What's Wrong with Xbox Live?

[Sicram]

So... basicly PC is better than Xbox 360? Yes thank you very much =)

There's no need to go all rebuilding and stuff, just switch to PC and voila! No problems, sure it might not be that easy if you don't have a pc that can run games like tf2 (and tf2 can run on decently low-end pc's). Why try and convince a fricken' mountain to move and jump through burning hoops when you can switch platform.

 

[kingmob]

If players had to run their servers, they'd just be like the servers in PC games. Laggy, annoying, and formidable to the unexperienced player. Say you want to find play a game, you've had a long day. You sit down to play your favorite console game, and to find a match you have to sift through lists of thousands of servers to try to find one playing a game settings you like that has a decent ping and might have people of your same skill level, and then the countless other factors. Or you just want to be in a game with your friends, you don't want to deal with finding a server with room for all of you and a place where you can be on the same team, that has a good ping for all your friends, etc.

Basically, if you want dedicated self run servers, go play a PC game. Servers have more customization options there, you can run custom mods which are impossible on the Xbox, because they won't allow you to download the necessary files and whatnot. And you can play there for free.

I will stick to letting the Microsoft servers find me a nice multiplayer match, so I can focus on shooting random strangers in their virtual face.

This strange connection between matchmaking and p2p is made everywhere in this thread, but it doesn't exist. Matchmaking is not a result of xboxlive nor the technology it uses. There really are only disadvantages to banning dedicated servers, not in the least because you can always still allow local hosts. I don't get why people are arguing over that part of the article, it's like arguing if gravity points up or down, it is an undeniable fact.

 

[Treblaine]

XBL also has less users. It seems that of those 20 million accounts (against Steam's 25 million back in 2009) only 50% of which even have gold membership. I sure don't have Gold, it's a rip off.]

I can't be bothered to add more arguments in this thread. I just want to point out that information is wrong.

There are around 40 million Xboxs and only half of them are on live.

There are between 19 and 20 million Gold Live accounts.

So your numbers are approximately 10 million off.

So in summary:

-don't want to be "add" more argument
-yet cite "statistics" with no source nor even logic.

I mean you claim over 95% of people who have even created an Xbox Live account (default silver) are paying Gold Members?!?!? HA! No way, not even if it was just $1 per year 20% are too lazy to even reach for a credit card, even more are turned away by the so high actual pricing.

"So your numbers are approximately 10 million off."

Actually, turns out I was almost dead on as was so quickly pointed out to you. But when you are MAKING UP FIGURES ON THE SPOT, how can I possibly match the "numbers" you are imagining in your head? I don't buy it that you "read it in a magazine somewhere" I think you simply Assumed that everyone who can pay for XBL Gold therefore would!

Nope.

XBL's premium pricing is the EXCEPTION amongst all other gaming networks from the very earliest days of PC and Dreamcast to PS3 and Wii. Anyone with experience with any of those would be extremely reluctant to fork over for any such service.

Your complacency - paying and acting content about it - is dragging this industry down, particularly your own platform. Show a bit of backbone and at least state where you would draw the line. Xbox Fans are pushovers, Sony fans complained bitterly and endlessly about Sony till they go their shit together with PS3... now MS is walking all over you, Kinect's utter dismissal of the core audience should be the final straw. That and the mass exodus of talent from Microsoft's studios (Bungie leaving, Bizarre gone, Epic Staying out, Rare crippled and Ensemble Studios liquidated), if Xbox fans spent a little less time being so defensive and a bit more time giving MS even half the shit they deserve then maybe the company would buck their ideas up.

 

[the_pleasure_is_mine]

So in summary:

-don't want to be "add" more argument
-yet cite "statistics" with no source nor even logic.

I mean you claim over 95% of people who have even created an Xbox Live account (default silver) are paying Gold Members?!?!? HA! No way, not even if it was just $1 per year 20% are too lazy to even reach for a credit card, even more are turned away by the so high actual pricing.

"So your numbers are approximately 10 million off."

Actually, turns out I was almost dead on as was so quickly pointed out to you. But when you are MAKING UP FIGURES ON THE SPOT, how can I possibly match the "numbers" you are imagining in your head? I don't buy it that you "read it in a magazine somewhere" I think you simply Assumed that everyone who can pay for XBL Gold therefore would!

Nope.

XBL's premium pricing is the EXCEPTION amongst all other gaming networks from the very earliest days of PC and Dreamcast to PS3 and Wii. Anyone with experience with any of those would be extremely reluctant to fork over for any such service.

Your complacency - paying and acting content about it - is dragging this industry down, particularly your own platform. Show a bit of backbone and at least state where you would draw the line. Xbox Fans are pushovers, Sony fans complained bitterly and endlessly about Sony till they go their shit together with PS3... now MS is walking all over you, Kinect's utter dismissal of the core audience should be the final straw. That and the mass exodus of talent from Microsoft's studios (Bungie leaving, Bizarre gone, Epic Staying out, Rare crippled and Ensemble Studios liquidated), if Xbox fans spent a little less time being so defensive and a bit more time giving MS even half the shit they deserve then maybe the company would buck their ideas up.

Urgh I have to wade through a wall of text filled with superiority and smugness... wonderful.

I don't want to add more argument since I've argued my point enough in this thread... I'm merely suggesting your statistics may be wrong as I have read contesting statistics elsewhere and from an arguably more reliable source.

Okay when I said Live originally I meant Gold Live. Yes I realise I didn't make that clear but you don't earn brownie points for calling me out on it.

I'm not making up figures on the spot if I have read them from a source. I would go and find it but I recently gave away a whole load of my 360 magazines to my ICT teacher so I find it unlikely I have the article anymore.

Now this argument may be disjointed so bear with it.

Why would I care about Kinect? Yeah it ignores core audience, but then again it's pretty much doomed to fail from the start. I see only two happy endings here.
Numero uno; Kinect fails, Microsoft lose money, the penny finally fucking drops, they scrap motion controls for another 6ish years.
Numero dos; Kinect is a massive success, it's fun, people buy into it, larger developers go 'Oh shit they're making money we want to too!', higher quality Kinect games come out while a slight but not significant decline in other games come out, (cause there's way too many FPSs anyway).

I'm kind of confused at the next bit. Bungie leaving... well yeah that's cause they don't want to be tied down as a first party developer. They left to spread games to the PS3 as well. I see no problem with that, they want to reach out to a broader audience.
I don't know who Bizzare are so I can't comment.
Epic are releasing Gears Of War... enough said.
I don't understand the whole Rare crippled thing? Yeah they're working on shit at the moment but that's most likely cause their last few games scored badly among fans... so now they have to do grunt work to make some money before they can do anything worthwhile again.
I miss Ensemble :/ I'll give you that one. Robot and that other company I constantly forget the name of have turned up though. They look fairly promising.

