This is why Xbox Live is worth the money...

Let's say you're a developer working on a hot new title, and you want to build in multiplayer online support for it. Here's an (overly simplified) look at what you would have to do if you were using Xbox Live.

First, you'd have to set up an online game session. So what do you do? You program your game to fire off a quick message to Xbox Live saying "Hey XBL, set up a new online session for me plzkthx, and make PlayerA the 'owner'." Xbox Live then comes back and says "here's your game session; it's got the following players in it... PlayerA, PlayerB and PlayerC" and bingo, your session is started. As players join and drop off, Xbox Liveautomatically grabs IP addresses from the players, sets up voice channels between the players and fires off messages to your game advising it of new players. XBL is also monitoring the connection speed/quality of all the players and letting the game know.You never have to worry about IP addresses, or setting up voice channels or any of that low-level stuff. All you have to do is keep your lobby screen updated as players join/leave, talk and the connection quality changes.

So then the game is ready to begin. You fire off another message to Xbox Live saying "OK, let's do this. Time to start the game, we're playing with the following settings..." and you tell XBL the game specifics, like map selection, game type, etc. The game begins. As the game goes on, you're sending/receiving your proprietary game packets to/from other players with the updated gamestate information. To send/receive these packets, you aren't talking to the other players directly... rather, you're talking to Xbox Live APIs. You say "send this packet to PlayerC" and Xbox Live takes your packet, encrypts and signs it, and sends it to PlayerC's IP address. PlayerC's Xbox will receive the packet and its Xbox Live API will decrypt and inspect the packets for integrity before passing it to the game, which updates its screen to reflect the new gamestate. Once again, as the developer, you don't have to worry about IP addresses, you don't have to worry about encryption, you don't have to deal with voice support... all you have to do is send and receive your gamestate packets and update the gamestate accordingly.

When the game ends, you simply tell Xbox Live "hey, the game is over, here's the stats and here's who won and lost!" XBL takes this information and stores it in their stats databases for leaderboards and trueskill purposes. Again, you don't have to worry about maintaining your own stats database, or implementing your own skill-tracking

The infrastructure to support all this stuff is massive, complex and expensive. But the end result is you, as a developer, don't have to worry about the heavy lifting of implementing online multiplayer. Doing online multiplayer is as easy as doing system-link multiplayer. And since online multiplayer is easy for you to implement, you're more likely to put it in all of your games. Meaning we (as gamers) get to enjoy online multiplayer in tons and tons of games, from the smallest developers to the biggest AAA productions. We even get online multiplayer in Peggle. Well worth $50/yr if you ask me. If you built a system as complex and robust as Xbox Live, you'd be wanting a subscription fee to use it too.

Of course, all the haters will continue to complain about how "PSN/PC do online for FREE!" or bleat about "dedicated servers"even though their systems are nowhere near as complex or robust as Xbox Live.

Is it just me, or have there been too many "XBL is/isn't worth the money" threads lately? What's up with that?

I'll be honest... I didn't read that. I pay for Xbox Live, it's $50 a year. I can find that in my drawers for crying out loud

Is it just me, or have there been too many "XBL is/isn't worth the money" threads lately? What's up with that?

Nerd_Man

Well one person made one saying "Xbox Live is/isn't worth the money", then someone made the opposite, then someone else saw that, and made the opposite of that again, and so on and so forth until we are dead of old age.

Is it just me, or have there been too many "XBL is/isn't worth the money" threads lately? What's up with that?

Nerd_Man

I'll be honest... I didn't read that. I pay for Xbox Live, it's $50 a year. I can find that in my drawers for crying out loud

lundy86_4

I'd rather use that $50 on a game instead of paying for something I get for free on PC/PS3.

[QUOTE="lundy86_4"]

I'll be honest... I didn't read that. I pay for Xbox Live, it's $50 a year. I can find that in my drawers for crying out loud

Rob_101

I'd rather use that $50 on a game instead of paying for something I get for free on PC/PS3.

Let's say you're a developer working on a hot new title, and you want to build in multiplayer online support for it. Here's an (overly simplified) look at what you would have to do if you were using Xbox Live.

First, you'd have to set up an online game session. So what do you do? You program your game to fire off a quick message to Xbox Live saying "Hey XBL, set up a new online session for me plzkthx, and make PlayerA the 'owner'." Xbox Live then comes back and says "here's your game session; it's got the following players in it... PlayerA, PlayerB and PlayerC" and bingo, your session is started. As players join and drop off, Xbox Liveautomatically grabs IP addresses from the players, sets up voice channels between the players and fires off messages to your game advising it of new players. XBL is also monitoring the connection speed/quality of all the players and letting the game know.You never have to worry about IP addresses, or setting up voice channels or any of that low-level stuff. All you have to do is keep your lobby screen updated as players join/leave, talk and the connection quality changes.

