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[GaseousSnake]

Do you guys think that XBL will be a success?

[KraftSLU]

Here is my thought: as of now there are 150,000 people signed up just to be beta testers for the thing. That means they are already commited to spending the 50 dollars for their first year. This doesn't even include all of the people that don't bother with stuff like that/don't know about stuff like that/ or haven't been drawn into the xbl scene yet. I'll be happy with 149,999 people during the week to play with, personally.

[GaseousSnake]

I want you to tell me how the XBL will attract consumers

[jjmoohead]

xbox live already has the largest advertising group in the world supporting them (MICROSOFT). Thats how they will do it. Advertising is basically free, all they have to do is send out a windows update that does xbox popups, hell i get them already. Not that its a bad thing, I mean they are going to lose so much money initially of the setup that its a good thing they have free advertising.

[GaseousSnake]

M$ just threw away $2 billion dollars for nothing.

M$ has severly limited its userbase of online gamers.

[KraftSLU]

Originally posted by GaseousSnake
M$ just threw away $2 billion dollars for nothing.

M$ has severly limited its userbase of online gamers.

Yeah, they may have limited their user base at the moment, but on the other hand, there is already a ton of people with broadband that can't wait for this thing.

Had microsoft decided to go with letting modem users log on XBL it would be a lag-fest that you couldn't play certain types of games on. Fighting games would suck, sports games would lose their flavor. Then you have tons of people shouting about how the XBL service is a load of crap and all of the sudden MS loses all of their online (and system) support.

By making it broadband, which chances are pretty much everyone will have eventually as prices are dropping and it is becoming more widely available, they have now ensured virtually lag free games to anyone who has an online interest. For the people who can get on XBL, its gonna be all good. Of course this is just microsoft thinking in the long term again, which shows that money isn't an issue, just success.

[Rohamgh]

Originally posted by GaseousSnake
M$ just threw away $2 billion dollars for nothing.

M$ has severly limited its userbase of online gamers.

dude...read your facts and stop postin MS with a $ sign like a f*kin ***got.

a) MS has promised to COMMIT $2 billion dollars over the course of a certain perioud of time to XBOX LIVE. it has not "thrown it away"...not that throwing away of an amount as high as this would be easy...

b) uhh...the entire REASON behind buyin an xbox over a ps2 or a gc was the freakin Xbox Live promise... ie. at LEAST 70% of all the people who bought an Xbox want Xbox live...that makes...uhhh ...LOTS OF PEOPLE??????

limited user base my behind..so you wanted them to include what, modem gaming? 14Kbps...whoohoo.

jeezz

[GaseousSnake]

They should of atleast made it compatible with a modem.

Also ithink its very wrong for any game company to heavily rely on online gaming for its success.

[KraftSLU]

Originally posted by GaseousSnake
They should of atleast made it compatible with a modem.

Also ithink its very wrong for any game company to heavily rely on online gaming for its success.

It isn't wrong if you want to ensure no lag gaming for all of us invested in high speed internet. Personally, I would be quite pissed if I am paying extra money for broadband and my game lags because som 56k'ers are on the network.

Secondly, its not wrong for a company to make money with online gaming. If it weren't for online gaming Blizzard would exist. The only things that are wrong for a gaming company to do is create an endless supply of crappy games and kill babies.

[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.

[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.

[Harry]

Originally posted by KraftSLU


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.

Great part of the Playstation 2 games have "filters", in different forms and ways, that create a separation between broadband and narrowband users. Ex. Different game modes, limited features for narrowband users etc.

Basically, Narrowband users can access games were lags are reduced to a mininum because they're more simple than the ones for broadband users.