I happen to like my complacency... I'm complacent because I see no reason not to be. There are a few things I disagree with with Microsoft but all in all I have an excellent online service with some amazing games and a few extra features that are hit and miss but generally kinda cool.

I'll start giving MS shit when I personally feel they deserve it. You feel they deserve it? Fine give them shit but don't start condemning me as 'dragging this industry down'. I support devs... I don't give two shits about the people running the platform. When it's not worth my time and money I will stop investing in a yearly subscription..

 

[Macflash]

snippy

This strange connection between matchmaking and p2p is made everywhere in this thread, but it doesn't exist. Matchmaking is not a result of xboxlive nor the technology it uses. There really are only disadvantages to banning dedicated servers, not in the least because you can always still allow local hosts. I don't get why people are arguing over that part of the article, it's like arguing if gravity points up or down, it is an undeniable fact.

yes, but I've never seen a game that combines matchmaking(ala trueskill type matching) with dedicated servers. I think the main thing with dedicated servers that are provided from the game maker, would be that it costs more to keep the servers running than just the matchmaking or server list capabilities. So a console game with no hosting servers can last longer than one with them. Of course if you allow people to host their own servers for console games it's much more complicated. You'd have to create a brand new structure and way to integrate it into the Xbox live service. It'd be a huge feat for just one developer to pull off.

Personally, I don't understand why some people get all misty eyed over dedicated servers. It must be more of an issue for people with poorer internet connections, or really long distance matches.

 

[Macflash]

snip.

snip

snip

Latency is hidden on those, by concealing the actual ping numbers and incredibly invasive latency compensation that just leads to weird stuff happening.

On PC you don't HAVE to join a high-lag server... but with console the choice is made for you.

Yes it is, and I don't really mind that, because, from my experience, it usually finds a match with a good connection (or at least one that doesn't hinder the experience or my enjoyment ofthe game). But I guess I must be the weird exception for this forum. The one person blessed by the good fortune of not having massive lag problems on a console.

 

[Narcogen]

I don't think dedicated servers on Xbox live is a very good idea at all.
How do you run worldwide leaderboards across multiple servers?
[snip]
Anyway, feel free to inform/correct me on that if there's anything I've said that doesn't add up.

NOPE!

Just because ONE SINGLE SERVER that six people join exist does NOT mean there cannot be an over-arching stat-tracking system covering ALL servers that a game might connect to.


Valve Software's very popular Steam Client lets you connect your game to any server, including servers as small as only 4 players, and with supported games still track all achievements, stats, leader-boards and all that crap. And you don't need to know a thing about how it works for it to happen. Just launch the game (don't even have to insert the disc) and join a muliplayer game.

Because Valve, like Microsoft, runs central servers that the Steam Clients talk to that handle this information. They just do it on a scale that is quite a bit smaller than Xbox Live.

Again:

The PEAK number of concurrent (simultaneous at the same time) users logged in Steam for JUST TODAY is over 2.7 million

http://store.steampowered.com/stats/

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/xbox-live-hits-1-5-million-concurrent-users

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/xbox-live-hits-2-million-concurrent-users

It seems Xbox Live has yet to hit 2.5 million concurrent users.

http://www.totalpcgaming.com/latest-pc-news/steam-user-accounts-hit-25-million/

http://www.joystiq.com/2010/01/06/xbox-by-the-numbers-20m-xbox-live-users-10m-nongaming-39m-xbo/

XBL also has less users. It seems that of those 20 million accounts (against Steam's 25 million back in 2009) only 50% of which even have gold membership. I sure don't have Gold, it's a rip off.

One could think about it this way. Steam is a direct competitor to Xbox Live, in that they offer similar services.

However, the barriers to entry for a Steam gamer are actually higher, on average. While you can make a competent gaming rig for around the price of a console, many gamers who choose the PC as their platform will aim higher than that.

PC games don't target a single hardware platform over a range of 5-10 years, the way console games do, so you'll either upgrade your video hardware more often, or tolerate an aesthetic experience that is degraded compared to what other gamers are getting from the same game.

It is not that surprising that given a smaller pool of potential subscribers who have paid a higher price for entry into the market, Steam would choose to make its online service free-- especially when their direct competiton on the same platform (Windows) has historically had online play for free as well.

Steam is not free because it doesn't cost anything to run. It's free because Valve makes enough margin on games to cover that cost, which is lower in aggregate because there are fewer Steam players than XBL players-- and because Steam needs to be free in order to have a viable player base.

If Steam cost per year what XBL did, how many subscribers would they have tomorrow? Isn't that the real measure of the value of what the two platforms offer-- not which one gives away more for free, but which one people are willing to pay for?

Not only have you deflected the debate from poor multiplayer networks to a ridiculous straw-man argument about PC gaming but it is completely unfounded argument.

"so you'll either upgrade your video hardware more often, or tolerate an aesthetic experience that is degraded compared to what other gamers are getting from the same game."

LOL! You do realise that console gaming settles for a "degraded aesthetic experience" for almost every game?

Halo 3 (ODST too) is at only a measly 640p, no anti-aliasing with basic textures and low draw distance (good lighting though). All the COD games on both PS3 + 360 have been at only 1024x600 resolution, barely a sliver more pixels than 576p, that's considered Standard Definition resolution.

You'd have to have a SERIOUSLY WEAK rig to be outperformed by an Xbox 360. ANYTHING other than integrated graphics can beat Xbox 360 at the moment. The cheapest graphics card I can find (ATI Radeon HD 4350 for less than $30!) still outperforms the Xbox 360 release of Modern Warfare 2.

But your argument is an OLD argument, has been discussed to death dozens of times before but it is brought up over and over again (to spite disproving all your negative points against PC) every time Xbox 360's perceived "superiority" is in any way challenged. Quickly make up presumptive and nebulous nonsense about how to dismiss PC gaming usually revolving around how some PC's are more expensive than others.

"Steam is not free because it doesn't cost anything to run. It's free because Valve makes enough margin on games to cover that cost"

SAME FOR XBOX LIVE! If either networks cost anything to run it would be a less than a dollar per-user per-YEAR, too small to charge. Millions of other online services don't insult their user's intelligence with crap like it costs $60 per-person-per-year. Also charging for all that premium DLC and taking their cut. All Valve games have free DLC with Steam, yet must be paid for on Xbox Live. It turns a game like Left 4 Dead 2 from costing $60 game to effectively $80 (btw, I got L4D2 for less than $10 in one of the frequent Steam sales). Microsoft is simply being extortionate with their "service" and it is frankly shameful how their fans rationalise and defend it.