So then the game is ready to begin. You fire off another message to Xbox Live saying "OK, let's do this. Time to start the game, we're playing with the following settings..." and you tell XBL the game specifics, like map selection, game type, etc. The game begins. As the game goes on, you're sending/receiving your proprietary game packets to/from other players with the updated gamestate information. To send/receive these packets, you aren't talking to the other players directly... rather, you're talking to Xbox Live APIs. You say "send this packet to PlayerC" and Xbox Live takes your packet, encrypts and signs it, and sends it to PlayerC's IP address. PlayerC's Xbox will receive the packet and its Xbox Live API will decrypt and inspect the packets for integrity before passing it to the game, which updates its screen to reflect the new gamestate. Once again, as the developer, you don't have to worry about IP addresses, you don't have to worry about encryption, you don't have to deal with voice support... all you have to do is send and receive your gamestate packets and update the gamestate accordingly.

When the game ends, you simply tell Xbox Live "hey, the game is over, here's the stats and here's who won and lost!" XBL takes this information and stores it in their stats databases for leaderboards and trueskill purposes. Again, you don't have to worry about maintaining your own stats database, or implementing your own skill-tracking

The infrastructure to support all this stuff is massive, complex and expensive. But the end result is you, as a developer, don't have to worry about the heavy lifting of implementing online multiplayer. Doing online multiplayer is as easy as doing system-link multiplayer. And since online multiplayer is easy for you to implement, you're more likely to put it in all of your games. Meaning we (as gamers) get to enjoy online multiplayer in tons and tons of games, from the smallest developers to the biggest AAA productions. We even get online multiplayer in Peggle. Well worth $50/yr if you ask me. If you built a system as complex and robust as Xbox Live, you'd be wanting a subscription fee to use it too.

Of course, all the haters will continue to complain about how "PSN/PC do online for FREE!" or bleat about "dedicated servers"even though their systems are nowhere near as complex or robust as Xbox Live.

UnnDunn

So why is PC live free again?

You know what I can't believe is that we're still talking about how Xbox Live costs money, 8 Years after Xbox Live came to fruition.

Let's say you're a developer working on a hot new title, and you want to build in multiplayer online support for it. Here's an (overly simplified) look at what you would have to do if you were using Xbox Live.

First, you'd have to set up an online game session. So what do you do? You program your game to fire off a quick message to Xbox Live saying "Hey XBL, set up a new online session for me plzkthx, and make PlayerA the 'owner'." Xbox Live then comes back and says "here's your game session; it's got the following players in it... PlayerA, PlayerB and PlayerC" and bingo, your session is started. As players join and drop off, Xbox Liveautomatically grabs IP addresses from the players, sets up voice channels between the players and fires off messages to your game advising it of new players. XBL is also monitoring the connection speed/quality of all the players and letting the game know.You never have to worry about IP addresses, or setting up voice channels or any of that low-level stuff. All you have to do is keep your lobby screen updated as players join/leave, talk and the connection quality changes.

So then the game is ready to begin. You fire off another message to Xbox Live saying "OK, let's do this. Time to start the game, we're playing with the following settings..." and you tell XBL the game specifics, like map selection, game type, etc. The game begins. As the game goes on, you're sending/receiving your proprietary game packets to/from other players with the updated gamestate information. To send/receive these packets, you aren't talking to the other players directly... rather, you're talking to Xbox Live APIs. You say "send this packet to PlayerC" and Xbox Live takes your packet, encrypts and signs it, and sends it to PlayerC's IP address. PlayerC's Xbox will receive the packet and its Xbox Live API will decrypt and inspect the packets for integrity before passing it to the game, which updates its screen to reflect the new gamestate. Once again, as the developer, you don't have to worry about IP addresses, you don't have to worry about encryption, you don't have to deal with voice support... all you have to do is send and receive your gamestate packets and update the gamestate accordingly.

