get a decent online experience you have to mute all the assholes anyways. Actually, most PS3 users do have a headset because you can use any bluetooth headset on the PS3 and almost everyone has at least one bluetooth headset nowadays, which they probably got for free with their cell phone.

 

[thenamelessloser]

Don't care about multiplayer, but I would like the demos to be able to be downloaded at the same time as gold membership. I don't get why they would want to postpone people being able to play demos in the first place since they are tools of marketing.

 

[StriderShinryu]

Now that "silver" is set to technically no longer exist, I would actually be surprised if we don't see a new level called "silver" at some point in the future that does include multiplayer play. Of course, the new silver would cost money (just less than gold) but would include multiplayer play and maybe a couple other basic features.

 

[Nouw]

But if we didn't pay, the quality would slide. This is reality so that would never happen and it shouldn't. Also, the old games should have free multiplayer.

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?

It's the default. You get nothing at all.

 

[Wintermoot]

yes but the whole concept of paying for online without using ANY OTHER EQUIPMENT BESIDES THE SYSTEM is pretty fucking greedy wich is also why some people spell Microsoft like this: Micro$oft and also the reason why I only play singleplayer and local multiplayer games on it

You might benefit from actually, say, learning how to use grammar properly. You'd come off as slightly less of an arrogant prick.

If you don't like paying for online multiplayer, nobody's forcing you.

Perhaps you'd rather buy a PS3 -- until fairly recently, Sony didn't care at all about monitoring or keeping their online services up and running. They had no incentive, they weren't charging for it.

It's not that greedy. Perhaps you'd forgotten that they have to pay the moderators (both online and for the Xbox.com Forums), the developers (who churn out system and dashboard updates), the people who maintain the servers (online and forums), beta testers (who act as quality control before anything goes online), the people who come up with videos (like Xbox 101 and behind-the-scenes previews, etc.).

Yeah, your $60/year goes straight into Bill Gates' pockets. [/sarcasm]

but what about the profit they make from sold systems and games? shouldnt that cover all those costs?

 

[Snor]

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.. )

you are right. and pc games often have dedicated servers, something the xbox rarely has for instance (anyway as far as I know, haven't been playing live for a year)

 

[smithy_2045]

At the moment, I'm paying less than $5 a month for Gold. It's definitely worth it to me.

 

[BelfastSpartan]

Yes it should be free......

we already pay £40/£50 for a game......then extra MS points to get more content (some of which should really have been in the game from the start the developers have just gotten lazy/greedy!!)

wireless adapter (£40)

and now some companies (I'm looking at you EA) have the cheek to charge you £10 for an online 'pass' if you buy 2nd hand!!

So combined it's over £100 to play a game online!! I think it's ridiculous and if I wasn't so in love with gaming I would find a different method of wasting my time

 

[Ferrious]

So combined it's over £100 to play a game online!! I think it's ridiculous and if I wasn't so in love with gaming I would find a different method of wasting my time

It's £100 to pay one game online, if you ONLY ever play that one game. Your adapter is £40 / the number of games you own, and XBL is £40 / number of games that use it you've bought this year. That's like saying I just paid £500 for Fable 3 because I had to buy the game, the console, the router, the phone line install cost, the cable I took from work...

Personally I don't see the issue. I've been on XBL since the beta (I still have the beta kit they sent out over seven years ago), and through every kind of financial hardship I've kept my account running. For me, it is a worthwhile cost. In addition I find that the quality of XBL is generally preferable to the PSN (I also have a PSN+ subscription, which is good in some ways but has its own problems), and sometimes preferable to the PC online experience (ofc, my 360 didn't cost me £1,000 - it'd take several centuries of XBL Gold membership before my 360 ever cost as much as my PC).

Subscriptions I have running: PSN+, XBL Gold, WoW. I think they're all worth what I pay - and that's the issue here. Services are worth what the consumer will pay. I think playing Reach multiplayer was worth my £3.30 (that's less than lunch if I'm out of the office) this month, as was having a quick run around Albion with a friend last night.

This is a capitalist economy - the way to show Microsoft you don't want to pay for XBL Gold is to NOT pay for it. Unfortunately you've been outvoted, most people do want the service and think the cost is fair, and that's how it works.

Would I be happy if it was free? Yes, I'm a consumer, I minimise my costs wherever I can. However the service as stands is worth the cost, and I'd hate to lose some of that service just for £3.