[small](But it MAY not have enough margin from games sales alone to cover the cost of the Xbox 360's incredibly high failure rate and how much they pay for timed exclusives (paid $40 million just to get GTA4 DLC a bit early) and other poor business decisions. But that is Microsoft's fault from poor business strategy, the loyal fans should not have to prop them up. Windows operating system and other services may make Microsoft a profit but I think their Xbox division is still yet to turn a profit.)[/small]

The Xbox Live figures are for players. Not subscribers. Players. The Steam figures you are quoting are "users logged into Steam". That's not players, that's people interacting with the Steam client, not people in a game. Users. Not players. They are careful and exact in the word they choose. The pages I cited are Steam's actual player counts, not user counts. They are not the same. If you want to compare Steam users to something, compare that to all users on XBL, including Silver users, because Silver, like Steam, is free.

Second, Steam is not a subscription service-- it's free. There is no barrier to entry, which means the decision to sign up for Steam, or to login to it to browse the store, is extremely low. It's a very low level of commitment, and the statistics bear that out-- lots of people sign up, but relatively few people are actually playing at any given time. Look again at that page. The top is "concurrent Steam users" and it fluctuates between 1 and 2.7M. You'd have to compare that to the number of concurrently connected Xbox consoles that have at least one silver or gold account and login at startup. Unfortunately MS doesn't release these figures, but it hardly seems reasonable for me to suppose that less than 15% of all connected users power up the console at least once a day. That would put the *average* number of concurrent users (Gold & Silver) on a par with Steam's *peak* concurrent users.

Below that is "top games by current player count" along with peaks. The total of all the peak concurrent players for the top 100 games is a mere 370,389. Compare that to the user peak for the past 48 hours, which was 2.75M, and that means that in any given 48 hour period, if we assume that the user and player counts peak at the same time, only about 13% or so of "connected users" are actually playing a game. It's quite possible that they've never even bought a game through Steam-- since signing up for Steam and logging in is free (just like XBL Silver).

The other figures you cite-- 20M users for XBL, around 50% for Gold subscriptions-- actually make your case much worse, not better. Frankly I wasn't sure the community was quite that large yet, but I'll take your word for it. That means that out of the potential player base of XBL (10M gold subscribers) the concurrent peak was 2M users, or 20% of the entire population. We'll probably see that peak higher with the release of Halo: Reach.

There is absolutely no sense in which the peak concurrent playerbase for all Steams aggregated are comparable to the similar figures for the most popular XBL games, to say absolutely nothing of the service as a whole, or even the PSN playerbase. There is no sense in which the dedicated server model scales to the sizes needed to serve the online console market.

 

[Signa]

Burnout Paradise had a ton of free content released in patches..

I bet you ANYTHING that the reason it was allowed to be given out for free was because of the in-game store features it added with the rest of the content makeover the game received. Valve has not offered anything in-game to allow the flow of more money with their updates.

 

[Narcogen]

Not only have you deflected the debate from poor multiplayer networks to a ridiculous straw-man argument about PC gaming but it is completely unfounded argument.

It's not a straw man. The proposal was directly to replace or augment the way XBL works with how PC gaming works. I am not attacking the way PC gaming works. I am saying the way PC gaming works cannot work for the console market, and one of the reasons is scale, and another is the expressed preference of the subscribers of the XBL platform.

"so you'll either upgrade your video hardware more often, or tolerate an aesthetic experience that is degraded compared to what other gamers are getting from the same game."

LOL! You do realise that console gaming settles for a "degraded aesthetic experience" for almost every game?

Actually, no. You are misconstruing my use of the word "degraded", where I intentionally used a comparative rather than an absolute.

No gamer's aesthetic experience on a console is "degraded" compared to other users on that console, excepting differences in displays. The console itself doesn't matter. This point was relative to the development target being the same, especially with regard to multiplayer. Aside from distinctions between SD and HD displays (which are admittedly significant) console developers have reasonable expectations that the graphical capabilities of every user's console are equivalent.

Yes, the console experience is "degraded" compared to a mid to high range PC game, but that's largely a hypothetical argument. Very few games allow multiplayer directly between PC and console clients. There are simply too many balance issues. The point was that the graphical differential doesn't exist between console clients. PC gamers in a multiplayer game can be in the same game on the same server and be having wildly different aesthetic experiences, due to differences both in displays used and hardware capabilities.

Halo 3 (ODST too) is at only a measly 640p, no anti-aliasing with basic textures and low draw distance (good lighting though). All the COD games on both PS3 + 360 have been at only 1024x600 resolution, barely a sliver more pixels than 576p, that's considered Standard Definition resolution.

I don't really care about any of that, though. I don't get a thrill out of knowing how many pixels I'm pushing, or whether I'm pushing more pixels than the guy next to me, or if I'm pushing more pixels than I was last week or last month. You've just missed my point entirely, which was that while console may compromise on the maximum quality they can generate, they generate that same quality for everyone and at a lower price point and with less inconvenience than on a PC. I used to be a PC gamer. When my hobby switched from being "tinkering with gaming equipment" to "playing a game once in awhile when I have a chance" the console was the way to go. Before I bought the original Xbox, the last console I'd owned was the Atari 2600.

You'd have to have a SERIOUSLY WEAK rig to be outperformed by an Xbox 360. ANYTHING other than integrated graphics can beat Xbox 360 at the moment. The cheapest graphics card I can find (ATI Radeon HD 4350 for less than $30!) still outperforms the Xbox 360 release of Modern Warfare 2.

...and your point is?

But your argument is an OLD argument, has been discussed to death dozens of times before but it is brought up over and over again (to spite disproving all your negative points against PC) every time Xbox 360's perceived "superiority" is in any way challenged. Quickly make up presumptive and nebulous nonsense about how to dismiss PC gaming usually revolving around how some PC's are more expensive than others.

Actually I haven't alleged that the Xbox is superior to anything. It happens to be the console I own because it plays games I want to play.

I will say that once you leave the niche market of people who like tinkering with gaming rigs, as you put it, the way Xbox Live handles online play is superior to the traditional server browser, and generally on a par with the way Steam works (which borrows extensively from XBL for many of its features).

"Steam is not free because it doesn't cost anything to run. It's free because Valve makes enough margin on games to cover that cost"

SAME FOR XBOX LIVE! If either networks cost anything to run it would be a less than a dollar per-user per-YEAR, too small to charge.

This, sir, is an absolutely ludicrous statement, and it hinders me from taking much else that follows seriously.

Does Microsoft make margin on subscriptions? I dare say they do. Is the real cost to develop, test, maintain, deploy, operate and support XBL one dollar per year per user? I sincerely doubt it.