When the game ends, you simply tell Xbox Live "hey, the game is over, here's the stats and here's who won and lost!" XBL takes this information and stores it in their stats databases for leaderboards and trueskill purposes. Again, you don't have to worry about maintaining your own stats database, or implementing your own skill-tracking

The infrastructure to support all this stuff is massive, complex and expensive. But the end result is you, as a developer, don't have to worry about the heavy lifting of implementing online multiplayer. Doing online multiplayer is as easy as doing system-link multiplayer. And since online multiplayer is easy for you to implement, you're more likely to put it in all of your games. Meaning we (as gamers) get to enjoy online multiplayer in tons and tons of games, from the smallest developers to the biggest AAA productions. We even get online multiplayer in Peggle. Well worth $50/yr if you ask me. If you built a system as complex and robust as Xbox Live, you'd be wanting a subscription fee to use it too.

Of course, all the haters will continue to complain about how "PSN/PC do online for FREE!" or bleat about "dedicated servers"even though their systems are nowhere near as complex or robust as Xbox Live.

UnnDunn

[QUOTE="UnnDunn"]

Let's say you're a developer working on a hot new title, and you want to build in multiplayer online support for it. Here's an (overly simplified) look at what you would have to do if you were using Xbox Live.

First, you'd have to set up an online game session. So what do you do? You program your game to fire off a quick message to Xbox Live saying "Hey XBL, set up a new online session for me plzkthx, and make PlayerA the 'owner'." Xbox Live then comes back and says "here's your game session; it's got the following players in it... PlayerA, PlayerB and PlayerC" and bingo, your session is started. As players join and drop off, Xbox Liveautomatically grabs IP addresses from the players, sets up voice channels between the players and fires off messages to your game advising it of new players. XBL is also monitoring the connection speed/quality of all the players and letting the game know.You never have to worry about IP addresses, or setting up voice channels or any of that low-level stuff. All you have to do is keep your lobby screen updated as players join/leave, talk and the connection quality changes.

So then the game is ready to begin. You fire off another message to Xbox Live saying "OK, let's do this. Time to start the game, we're playing with the following settings..." and you tell XBL the game specifics, like map selection, game type, etc. The game begins. As the game goes on, you're sending/receiving your proprietary game packets to/from other players with the updated gamestate information. To send/receive these packets, you aren't talking to the other players directly... rather, you're talking to Xbox Live APIs. You say "send this packet to PlayerC" and Xbox Live takes your packet, encrypts and signs it, and sends it to PlayerC's IP address. PlayerC's Xbox will receive the packet and its Xbox Live API will decrypt and inspect the packets for integrity before passing it to the game, which updates its screen to reflect the new gamestate. Once again, as the developer, you don't have to worry about IP addresses, you don't have to worry about encryption, you don't have to deal with voice support... all you have to do is send and receive your gamestate packets and update the gamestate accordingly.

When the game ends, you simply tell Xbox Live "hey, the game is over, here's the stats and here's who won and lost!" XBL takes this information and stores it in their stats databases for leaderboards and trueskill purposes. Again, you don't have to worry about maintaining your own stats database, or implementing your own skill-tracking

The infrastructure to support all this stuff is massive, complex and expensive. But the end result is you, as a developer, don't have to worry about the heavy lifting of implementing online multiplayer. Doing online multiplayer is as easy as doing system-link multiplayer. And since online multiplayer is easy for you to implement, you're more likely to put it in all of your games. Meaning we (as gamers) get to enjoy online multiplayer in tons and tons of games, from the smallest developers to the biggest AAA productions. We even get online multiplayer in Peggle. Well worth $50/yr if you ask me. If you built a system as complex and robust as Xbox Live, you'd be wanting a subscription fee to use it too.

Of course, all the haters will continue to complain about how "PSN/PC do online for FREE!" or bleat about "dedicated servers"even though their systems are nowhere near as complex or robust as Xbox Live.

Bebi_vegeta

So why is PC live free again?

That's great, but "lots and lots" of PS3 games also have online multiplayer.

[QUOTE="Bebi_vegeta"]

[QUOTE="UnnDunn"]

Let's say you're a developer working on a hot new title, and you want to build in multiplayer online support for it. Here's an (overly simplified) look at what you would have to do if you were using Xbox Live.

First, you'd have to set up an online game session. So what do you do? You program your game to fire off a quick message to Xbox Live saying "Hey XBL, set up a new online session for me plzkthx, and make PlayerA the 'owner'." Xbox Live then comes back and says "here's your game session; it's got the following players in it... PlayerA, PlayerB and PlayerC" and bingo, your session is started. As players join and drop off, Xbox Liveautomatically grabs IP addresses from the players, sets up voice channels between the players and fires off messages to your game advising it of new players. XBL is also monitoring the connection speed/quality of all the players and letting the game know.You never have to worry about IP addresses, or setting up voice channels or any of that low-level stuff. All you have to do is keep your lobby screen updated as players join/leave, talk and the connection quality changes.

