[KraftSLU]

Originally posted by Harry
KraftSlu, not everybody has the money to afford a broadband connections, and it's also i portant to remember that in certain countries in Europe, the broadband services are not available. For example, in the core of Rome, the biggest city in Italy, there is no possibility to access broadband services. The same happens in areas of England, France, Spain.

Adding to that, if you limit the game modes available to 56K users, they can perfectly enjoy the online experience with little lags. I did play from Europe, on a dial-up connection, against North American and Japanese players... and lags were extremely, extremely rare.

Microsoft is clearly trying to create a fan base for the "future", because they know this is not yet the generation of consoles that will see online gaming as the #1 reason of success. The whole Xbox project is something aimed to make money on the long run, maybe when the next console will be released. After all, that's Bill's and Microsoft's philosophy... you always have to invest on the future, because the ones too focused on the present market can have very bad surprises in the next future. That's why Microsoft was lightly affected by the collapse of the Internet economy.

Those were my points exactly. As for it costing more and not available to everyone: I realize this. But think about it like this; if you paid a ton of money for a great car to race in NASCAR and it totally blew other people away, how would you feel if they took parts off your car just so the other cars could keepe up and have a chance? Yeah, it costs more money, but I am on a fixed income and budget so I can enjoy the benefits of the high speed access.

If you don't have broadband and want to partake in online gaming then there are still 2 other nextgen consoles that are releasing modems and have good games that will probably be fun to play online. But don't go ripping into MS just beause you don't happen to agree with their business strategy. Personally I am glad Dodge offers high-end Vipers, Boseoffers high-end stereo systems, and Microsoft offers high-end online gaming.