Millions of other online services don't insult their user's intelligence with crap like it costs $60 per-person-per-year. Also charging for all that premium DLC and taking their cut. All Valve games have free DLC with Steam, yet must be paid for on Xbox Live. It turns a game like Left 4 Dead 2 from costing $60 game to effectively $80 (btw, I got L4D2 for less than $10 in one of the frequent Steam sales). Microsoft is simply being extortionate with their "service" and it is frankly shameful how their fans rationalise and defend it.

It's not shameful at all, it's just a basic understanding of economics.

Valve believes it has to buy the goodwill of fans and Steam subscribers with freebies. Since they develop, publish and distribute their own games (aggregating all the margin individual parties would get for those otherwise separate functions) and the games they make are both very good and very popular, they can afford this as a cost of doing business. As a way to promote their studio and their distribution platform (as a platform for Steam games) it makes perfect sense.

The problem, of course, is that this sets the bar for DLC on Steam essentially at zero-- not just for Valve, but for everyone. Who can allege that their DLC is worth paying for when the flagship developer on the service, Valve, gives so much away for free? Ultimately this puts the value of all DLC to zero, which might be fine for AAA developers like Valve and Bungie, but probably doesn't give much incentive for anyone besides them to bother making DLC, or for Microsoft to expend resources distributing it.

[small](But it MAY not have enough margin from games sales alone to cover the cost of the Xbox 360's incredibly high failure rate and how much they pay for timed exclusives (paid $40 million just to get GTA4 DLC a bit early) and other poor business decisions. But that is Microsoft's fault from poor business strategy, the loyal fans should not have to prop them up. Windows operating system and other services may make Microsoft a profit but I think their Xbox division is still yet to turn a profit.)[/small]

Whether it is a profitable business model over a prolonged period is yet to be determined-- but the same can easily be said of Steam. While the division that plays host to XBL does not turn a profit every quarter, when there are tentpole releases, it does. It posted a $165M profit in Q2 of 2009.

Steam does not release revenue or profitability figures. Nor do they release sales figures. For first-party titles like the Halo series, Microsoft and Valve probably make similar percentages, as they both develop and publish the game. The portion that they sell through Steam they receive more on because there is no retailer to share with, but by the same token, they are foregoing subscription revenue which MS receives and foregoing DLC revenue which MS (and developers) receive.

That they are now willing to chase the extremely small Mac gaming market, and spend resources developing Steam for the Mac, as well as porting some of their catalog, tells me something about how many users they think they need, and how many they have. (This is speaking as a satisfied longtime Mac owner, who used to play some games on the platform, back before the Bungie buyout.)

I in no way feel I am "propping up" any poor business decisions Microsoft has made. I feel I am paying a fair price for a service I use. I do not use the word "free" as the yardstick for measuring my available options.

I'd say that if Valve's business model is to cater to those who want services and content for free, then in the long run, that's a poor business decision. They are leaving money on the table in order to grow the base, but without a beachhead in the console market (let's see what Steamworks can do on PSN) there's not much more growth to be had.

As a way for Valve to make more money on each game sold, Steam and Steamworks are a stroke of genius.

As a model for how network gaming should operate on consoles, the server browser is broken and outmoded.

The two ideas are only tangentially related. They are connected only insofar as they show that the most successful integrated distribution platform and online play service in the PC world (Steam and Steamworks) are still significantly smaller than either of the two major console online services, and so some of the methods deployed in that market (server browsers) may not scale.

 

[Narcogen]

By your own figures there are more players on xbl than steam, yet a smaller community can support more dedicated servers?

Yes, because willingness is a factor. It is not unreasonable to assume that a higher percentage of the gamers willing to host a server are already gaming on the PC.

To add the same model to XBL, even as an option, requires a similar percentage of a larger base to make the same commitment, even while probably getting fewer advantages from it. When you consider that dedicated servers would be a cost on top of XBL subscriptions, it becomes even less attractive to the already smaller, percentage-wise, slice of the market that'd be willing to bear such expenses.

I don't think anyone is advocating the removal of the current model. Just adding it as an alternative for those that want it.

The problem is that the matchmaking type of model, more than the server browser, depends on critical mass. It's one of the reason why Bungie puts so much effort into Playlists-- because getting people in and out of matches relatively quickly, while offering a wide enough variety of maps and gametypes, depend mostly on how large a population you have to draw on. Playlists that attract more players make matches more quickly. That's why playlists aren't made strictly on map or gametype lines, but types of games (a mix of slayer and objective games on a selection of maps) so that while no one gets their favorites all the time, everyone's favorite gets a turn once in awhile.

There already is a credible alternative to this model-- the friends list.

To further divide the population probably doesn't make sense. If few people use the server browser, you probably can't justify developing and supporting it. If a lot of people use it, matchmaking becomes less effective.

I've been on-line gaming for 10+ years, mostly on PC. When I first started I just joined random servers, added the ones I like to favourites and blocked the bad ones. I built up friendships with people on-line that simply has not been possible in random matchmaking console gaming. I like the pub metaphor you might try several before you find one you like, so you keep going back.

There's no particular reason this should be so. Those people you met on random servers were exactly that-- random. They were just as random as the people you meet in matchmaking. They are people online in the same games, at the same time, with a reasonable ping between themselves and you-- in other words, exactly the sort of people you'd expect to see frequenting a server.

There's no architectural reason that one system led you to build relationships and the other doesn't. It might be the specific people involved, but both those groups are randomly selected from a population meeting the same basic characteristics.

I pay for a dedicated server along with some of these people I met on-line (non of my real-life friends play much on-line) it gave us control to set our own rules of conduct and play standards. We could also close the serve to the public and play private games. It was in a data centre so ping was good and the server was reliable. In the end we were running about 5-6 different games, most were full all the time.

Maintaining a good friends list achieves this just as well as a dedicated server, and does so with less hassle. I don't like randoms either and rarely play with them-- although if and when I want the option, it is there and still works better than a server browser.

The best use is to team up with friends and fight against randoms-- that's the use case XBL is built around.

My gaming time is precious to me I don't want to play with randoms all the time I'd rather pay for a server and enjoy my gaming than have to play with idiots, racists and TK'ers.

I can appreciate that you've chosen the experience that best suits your habits and preferences. So have I. However, by suggesting that XBL should be changed to work more like PC gaming (even as an option) you are asking your choice to infringe upon mine in a way I find unacceptable-- whereas I am not suggesting that Steam in particular or PC gaming in general needs to change or adapt to fit my requirements.

As a paying XBL subscriber, I expect that my opinion on how the service works is something that Microsoft responds to (in aggregate, not to me in particular). Steam users pay nothing, though, so it's unclear how that works. Perhaps I should sign up, join the Steam forums, and ask for Valve to implement matchmaking-- as an option? How would that be looked upon?

Can't see it happening though. Consoles are a closed system, it is all about control. Do MS want you to still be playing Halo1, no they don't they want you to buy reach.

