17th January 2003, 11:33 AM
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.
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.
"On two occasions, I have been asked [by members of Parliament], 'Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?' I am not able to rightly apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question." ~ Charles Babbage (1791-1871)