11th March 2004, 9:26 AM
(This post was last modified: 11th March 2004, 12:43 PM by Dark Jaguar.)
lazy, you don't need to get ripped off by your isp provider to do this you know :D.
It's called a router, and it's amazing powers allow you to get as many connections as you may want. Considering that when online you won't be using the maximum speed anyway, nowhere near it, you can be assured that you can have a rather large number of simultaneous connections without ever seeing any sort of slowdown due to it.
For that matter, why a mouse? We're talking consoles right? They all seem to control just fine with a controller alone. The setup is very intuitive, in fact plug and play, for getting your online connection up and running on both PS2 and XBox, if you're talking broadband anyway. Why a keyboard? Both PS2 and XBox have headsets so you can actually TALK trash. With the PS2, you can actually use your computer's keyboard if you want since it's got USB ports, as well as a USB headset you might already have since the official PS2 one is USB as it is.
There are far more than 1000 people online at any one time playing games. Even games that aren't very popular any more tend to have a LOT of people playing them online. Consider Warcraft 2 and Starcraft for instance, where you can still easily find a match even though Wacraft 3 is the most popular among those right now. Also consider just how many different servers you can find for various FPS on the computer.
You see, you really should have looked into this more I think. Generally you are dead right about things game related, which is why this utter lack of effort to truly find out what's going on, most of this I assume is just stuff you dreamed about last night after eating those space slugs, is rather dissappointing.
Getting it setup is plug and play. You don't have to even buy a router if you dont' want to, you can just plug the cable on your computer into your game system if you wanted to (even though routers are a slim $30 investment). With the XBox, you don't even have to buy a single bit of hardware, but you DO have to pay for the service itself. There's something right there that you could have mentioned but didn't.
Your assumption on all this stuff you need to do to operate the games is also rather silly all things considering. Why would the online game makers even bother making menus that can't be navigated easily without a keyboard mouse combo, when every OTHER menu a game has doesn't need such a thing? I would know, having several online games on my consoles myself, that this is NOT an issue at all.
Essentially, the only costly part is paying for the service itself, and possibly getting a router if you want to be able to use your computer and the rest of your stuff at once (no, it's not stealing, that's what they are FOR, in fact my cable company has helped set mine up before). There's getting that isp connection in the first place if you don't even have a computer as well, and I guess the cost of getting the actual console, but honestly you have to get the system anyway and the only reason anyone would be interested in online play is if they already know the fun of the internet.
It's not niche at all, people love to play games online. It's not expensive, unless you are so out of it you don't have the only two basic components. The only people who care about the cost are Nintendo, and it's THEIR money they care about, not our's. Their main argument, which is VERY hard for them to trick any of us into thinking is "for us", is that there won't be enough return on the investment of making servers and such. True enough, because as far as I know most game companies making online games barely make enough off of them to keep the services up and running. That's not the point though. The point is that this extra feature means more people will buy the games, and THAT is where the profit comes from, indirectly. That's why so many companies do this thing, because they know of the indirect profits they can get from it.
In short, you should try the whole system out. I can tell you that your assumptions are incorrect from personal experience.
It's called a router, and it's amazing powers allow you to get as many connections as you may want. Considering that when online you won't be using the maximum speed anyway, nowhere near it, you can be assured that you can have a rather large number of simultaneous connections without ever seeing any sort of slowdown due to it.
For that matter, why a mouse? We're talking consoles right? They all seem to control just fine with a controller alone. The setup is very intuitive, in fact plug and play, for getting your online connection up and running on both PS2 and XBox, if you're talking broadband anyway. Why a keyboard? Both PS2 and XBox have headsets so you can actually TALK trash. With the PS2, you can actually use your computer's keyboard if you want since it's got USB ports, as well as a USB headset you might already have since the official PS2 one is USB as it is.
There are far more than 1000 people online at any one time playing games. Even games that aren't very popular any more tend to have a LOT of people playing them online. Consider Warcraft 2 and Starcraft for instance, where you can still easily find a match even though Wacraft 3 is the most popular among those right now. Also consider just how many different servers you can find for various FPS on the computer.
You see, you really should have looked into this more I think. Generally you are dead right about things game related, which is why this utter lack of effort to truly find out what's going on, most of this I assume is just stuff you dreamed about last night after eating those space slugs, is rather dissappointing.
Getting it setup is plug and play. You don't have to even buy a router if you dont' want to, you can just plug the cable on your computer into your game system if you wanted to (even though routers are a slim $30 investment). With the XBox, you don't even have to buy a single bit of hardware, but you DO have to pay for the service itself. There's something right there that you could have mentioned but didn't.
Your assumption on all this stuff you need to do to operate the games is also rather silly all things considering. Why would the online game makers even bother making menus that can't be navigated easily without a keyboard mouse combo, when every OTHER menu a game has doesn't need such a thing? I would know, having several online games on my consoles myself, that this is NOT an issue at all.
Essentially, the only costly part is paying for the service itself, and possibly getting a router if you want to be able to use your computer and the rest of your stuff at once (no, it's not stealing, that's what they are FOR, in fact my cable company has helped set mine up before). There's getting that isp connection in the first place if you don't even have a computer as well, and I guess the cost of getting the actual console, but honestly you have to get the system anyway and the only reason anyone would be interested in online play is if they already know the fun of the internet.
It's not niche at all, people love to play games online. It's not expensive, unless you are so out of it you don't have the only two basic components. The only people who care about the cost are Nintendo, and it's THEIR money they care about, not our's. Their main argument, which is VERY hard for them to trick any of us into thinking is "for us", is that there won't be enough return on the investment of making servers and such. True enough, because as far as I know most game companies making online games barely make enough off of them to keep the services up and running. That's not the point though. The point is that this extra feature means more people will buy the games, and THAT is where the profit comes from, indirectly. That's why so many companies do this thing, because they know of the indirect profits they can get from it.
In short, you should try the whole system out. I can tell you that your assumptions are incorrect from personal experience.
"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)