Halo 1 had no online multiplayer. I suppose you mean Halo 2, which was the first version that supported XBL.

I'm more than willing to believe MS is pretty evil almost all of the time, but this really doesn't make sense. There are good technical reasons why all original XBL games are unsupported now-- not just Halo.

Certainly if Reach were the incentive, MS would shut down H3 online play-- isn't that a much bigger threat to Reach than Halo 2? It's more recent, is a native 360 title, and is very popular. If MS really needed to shut down an old game to support a new one, isn't Halo 3 the one to target, not antiquated old Halo 2?

If anything, the move to shut down the old version of XBL (which supported original Xboxes and only original Xboxes) was to reduce legacy costs, promote hardware 360 purchases, and XBL subscriptions. (The old XBL had no silver-- it was subscription ONLY).

Valve have a good balance between power and community, CS is still going (a free game!) and valve have very much built their business model on the back of such a dedicated community.

That's a great basis for the business model of a developer and publisher. I'm not entirely certain it is a longterm, reliable, and scalable model for the owner of a true distribution platform-- and I'm hardly the first to say so. By offering DLC for free, Valve has devalued all DLC on the platform. By making online play free indefinitely for all games, they have devalued online play. With those policies in place, Steam is a great platform for Valve games, but little else.

 

[Treblaine]

So in summary:

-don't want to be "add" more argument
-yet cite "statistics" with no source nor even logic.

I mean you claim over 95% of people who have even created an Xbox Live account (default silver) are paying Gold Members?!?!? HA! No way, not even if it was just $1 per year 20% are too lazy to even reach for a credit card, even more are turned away by the so high actual pricing.

"So your numbers are approximately 10 million off."

Actually, turns out I was almost dead on as was so quickly pointed out to you. But when you are MAKING UP FIGURES ON THE SPOT, how can I possibly match the "numbers" you are imagining in your head? I don't buy it that you "read it in a magazine somewhere" I think you simply Assumed that everyone who can pay for XBL Gold therefore would!

Nope.

XBL's premium pricing is the EXCEPTION amongst all other gaming networks from the very earliest days of PC and Dreamcast to PS3 and Wii. Anyone with experience with any of those would be extremely reluctant to fork over for any such service.

Your complacency - paying and acting content about it - is dragging this industry down, particularly your own platform. Show a bit of backbone and at least state where you would draw the line. Xbox Fans are pushovers, Sony fans complained bitterly and endlessly about Sony till they go their shit together with PS3... now MS is walking all over you, Kinect's utter dismissal of the core audience should be the final straw. That and the mass exodus of talent from Microsoft's studios (Bungie leaving, Bizarre gone, Epic Staying out, Rare crippled and Ensemble Studios liquidated), if Xbox fans spent a little less time being so defensive and a bit more time giving MS even half the shit they deserve then maybe the company would buck their ideas up.

Urgh I have to wade through a wall of text filled with superiority and smugness... wonderful.

I don't want to add more argument since I've argued my point enough in this thread... I'm merely suggesting your statistics may be wrong as I have read contesting statistics elsewhere and from an arguably more reliable source.

Okay when I said Live originally I meant Gold Live. Yes I realise I didn't make that clear but you don't earn brownie points for calling me out on it.

I'm not making up figures on the spot if I have read them from a source. I would go and find it but I recently gave away a whole load of my 360 magazines to my ICT teacher so I find it unlikely I have the article anymore.

Now this argument may be disjointed so bear with it.

Why would I care about Kinect? Yeah it ignores core audience, but then again it's pretty much doomed to fail from the start. I see only two happy endings here.
Numero uno; Kinect fails, Microsoft lose money, the penny finally fucking drops, they scrap motion controls for another 6ish years.
Numero dos; Kinect is a massive success, it's fun, people buy into it, larger developers go 'Oh shit they're making money we want to too!', higher quality Kinect games come out while a slight but not significant decline in other games come out, (cause there's way too many FPSs anyway).

I'm kind of confused at the next bit. Bungie leaving... well yeah that's cause they don't want to be tied down as a first party developer. They left to spread games to the PS3 as well. I see no problem with that, they want to reach out to a broader audience.
I don't know who Bizzare are so I can't comment.
Epic are releasing Gears Of War... enough said.
I don't understand the whole Rare crippled thing? Yeah they're working on shit at the moment but that's most likely cause their last few games scored badly among fans... so now they have to do grunt work to make some money before they can do anything worthwhile again.
I miss Ensemble :/ I'll give you that one. Robot and that other company I constantly forget the name of have turned up though. They look fairly promising.

I happen to like my complacency... I'm complacent because I see no reason not to be. There are a few things I disagree with with Microsoft but all in all I have an excellent online service with some amazing games and a few extra features that are hit and miss but generally kinda cool.

I'll start giving MS shit when I personally feel they deserve it. You feel they deserve it? Fine give them shit but don't start condemning me as 'dragging this industry down'. I support devs... I don't give two shits about the people running the platform. When it's not worth my time and money I will stop investing in a yearly subscription..

Well you say I am guilty of "wall o text" responses? Look at the volume of your prose, the post I made was a very reasonable size. You are also contradicting yourself on what you say you said about XBL. You specifically said 20 Million Xbox Live Gold users.

Also there is a third option that Microsoft could have taken (and could and should take now even) that both Sony and Nintendo have taken:

Support the core gamers, the loyal fans, from the start

Look at what Wii offered the core within the first year of launch for the new motion controls:
-Twilight Princess
-Super Mario Galaxy
-Metroid Prime 3: Corruption
-Resident Evil 4: Wii Edition
-Resident Evil: umbrella chronicles

Also since their Motion Plus add on they have addressed the core:
-Red Steel 2
-Zelda: Skyward Sword
-Conduit 2

From coming soon from Sony with Move support:
-Ape Escape Fury! Fury!
-Infamous 2
-Killzone 3
-LittleBigPlanet 2
-Time Crisis: Razing Storm
-SOCOM 4
-EchoChrome2
(countless others from third parties other than Sony)

Microsoft are sticking so rigidly with the "(in soviet russia) YOU are the controller!" that they refuse to even openly consider that Kinect could be used simultaneously with a gamepad or with devices that can have their position tracked more precisely - like for better aiming.

But with such a meek and zealous fanbase, Microsoft know they can get away with selling them up river and pandering to that quick-and-easy casual market money. I mean right now they are WORSE THAN NINTENDO ever was with Wii! Fable 3 removed all Kinect integration. Digital foundry has an incredibly cutting analysis of Kinect:

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-the-case-for-kinect-article

But if you all hadn't taken this bullshit deferential and "wait and see" attitude with Microsoft then you wouldn't have ended up in this mess. It is amazing how any criticisms from Xbox users are dismissed as "Sony fanboys" or "PC fanboys" just being instigators. Do you REALLY trust Microsoft to sort their own shit out without popular backlash?