So then the game is ready to begin. You fire off another message to Xbox Live saying "OK, let's do this. Time to start the game, we're playing with the following settings..." and you tell XBL the game specifics, like map selection, game type, etc. The game begins. As the game goes on, you're sending/receiving your proprietary game packets to/from other players with the updated gamestate information. To send/receive these packets, you aren't talking to the other players directly... rather, you're talking to Xbox Live APIs. You say "send this packet to PlayerC" and Xbox Live takes your packet, encrypts and signs it, and sends it to PlayerC's IP address. PlayerC's Xbox will receive the packet and its Xbox Live API will decrypt and inspect the packets for integrity before passing it to the game, which updates its screen to reflect the new gamestate. Once again, as the developer, you don't have to worry about IP addresses, you don't have to worry about encryption, you don't have to deal with voice support... all you have to do is send and receive your gamestate packets and update the gamestate accordingly.

When the game ends, you simply tell Xbox Live "hey, the game is over, here's the stats and here's who won and lost!" XBL takes this information and stores it in their stats databases for leaderboards and trueskill purposes. Again, you don't have to worry about maintaining your own stats database, or implementing your own skill-tracking

The infrastructure to support all this stuff is massive, complex and expensive. But the end result is you, as a developer, don't have to worry about the heavy lifting of implementing online multiplayer. Doing online multiplayer is as easy as doing system-link multiplayer. And since online multiplayer is easy for you to implement, you're more likely to put it in all of your games. Meaning we (as gamers) get to enjoy online multiplayer in tons and tons of games, from the smallest developers to the biggest AAA productions. We even get online multiplayer in Peggle. Well worth $50/yr if you ask me. If you built a system as complex and robust as Xbox Live, you'd be wanting a subscription fee to use it too.

Of course, all the haters will continue to complain about how "PSN/PC do online for FREE!" or bleat about "dedicated servers"even though their systems are nowhere near as complex or robust as Xbox Live.

-Snooze-

So why is PC live free again?

Which is why live being $50 not worth it... But it's too bad there's no alternative for Xbox and Microsoft can get away with it.

Is it just me, or have there been too many "XBL is/isn't worth the money" threads lately? What's up with that?

Nerd_Man

[QUOTE="UnnDunn"]

Let's say you're a developer working on a hot new title, and you want to build in multiplayer online support for it. Here's an (overly simplified) look at what you would have to do if you were using Xbox Live.

First, you'd have to set up an online game session. So what do you do? You program your game to fire off a quick message to Xbox Live saying "Hey XBL, set up a new online session for me plzkthx, and make PlayerA the 'owner'." Xbox Live then comes back and says "here's your game session; it's got the following players in it... PlayerA, PlayerB and PlayerC" and bingo, your session is started. As players join and drop off, Xbox Liveautomatically grabs IP addresses from the players, sets up voice channels between the players and fires off messages to your game advising it of new players. XBL is also monitoring the connection speed/quality of all the players and letting the game know.You never have to worry about IP addresses, or setting up voice channels or any of that low-level stuff. All you have to do is keep your lobby screen updated as players join/leave, talk and the connection quality changes.

So then the game is ready to begin. You fire off another message to Xbox Live saying "OK, let's do this. Time to start the game, we're playing with the following settings..." and you tell XBL the game specifics, like map selection, game type, etc. The game begins. As the game goes on, you're sending/receiving your proprietary game packets to/from other players with the updated gamestate information. To send/receive these packets, you aren't talking to the other players directly... rather, you're talking to Xbox Live APIs. You say "send this packet to PlayerC" and Xbox Live takes your packet, encrypts and signs it, and sends it to PlayerC's IP address. PlayerC's Xbox will receive the packet and its Xbox Live API will decrypt and inspect the packets for integrity before passing it to the game, which updates its screen to reflect the new gamestate. Once again, as the developer, you don't have to worry about IP addresses, you don't have to worry about encryption, you don't have to deal with voice support... all you have to do is send and receive your gamestate packets and update the gamestate accordingly.

When the game ends, you simply tell Xbox Live "hey, the game is over, here's the stats and here's who won and lost!" XBL takes this information and stores it in their stats databases for leaderboards and trueskill purposes. Again, you don't have to worry about maintaining your own stats database, or implementing your own skill-tracking

The infrastructure to support all this stuff is massive, complex and expensive. But the end result is you, as a developer, don't have to worry about the heavy lifting of implementing online multiplayer. Doing online multiplayer is as easy as doing system-link multiplayer. And since online multiplayer is easy for you to implement, you're more likely to put it in all of your games. Meaning we (as gamers) get to enjoy online multiplayer in tons and tons of games, from the smallest developers to the biggest AAA productions. We even get online multiplayer in Peggle. Well worth $50/yr if you ask me. If you built a system as complex and robust as Xbox Live, you'd be wanting a subscription fee to use it too.

