Tendo City

http://gamespot.com/gamespot/stories/new...24,00.html

Apparently, Live is being subscribed to at a very high rate. My one theoretical possibility as to why this might not work is that the $50 kit allows a free year of subsription, but that can only be done once, after which that particular Box MUST use the standard subscription. In one year, how many subscriptions will still be active? If in fact people intend to remain subsribed, MS just prooved that gaming online can pay for itself. They also have already prooven just by these subsriptions that having online capabilities indirectly gets them money, since that seems to have pushed sales of the XBox ahead of the Cube. Nintendo REALLY need to focus on a decent online plan, even if it's just Sony's plan, which is at least something at the level of encouragement to other developers to make online games.

Here's one flaw I don't like about Live though. Once someone registers for Live, that account is permanent on that Box. That means that that Box will always use that account. Here's the reason I hate this. If someone wants to get rid of their XBox, like say giving it to a friend, they now have someone else's account on their system, and they can't sign up their own account. The only way around this is to send it in to MS so they can erase the old account data and make new data. Sure, at least there IS a way out, but man that's annoying. Oh well, I can see the security reasons, plus it's only bad in that rare instance.

In any case, my main point is that Nintendo really needs to reconsider their stance on Online Gaming. It's great for the consumers (and if Nintendo wants to keep their whole "we do it for the gamers" vibe, this isn't the way to go about it), and more importantly for them, it makes them money based on cube and game sales due to this feature.

It wasn't XBox Live! that drove XBox ahead of GameCube in sales (even though the sales of XBox and GameCube were within 100 units of eachother), it was the awesome bundle. Splinter Cell helped a bit, also.

This is evident through Europe, where XBox Live! hasn't even been released yet, and the XBox still drove past the GCN in sales. Then again, GCN had no killer app ready for the European holidays. No Resident Evil 0, no Metroid Prime.... but they did have Mario Party 4 :S

Nintendo needs to copy MS and bundle a great game or two with their system and come out with a damned online plan! What's with the secrecy, Nintendo??! Please don't tell me that you don't have any online plans at all...

I personally think it was the great deal of the bundle too.

Ah yes, the bundle was an excellent idea. Nintendo used to do that all the time, with like 20 different NES bundles, 10 different GB bundles, and about 5 SNES bundles. Then, they stopped. Sure, bundles were a purely American concept, but dropping it in America, instead of the profitable decision of starting it in Japan, was a mistake. I can see the obvious costs of doing it with cartridge systems, but optical disks cost like 50 cents total to make, so I'm sure Nintendo, or Sony, could both easily afford to toss in some free games. Sony didn't need to of course. MS realized how cheap it was, and how much of a selling point it would be, so they did. Nintendo's marketing department is, well, a standard marketing department, and they ALL suck. MS may have been smart enough to sick a parrot man style of employee on the marketing team (the parrot man would repeat all the problems the team reports back at them, but in a way that makes THEM sound stupid). However, alas Nintendo's marketing team, worse than normal, may have accidently done something like got a magazine, which is one of the WORST things a marketing team member can get ahold of.

XBox live is the best thing to happen to the box. Its fun and fairly cheep. you can use miltiple accounts on each box but I guess only one can be regestered on each box. Still, if its fun, who gives a crap?

Who gives a crud muffin? People who bought a new one and WANT to use it. The whole point of my complaint is that the single registered account per box rule is a preventer of fun. They will have to send in their used box to MS to have the HD wiped clean and wait for it to come back just to set up their own account. Oh well, at least it does allow anyone who had to get their Box replaced for whatever reason to "import" the old account.

How many people do you know that are going to sell their XBox? Besides, you don't need a new account, you can alter the info about the account on the system whenever you want to...I think...

Its good to see X-Box Live is doing well. Maybe this can prove that console online multiplayer systems can work... but I still don't think Nintendo is listening. They don't care about online gaming at all... no matter how obvious it is that its a gaping hole in their platform...

Yeah, and it's really getting on my nerves. We all KNOW how great and awesome online play would be in many of Nintendo's games. I mean, Animal Crossing Online, Mario Kart Online, F-Zero Online, Super Smash Bros Online, Mario Party Online, and many others, are games that are sure to be MAJORLY good points for online play. I don't see any reason for Nintendo to shoot themselves in the foot by shooing away potential Gamecube owners who may have bought the system and it's games if only it had online play like this other system does. I think it's the legacy of their former president. He seemed to speak out the most against online play, and the new president of the company is probably too scared of "dishonoring" him by making a new decision and making an online plan a major part of their gaming.

Meanwhile, I have to say that Perfect Dark Zero will almost certainly be an online game on XBox Live, which is good to hear. You know, I haven't heard people talking much about Grunty's Revenge on GBA. I mean, Rare hasn't stopped making GBA games ya know. They still are doing that for Nintendo. Just now, sales of those games on the GBA get MS some money too :D.

Yeah what happened to the GBA games?? Nintendo and Rare both said that they're still coming out, but I haven't heard anything about them in a long while.

That's because Rare is as tight lipped as ever, and haven't updated their site since the XBox Kameo movie was put there.