BTW: it IS all Microsoft's fault that their studios are so screwed up. Sony's studios have stuck with them since the mid-90's, MS drove Bungie away in half the time. I mean crap like having Ensemble studios make Halo Wars then as soon as the game is done liquidise the studio and fire everyone before the game even reaches shelves. But the popular voice of the fans quash and wide dissent and Microsoft again gets away with trashing their own brand till one point it just gets too much.

I'm not asking you to abandon your Xbox 360, I am asking all Xbox fans to realise what Microsoft is doing and stop defending them so zealously.

 

[the_pleasure_is_mine]

Well you say I am guilty of "wall o text" responses? Look at the volume of your prose, the post I made was a very reasonable size.

Exactly why I hate wall of text posts... cause then I respond with wall of text to I don't miss any arguments and there ends up being stupidly long quotes in a page.

You are also contradicting yourself on what you say you said about XBL. You specifically said 20 Million Xbox Live Gold users.

Yes and that's exactly what I mean. When I said I didn't specify between Silver and Gold I meant that the 20 million were people with active gold and the rest were either offline or silver.

Also there is a third option that Microsoft could have taken (and could and should take now even) that both Sony and Nintendo have taken:

Support the core gamers, the loyal fans, from the start

The ones who also are generally quite picky? Yes they should do that. I'm not disagreeing with you on that. But in all honesty the are companies. If they can market crap to those who don't know the difference for a fraction of the cost and 4 times the profit then they will.

Look at what Wii offered the core within the first year of launch for the new motion controls:
-Twilight Princess
-Super Mario Galaxy
-Metroid Prime 3: Corruption
-Resident Evil 4: Wii Edition
-Resident Evil: umbrella chronicles

Also since their Motion Plus add on they have addressed the core:
-Red Steel 2
-Zelda: Skyward Sword
-Conduit 2

From coming soon from Sony with Move support:
-Ape Escape Fury! Fury!
-Infamous 2
-Killzone 3
-LittleBigPlanet 2
-Time Crisis: Razing Storm
-SOCOM 4
-EchoChrome2
(countless others from third parties other than Sony)

I'm not sure of the point here. I don't know much about Move and I generally don't pay attention to anything about the Wii so most of that lost me.

Microsoft are sticking so rigidly with the "(in soviet russia) YOU are the controller!" that they refuse to even openly consider that Kinect could be used simultaneously with a gamepad or with devices that can have their position tracked more precisely - like for better aiming.

Simultaneously with a game pad... umm do you mean like them both connected at once? Cause I don't see the immediate benefit but you sound like you might have a nice idea somewhere. I like how some devs are trying to push Kinect to be good. Peter Molyneux for example. He may be crazy but he is awesome too.

But with such a meek and zealous fanbase, Microsoft know they can get away with selling them up river and pandering to that quick-and-easy casual market money. I mean right now they are WORSE THAN NINTENDO ever was with Wii! Fable 3 removed all Kinect integration. Digital foundry has an incredibly cutting analysis of Kinect:

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-the-case-for-kinect-article

But if you all hadn't taken this bullshit deferential and "wait and see" attitude with Microsoft then you wouldn't have ended up in this mess. It is amazing how any criticisms from Xbox users are dismissed as "Sony fanboys" or "PC fanboys" just being instigators. Do you REALLY trust Microsoft to sort their own shit out without popular backlash?

YOU PC FANBOY- oh wait... no I don't dismiss others opinions as elitism. I disagree with your opinion but hey I can't tell you it's wrong. I'm just offering an alternative opinion for you to think on.

Well Microsoft are already seeing a core backlash on Kinect. I see the Kinect failing possibility a lot more likely. My brothers getting it (he's 10, it's fine) so I'm glad I can try it out without spending my own money. But unless scenario two happens then I don't think Kinect will kick off much.

BTW: it IS all Microsoft's fault that their studios are so screwed up. Sony's studios have stuck with them since the mid-90's, MS drove Bungie away in half the time. I mean crap like having Ensemble studios make Halo Wars then as soon as the game is done liquidise the studio and fire everyone before the game even reaches shelves. But the popular voice of the fans quash and wide dissent and Microsoft again gets away with trashing their own brand till one point it just gets too much.

I don't understand how they drove them away?

Bungie created one of the most popular series in the history of gaming. They want there next IP to be available to more people. That's not Microsoft driving them away. That's Bungie knowing what they want their next step to be.

I don't really know what happened with Ensemble... but Halo Wars was an excellent console RTS. Whether you think it was good or not, it did what most RTS' on the console fail to ever do, actually work.

I'm not asking you to abandon your Xbox 360, I am asking all Xbox fans to realise what Microsoft is doing and stop defending them so zealously.

I try to make my 'defending' of Microsoft apply to as large a base as possible. Yes this is bases around Microsoft, but most of my arguments I try and make it so they apply to other large companies. That's not always possible but I do my best.

I am actually an aspiring game dev (aspiring sounds so pathetic) so I try and keep up with what's going on in the business, who's making money, what's now controversial, the next big thing etc etc. And Seriously I think Microsoft is going to lose loads of money on Kinect then shape up again for a while.

I'm just waiting for the hilarity after Kinect launches and the reviews come pouring in from all corners of the internet.

(That took a long time and I haven't done that kind of sectioned quoting on such a large post before, if it's screwed up I apologise but I'm doing this while eating a burger and playing Reach)

 

[Something Amyss]

Burnout Paradise had a ton of free content released in patches..

I bet you ANYTHING that the reason it was allowed to be given out for free was because of the in-game store features it added with the rest of the content makeover the game received. Valve has not offered anything in-game to allow the flow of more money with their updates.

So you've covered one game of several with free content.

 

[Signa]

Burnout Paradise had a ton of free content released in patches..

I bet you ANYTHING that the reason it was allowed to be given out for free was because of the in-game store features it added with the rest of the content makeover the game received. Valve has not offered anything in-game to allow the flow of more money with their updates.

So you've covered one game of several with free content.

Well, the only other game you listed that I've played the free DLC for was RB2, and those songs were practically promotional. I've never heard them before or after playing them in-game.

I guess what I was getting at in my first post is that while you made a good point, I think I have an idea where that very subjective line is that MS has drawn, and the only game you listed that I knew crossed that line was Burnout. I was just pointing out why it got a free pass and Valve games did not. I also suspect that because Valve games sell really well on average with players who continue to play a long time after release, MS doesn't want to give away free content to one of their larger cash-cows. If you were MS, which would you green-light faster for free DLC: Extra massive levels in Bullet Witch, or an extra test chamber for Portal?