 

[irishstormtrooper]

It would be great if they made it free, but why would they? They have millions of people paying them $70 a year. If they made it free, they would be losing a good part of their revenue stream. And Microsoft would not be a fan of that.

 

[Vivace-Vivian]

I don't think it should be free.

And why? Because then Microsoft may no longer run the servers themselves, and we'll have the issue of game companies running them. The day Demoin's Souls goes down is the day that game becomes trash.

 

[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.

I'm pretty sure Sony are nearly breaking even on each machine (and that was a few months back when I read it).

Back in February they were only losing $18 per unit, as seen here, and they said that production costs wouldn't be scaled back until 2011, so I'm assuming they're still losing it. [http://www.geeky-gadgets.com/sony-losing-money-on-every-ps3-sold-05-02-2010/]

Overall, though, $400 million loss last year for Sony. This could have a lot to do with the free service they provide for PSN.

 

[TPiddy]

360's and PS3's are actually only just starting to turn a profit. The Wii is the only system that was being sold for more than it cost to produce.

As for games, the money goes to the publishers. The console maker won't make a profit from games sales, unless they're directly involved as the publisher or in-house developer (for example, Microsoft Game Studios and Sony Computer Entertainment America/Japan/Europe).

Microsoft and Sony make money from the dev kits they sell (so that a company or person can actually make a title for that platform). That's really the only time they make money.

And as for console exclusives, well, Microsoft and Sony pay the developer/publisher to keep it exclusive.

Now Nintendo is a different story. Most of the Wii games are made by Nintendo or use IPs that belong to Nintendo (e.g. Super Mario, Legend of Zelda, Metroid, et cetera). Therefore, Nintendo usually does make profits from Wii titles.

Actually, 360 has been selling for more than it costs to make since late 2006, when they first introduced the Elite model. What's been killing MS is all the free replacements and repairs they've forked out. Serves them right.

 

[archvile93]

Of course silver shouldn't have multiplayer. If Microsoft dd that, it would really hurt their ability to milk us for all we're worth.

 

[No_Remainders]

Nobody is making you pay for it. If you want to play online, then pay, but if you don't, then you can always play games like Fallout New Vegas or Bioshock or one of the many, many other single player games that are available.

Well, of course I have a choice. If I had a choice between free online multiplayer or paying $8-10 dollars a month for it, I would rather have it for free.

You only have that choice if you don't want to play online on xbox. So either pay the money or stop whining about it.

 

[IamSofaKingRaw]

I don't get why people pay Microsoft money to play online because it's just plain bullshit. Microsoft has to pay for the upkeep of servers on their first party titles I would assume, but very few, if any, Microsoft first party games use dedicated servers in the first place, and 1 of the players in the game is the host so the bandwidth costs are all on the ISP of the host. The game servers just collect and track the player stats and that's all. And paying Microsoft money to play a 3rd party title online is basically the equivalent of bat-shit, insane crazy in my opinion as Microsoft has no expenses whatsoever when people play CoD or Bad Company online. Just tell me one difference between playing CoD on the 360 and PS3. I don't understand cross-game chat whatsoever, I don't wanna be talking to my friends when I'm playing a different game, and the only reason I would talk to them while playing the same game is just for teamwork purposes. I talk to my friends when we hang out together.

PS3 online play is horrendously laggy, nobody has headsets, and it's an overall more annoying experience than Xbox Live. For the price of a single game per year, paying for an online service is not outlandish.

How is the PS3 laggier? One of the players in whatever game you are playing is the host; the laggy-ness of the game is dependent on the player who is the host, not Sony or Microsoft. Very few games use servers as dedicated hosts, it's not like playing CoD on the PS3 is using Sony's servers and playing CoD on the 360 is using Microsoft's servers. And, so what if less PS3 users have headsets as to get a decent online experience you have to mute all the assholes anyways. Actually, most PS3 users do have a headset because you can use any bluetooth headset on the PS3 and almost everyone has at least one bluetooth headset nowadays, which they probably got for free with their cell phone.

This is exactly what I told a guy. If the host is laggy the game will lag. People act as if MW2 doesn't lag on 360 people MS has their own servers for it. Games like KZ2 don't lag b/c Guerilla Games has their own servers. Some people are so ignorant.