Waiting for E3, no doubt.

Quote:Its good to see X-Box Live is doing well. Maybe this can prove that console online multiplayer systems can work...

Console systems have worked excellently online well before XBox Live! proved anything.

There was a little console called the Dreamcast, in case you have forgotten. Also, the PS2's online plan seems to be working very nicely. Madden and SOCOM are both incredibly popular titles.

Yeah, the Dreamcast. Note that that console died rather quickly. Also, it and PS2 mostly use monthly per-game charges... X-Box Live has a one-time charge for the first year. That is a different system which is much better... it still does have some extra charges, but its optional... closer to, but not as good as, PC games which, except for MMORPGs, are almost always free to play online.
Free online gaming will, I bet, always be more popular than pay online gaming. Sure, lots of people play MMORPG's online (or PS2 games), but nowhere NEAR as many as would play if they were free... and it goes the other way (most free games would get a fraction of the number of players if they required charges...)
I know that I've never paid to play an online game and, for the time being at least, I won't start to do that anytime soon. I'd FAR rather spend my money on a new game instead of on monthly charges that could total $120/year for ONE game (since most seem to be about $10/month... thats enough to get 3 or 4 games, minimum! No way would it be worth spending on the multiplayer for one game...

I think a "calling card" online plan is the best way to go about it if they really have to charge money. So far, the first year thing seems to work fine, but what will they do after that? I do believe that having people buy valid code cards from the store to get extra time is a nice system. One wouldn't even need a credit card number or anything for that, and gamers generally hate monthly fees, where they feel like they are always owing money.

Oh, and there were a couple other things. The Famicom had a little modem that allowed people to compete with high scores (though it wasn't enough for online play). The XBand was the first real console multiplayer item, and liscensed at that. I actually had an SNES one, and it was indeed quite cool to play against people in games like Killer Instinct and Mario Kart. However, pretty quickly the service died away. That one was indeed a monthly charged service (not to mention the fact that the SNES and Genesis were both on their way out) so it couldn't really last long. I still have my XBand somewhere around here. I figure eventually someone will come up with a way to make a false XBand connection program to allow the XBand to dial into someone's computer modem, trick it into thinking it's logged into a real XBand server, and then go online via broadband or another modem to hook up to a user. The ultimate waste of time for the retro gamer.

Quote:closer to, but not as good as, PC games which, except for MMORPGs, are almost always free to play online.

Which is exactly what the PS2's online plan is. All of it's games are free to play online, with the exception of Final Fantasy XI (In Japan), because it's an MMORPG.

PSO isn't a MMORPG but there's a hefty fee for that game. Console publishers are more likely to make you pay a monthly fee for their online games than PC publishers are.

Yeah, PSO's pay plan just isn't the best thing in the world. It was better with the first version on DC which was free. I can see why Sega would be forced to charge at the moment though. However, I do think a free online matchmaker is something they should return to in the future.

My only console right now is an XBox. I have Xbox live, and haven't been completely impressed. Unreal Championship was plagued with lag the last time I played. I just keep wondering if a game of BF1942 on the PC supports 64 people with next to no lag... why can't MS provide servers for 16 people in UC that don't lag? It does not make sense. Playing NFL2K3 has become much more realistic, but there are stil many errors saying that there are network problems between you and whoever you try to challenge, or, that the host server is not responding. So sometimes finding a game to play can be a pain in the ass. Lately though, I haven't played much XBL because of my new computer purchase and my BF1942 and Sim City 4 addictions.

Some other thoughts... the voice communication is great. The reception is very clear and it opens up a bigger feeling of community (if you don't use voice masking). My biggest issue thus far that past the initial release of XBL titles, nothing new has been released. Thats over 2 months already. Also the downloadable content doesn't seem to be so readily available as promised.

So far I have yet to experience any lag at all. It may be your connection. Anyway, I too have yet to find any of this extra stuff to download (I refuse to say "downloadable content", because even though it's perfectly accurate, I have to find something cynical to say about it first) either.

Dis-content...

The funny thing is that I rarely experienced any lag in my DC online games, and that was with using a 56k modem.

As I said, I haven't experienced any lag at all in my XBox Live games. I also suggested that maybe java's connection is to blame.

What games do you have, DJ? I might get X-Box Live if you're on often enough.

Ah, so far Mech Assault is it, aside from the free demos that come with the system (which suck by the way, so they don't count).

Mech Assault is worth it..

..And I don't even have XBox Live! yet :D

One night I was in "the zone". I actually managed to kill everything around me without using the nuclear reactor in my mech to do it! Of course, that didn't last long, and I'm back to being sucktacular.

If only there was a way to activate, or gain access to, "the zone" at will.

My god, there'd be no stopping us.

"Us" as in TC or as in humanity in general?

TC

If it was all of humanity that was unstoppable, then who would we be unstoppable AGAINST?

Certainly not eachother, that's just plain silly.

Against.... the llamas! Those things have been getting a little out of hand lately. One even spat on my brother, which I admit was hilarious, but it could have been ME!