 

[Treblaine]

"so you'll either upgrade your video hardware more often, or tolerate an aesthetic experience that is degraded compared to what other gamers are getting from the same game."

LOL! You do realise that console gaming settles for a "degraded aesthetic experience" for almost every game?

Actually, no. You are misconstruing my use of the word "degraded", where I intentionally used a comparative rather than an absolute.

No gamer's aesthetic experience on a console is "degraded" compared to other users on that console, excepting differences in displays. The console itself doesn't matter. This point was relative to the development target being the same, especially with regard to multiplayer. Aside from distinctions between SD and HD displays (which are admittedly significant) console developers have reasonable expectations that the graphical capabilities of every user's console are equivalent.

Yes, the console experience is "degraded" compared to a mid to high range PC game, but that's largely a hypothetical argument. Very few games allow multiplayer directly between PC and console clients. There are simply too many balance issues. The point was that the graphical differential doesn't exist between console clients. PC gamers in a multiplayer game can be in the same game on the same server and be having wildly different aesthetic experiences, due to differences both in displays used and hardware capabilities.

That I find frankly communistic:

"we may all have a shit experience but at least we all have an EQUALLY shit experience"

Except of course Host-advantage. Might I add that you extraordinary tech illiteracy is GLARINGLY OBVIOUS when you talk of peer-to-peer multiplayer being anything over than the far inferior to the Client-server model for actual CONSUMER SATISFACTION!

Stop kissing Xbox's ass, this isn't about how peer-to-peer is cheaper and easier to exploit, this is about the gamers.

Halo 3 (ODST too) is at only a measly 640p, no anti-aliasing with basic textures and low draw distance (good lighting though). All the COD games on both PS3 + 360 have been at only 1024x600 resolution, barely a sliver more pixels than 576p, that's considered Standard Definition resolution.

I don't really care about any of that, though. I don't get a thrill out of knowing how many pixels I'm pushing, or whether I'm pushing more pixels than the guy next to me, or if I'm pushing more pixels than I was last week or last month. You've just missed my point entirely, which was that while console may compromise on the maximum quality they can generate, they generate that same quality for everyone and at a lower price point and with less inconvenience than on a PC. I used to be a PC gamer. When my hobby switched from being "tinkering with gaming equipment" to "playing a game once in awhile when I have a chance" the console was the way to go. Before I bought the original Xbox, the last console I'd owned was the Atari 2600.

Oh your tech illiteracy AGAIN shows you out. Resolution is not a pointless statistic is has HUGE SIGNIFICANCE of the aesthetic quality of games


"while console may compromise on the maximum quality they can generate, they generate that same quality for everyone and at a lower price point"

Are you kidding? Or do you ACTUALLY believe that? You even contradict yourself in the same sentence with "compromised quality" then "same quality" but it's you GALL to say 360 offers a good price

Xbox 360 cost a fucking extortionate amount:
-$50 per year since 2005, $60 from now till 2015 = $550 = this MORE THAN covers incremental PC upgrade costs
-Overpriced proprietary peripherals over lifetime like: Wifi adapter, Hard Drives 5x ordinary price, wireless headset, and not forgetting the $150 Kinect or abandoned peripherals like 360-camera or HD-DVD drive.
-Replacing the unavoidable RROD out of warranty consoles over a 10 year cycle
-Premium DLC: usually free on competing platforms like PC. Just read what Valve has to say about this.
-Overpriced games both boxed and especially on XBLA usually 2x what they cost on any PC DLC service like Steam, GOG, EA.store, etc

Xbox 360 overall costs more than a potent gaming PC yet does FAR less and to utilise many of the services (like netflix) you need a PC to use anyway.

You'd have to have a SERIOUSLY WEAK rig to be outperformed by an Xbox 360. ANYTHING other than integrated graphics can beat Xbox 360 at the moment. The cheapest graphics card I can find (ATI Radeon HD 4350 for less than $30!) still outperforms the Xbox 360 release of Modern Warfare 2.

...and your point is?

But your argument is an OLD argument, has been discussed to death dozens of times before but it is brought up over and over again (to spite disproving all your negative points against PC) every time Xbox 360's perceived "superiority" is in any way challenged. Quickly make up presumptive and nebulous nonsense about how to dismiss PC gaming usually revolving around how some PC's are more expensive than others.

Actually I haven't alleged that the Xbox is superior to anything. It happens to be the console I own because it plays games I want to play.

I will say that once you leave the niche market of people who like tinkering with gaming rigs, as you put it, the way Xbox Live handles online play is superior to the traditional server browser, and generally on a par with the way Steam works (which borrows extensively from XBL for many of its features).

You think because you used a Mac back in the 90's you know ANYTHING about PC? "tinkering" is a smaller and far less frequent problem than hanging on premium-rate support lies to fix faulty Xbox 360s or dealing with 360 chewing it's own discs (which has proven to happen even with careful use in a house with normal vibrations like walking near a running console.

Steam was launched in 2003... back when Xbox Live didn't even have a home-page and was little more than an internet protocol. There is as much inspiration from Steam.

Though I accept that some people just want a stripped down and basic gaming experience... but it's the attitude that there is nothing greater to aspire to and how people usually progress from console to PC gaming are happy to stay locked in Microsoft's walled garden... that's what disappoints me.

"Steam is not free because it doesn't cost anything to run. It's free because Valve makes enough margin on games to cover that cost"

SAME FOR XBOX LIVE! If either networks cost anything to run it would be a less than a dollar per-user per-YEAR, too small to charge.

This, sir, is an absolutely ludicrous statement, and it hinders me from taking much else that follows seriously.

Does Microsoft make margin on subscriptions? I dare say they do. Is the real cost to develop, test, maintain, deploy, operate and support XBL one dollar per year per user? I sincerely doubt it.

12 million dollars per year for 12 million Gold Users... yeah, probably, they certainly won't all be online at once, peaking at around 2 million concurrent. Most of the hard work is done by the CONSOLES that people have actually bought and play host (in peer-to-peer games), and the connection load is taken up by the ISPs that AGAIN you pay for when you pay your telephone company for broadband internet.
Develop: that is a ONE OFF initial cost. Steve Zuckerberg made the initial Facebook website almost single-handedly on his own time, that now tracks 10'000x more data than all those matchmaking and achievements stats... for free.
Deploy: YOU paid for that when you bought an Xbox and connected it to the internet
Operate: it really is on par with running a popular website.
Support: You could fit the entire tech team into a lifeboat. Not Tech support phonelines staff though, and they are paid for by premium rate calls.

It sure as hell doesn't cost $60 per-user per-year! Not 720 MILLION DOLLARS! Not a tiny fraction of that. THINK about it, how much load youtube must have to handle per user especially over an entire year? Yet they'd never dare charge subscription to view the service (XBL has ads just like youtube).

