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[neptunes]

Not all games are Peer-to-Peer.

 

[GaimeGuy]

"I'm implying it's stupid that the only place in the world I have to pay to play Peer to Peer is on the Xbox."

If that's all XBL was now, I'd be inclined to agree. Unfortunately, it shows that you don't know what the fuck you're talking about.

But that's the one feature you're paying for now with the 360. So my point stands.

Not all games are Peer-to-Peer.

Name five

 

[Black Widow]

But that's the one feature you're paying for now with the 360. So my point stands.

You have no point since peer to peer gameplay isn't the service's only feature. As for the billion dollar claim, I thought it was well known that billions were spent on infrastructure.

Source: http://www.internetnews.com/bus-news/article.php/1445501

With Xbox Live, Microsoft is aiming to make online gaming much more accessible, by offering it through a gaming console, rather than through a PC, while at the same time absorbing many of the costs that game makers face when creating a game which can be played online (and Microsoft, as one of the world's largest game publishers, also stands to benefit).

In May, Microsoft announced that it would commit $2 billion to bring Xbox Live to its customers in North America, Japan and Europe by this fall. As part of that commitment, the company began building four data centers -- in Seattle and Tukwila, Wash., and Tokyo and London -- to run the service.

owever, neither Sony nor Nintendo have taken as aggressive a position as Microsoft when it comes to online gaming. Instead of providing their own gaming networks, the companies will rely on game publishers to shoulder development costs and maintain servers and other infrastructure.

 

[----]

But that's the one feature you're paying for now with the 360. So my point stands.

It's the one feature you're paying for because it's the most desired feature. The other features are loss leaders to get you to dip your toe in the water and try out the service. The goal of giving so much of the Xbox Live service away for free is to get 50% of Xbox 360 owners dipping their toes in the water thereby resulting in a huge increase of paid subscribers who want the most attractive feature of the service. The other features are free because they want to get you hooked. They want to get you connecting broadband to the console to download free game content and free demos and they want you chatting with your friends for free because they know that some of your Xbox Live friends you're chatting with are going to have Gold service and will pressure you to subscribe. And considering how cheap it is to subscribe I don't think it will take that much pressure once you get to that point.

Also you know every single Xbox 360 online game is also doing a lot more than just peer to peer because every single Xbox 360 Live game is going to have web based stats like Halo 2 has. Microsoft is obviously running servers which are housing all of the downloadable content, all of the billing, and all of the realtime stat tracking. What Microsoft is doing is really not comparable to anything out there.

If you want Microsoft to completely get rid of peer 2 peer and for them to host and run servers for every single game on Xbox Live then you're probably talking about a service which would be more like $20 a month rather than $4 a month. Everyone would balk and complain about a service that expensive. Personally I have no problem with peer to peer games. I've had 4mbit service and now 15mbit broadband service and I rarely ever experienced any lag in my games. I'd rather Microsoft spend the money the way they are now and not make the service prohibitably expensive. The matchmaking system that MS developed especially Halo 2's really works well at connecting me with people that don't cause the game to lag.

 

[Black Widow]

The company pulls in nearly 100 million dollars annual gross from Xbox Live. If MS can multiply their subscriber base by 10X then your looking a huge annual revenue stream. Admittedly growing this userbase will be difficult but if you've kept abreast of past and future improvements to their network you can begin to understand the execution of their business plan and hence the 2 billion dollar investment.

 

[----]

I think the real money comes from the downloads though, not the cheap subscription rate. If they can get people paying for the Live Arcade games and the other marketplace downloadable content and they take a percentage of every sale over Xbox Live then that is where they will make the real money. The subscriptions will help, but I think MS knows the real money will be in the downloads which they plan on 50% of all Xbox 360 owners having access to.

 

[Spider_Jerusalem]

Silver gets you live arcade, marketplace, friends list/messaging/chat (I think), spectator mode like Gotham TV, MMORPG and games updates. Plus free week ends.

Plus games movies and playable demos downloads, AFAIK.

 

[blackadde]

<insert something about Blizzard being a tiny company yet offering almost all of this for years ... free>

 

[Spider_Jerusalem]

<insert something about Blizzard being a tiny company yet offering almost all of this for years ... free>

There are many free videogames downloadable on the net, too.. incredible that there are still companies that want our moneys for purchasing games ;-)