Millions of other online services don't insult their user's intelligence with crap like it costs $60 per-person-per-year. Also charging for all that premium DLC and taking their cut. All Valve games have free DLC with Steam, yet must be paid for on Xbox Live. It turns a game like Left 4 Dead 2 from costing $60 game to effectively $80 (btw, I got L4D2 for less than $10 in one of the frequent Steam sales). Microsoft is simply being extortionate with their "service" and it is frankly shameful how their fans rationalise and defend it.

It's not shameful at all, it's just a basic understanding of economics.

Valve believes it has to buy the goodwill of fans and Steam subscribers with freebies. Since they develop, publish and distribute their own games (aggregating all the margin individual parties would get for those otherwise separate functions) and the games they make are both very good and very popular, they can afford this as a cost of doing business. As a way to promote their studio and their distribution platform (as a platform for Steam games) it makes perfect sense.

The problem, of course, is that this sets the bar for DLC on Steam essentially at zero-- not just for Valve, but for everyone. Who can allege that their DLC is worth paying for when the flagship developer on the service, Valve, gives so much away for free? Ultimately this puts the value of all DLC to zero, which might be fine for AAA developers like Valve and Bungie, but probably doesn't give much incentive for anyone besides them to bother making DLC, or for Microsoft to expend resources distributing it.

"It's not shameful at all, it's just a basic understanding Exploitation of economics."

Fixed for you. Just because xbox is making money doesn't make everything all right.

"Valve believes it has to buy the goodwill of fans "

Xbox sure as hell think it doesn't have to buy goodwill, they'd rather have you pay top-dollar for bargain-basement off the shelf crap than after a bit of song an dance spin it that you're getting a good deal. EVERY COMPANY HAS TO BUY IT'S FANS GOODWILL!

You seem to act as if Xbox simply for being xbox has a sense of entitlement to reverence and glory! Bullshit! You have invested and committed yourself to a system now you have to rationalise your situation to stave off buyer's remorse.

"The problem, of course, is that this sets the bar for DLC on Steam essentially at zero"

Only an Xbox fan would call free DLC a "problem", stop being such a corporate stooge and stand up for the consumer once in a while. BTW, Ubisoft does charge for DLC on Steam and Activision as well... no idea if anyone actually buys it. You clearly know less than nothing about Steam or PC gaming, just blatantly false assumptions.

"doesn't give much incentive for Microsoft to expend resources distributing DLC. "

AHHH HA HA HA HA!!!

What, you think they have a courier hand deliver each byte of DLC to each user? Fuck sake, you put a download link and a price tag up on the page, a half an hour job for a single low paid code-monkey and vanishingly small upload costs, the process can even be automated so an accountant just has to click a button once they're happy with the price. It is probably harder to sell it and just have it as an automatic update that it may be more trouble than it is worth (accountants cost money).

Valve has used DLC far better, to self-advertise the game and keep it relevant, even 3 years after release a new update puts TF2 right at the top of Escapist and other websites' newsfeed. That sells the game.

Please, I own and extensively use both a gaming PC and an Xbox 360 (also a PS3) so don't think you can pull the wool over my eyes. I know how both sides work, you are speaking from a position of clear ignorance and significant prejudice.

 

[Treblaine]

The Xbox Live figures are for players. Not subscribers. Players.

Liar. This is the source:

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/xbox-live-hits-2-million-concurrent-users

[HEADING=1]USERS!!![/HEADING]

Massive wall of text argument based on a either a fundamental misunderstanding or just such a bold faced lie that you thought you'd get away with it. I think like so many xbox fans you are lying to yourself.

 

[Something Amyss]

Well, the only other game you listed that I've played the free DLC for was RB2, and those songs were practically promotional. I've never heard them before or after playing them in-game.

I guess what I was getting at in my first post is that while you made a good point, I think I have an idea where that very subjective line is that MS has drawn, and the only game you listed that I knew crossed that line was Burnout. I was just pointing out why it got a free pass and Valve games did not. I also suspect that because Valve games sell really well on average with players who continue to play a long time after release, MS doesn't want to give away free content to one of their larger cash-cows. If you were MS, which would you green-light faster for free DLC: Extra massive levels in Bullet Witch, or an extra test chamber for Portal?

So they greenlit free DLC for Monday Night Combat, as well as MNC being able to "stealth patch" and there being promised updates. Which do you think is more likely: That they wouldn't green light Valve but would a 12 man company with no credits yet to this masthead, or Valve is just being obstinate because there's nothing in it for them?

I get what you're saying, in terms of "which is more likely to be green lit," but it doesn't pass the smell test.

 

[Signa]

Well, the only other game you listed that I've played the free DLC for was RB2, and those songs were practically promotional. I've never heard them before or after playing them in-game.

I guess what I was getting at in my first post is that while you made a good point, I think I have an idea where that very subjective line is that MS has drawn, and the only game you listed that I knew crossed that line was Burnout. I was just pointing out why it got a free pass and Valve games did not. I also suspect that because Valve games sell really well on average with players who continue to play a long time after release, MS doesn't want to give away free content to one of their larger cash-cows. If you were MS, which would you green-light faster for free DLC: Extra massive levels in Bullet Witch, or an extra test chamber for Portal?

So they greenlit free DLC for Monday Night Combat, as well as MNC being able to "stealth patch" and there being promised updates. Which do you think is more likely: That they wouldn't green light Valve but would a 12 man company with no credits yet to this masthead, or Valve is just being obstinate because there's nothing in it for them?

I get what you're saying, in terms of "which is more likely to be green lit," but it doesn't pass the smell test.

Once again, I don't see how that defeats the "money for Microsoft" argument. I've never heard of this Monday Night Combat, and if it was made by a 12 man team, how likely is the content updates going to be of value to Microsoft? The game might make it's own money back if it didn't cost much to make, but how is it possibly going to be any sort of a cash cow for MS? TF2 on the other hand would be obnoxious to try to handle all the multiple tiers of players who would be playing with purchased weapons while others without them couldn't join them. Even if it's Valve that is being problematic in this issue, it's still a logistics issue when dealing with the rules of the LIVE marketplace. All players must be on equal tiers of available content, so that's just not going to happen if each player has to buy each character's new equipment separately. You are right that there is nothing in it for Valve to make updates for TF2 on the Xbox, but that's not because they don't care. It's because of the rules and restrictions that MS has put in place that has caused them to stop caring.

Also, patches are acceptable "free" content, so if there are bug fixes being implemented into MNC, then you can hardly call that new content.

 

[Varun Garuda Maharaj]

The final sentence caught my attention the most, I don't know shitabout playing online(even though i have already done so).but why is Microsoft doing this to us Xbox fans?

 

[blushmoe]

PC gaming, you either come up way on top, or completely in the toilet!