Of course, all the haters will continue to complain about how "PSN/PC do online for FREE!" or bleat about "dedicated servers"even though their systems are nowhere near as complex or robust as Xbox Live.

Bebi_vegeta

So why is PC live free again?

I'm pretty sure Sony would help a developer with it's MP aspect of it game. MGO, KZ2 and LBP all had beta programs.

I'm pretty sure Sony would help a developer with it's MP aspect of it game. MGO, KZ2 and LBP all had beta programs.

MBP_King

[QUOTE="-Snooze-"][QUOTE="Bebi_vegeta"]

So why is PC live free again?

Bebi_vegeta

Which is why live being $50 not worth it... But it's too bad there's no alternative for Xbox and Microsoft can get away with it.

[QUOTE="UnnDunn"]

Let's say you're a developer working on a hot new title, and you want to build in multiplayer online support for it. Here's an (overly simplified) look at what you would have to do if you were using Xbox Live.

First, you'd have to set up an online game session. So what do you do? You program your game to fire off a quick message to Xbox Live saying "Hey XBL, set up a new online session for me plzkthx, and make PlayerA the 'owner'." Xbox Live then comes back and says "here's your game session; it's got the following players in it... PlayerA, PlayerB and PlayerC" and bingo, your session is started. As players join and drop off, Xbox Liveautomatically grabs IP addresses from the players, sets up voice channels between the players and fires off messages to your game advising it of new players. XBL is also monitoring the connection speed/quality of all the players and letting the game know.You never have to worry about IP addresses, or setting up voice channels or any of that low-level stuff. All you have to do is keep your lobby screen updated as players join/leave, talk and the connection quality changes.

So then the game is ready to begin. You fire off another message to Xbox Live saying "OK, let's do this. Time to start the game, we're playing with the following settings..." and you tell XBL the game specifics, like map selection, game type, etc. The game begins. As the game goes on, you're sending/receiving your proprietary game packets to/from other players with the updated gamestate information. To send/receive these packets, you aren't talking to the other players directly... rather, you're talking to Xbox Live APIs. You say "send this packet to PlayerC" and Xbox Live takes your packet, encrypts and signs it, and sends it to PlayerC's IP address. PlayerC's Xbox will receive the packet and its Xbox Live API will decrypt and inspect the packets for integrity before passing it to the game, which updates its screen to reflect the new gamestate. Once again, as the developer, you don't have to worry about IP addresses, you don't have to worry about encryption, you don't have to deal with voice support... all you have to do is send and receive your gamestate packets and update the gamestate accordingly.

When the game ends, you simply tell Xbox Live "hey, the game is over, here's the stats and here's who won and lost!" XBL takes this information and stores it in their stats databases for leaderboards and trueskill purposes. Again, you don't have to worry about maintaining your own stats database, or implementing your own skill-tracking

The infrastructure to support all this stuff is massive, complex and expensive. But the end result is you, as a developer, don't have to worry about the heavy lifting of implementing online multiplayer. Doing online multiplayer is as easy as doing system-link multiplayer. And since online multiplayer is easy for you to implement, you're more likely to put it in all of your games. Meaning we (as gamers) get to enjoy online multiplayer in tons and tons of games, from the smallest developers to the biggest AAA productions. We even get online multiplayer in Peggle. Well worth $50/yr if you ask me. If you built a system as complex and robust as Xbox Live, you'd be wanting a subscription fee to use it too.

Of course, all the haters will continue to complain about how "PSN/PC do online for FREE!" or bleat about "dedicated servers"even though their systems are nowhere near as complex or robust as Xbox Live.

Bebi_vegeta

So why is PC live free again?

You realise that's how most online services work :?

[QUOTE="Bebi_vegeta"]

[QUOTE="-Snooze-"] Simple. PC users wouldnt pay for it. They had few Luve enabled games, and had free alternatives which were just as good, and to some, even better. It's not hard :)-Snooze-

Which is why live being $50 not worth it... But it's too bad there's no alternative for Xbox and Microsoft can get away with it.

The internet is pretty much open to many 3rd party support... if you think Xbox live beats that... ok :roll:

[QUOTE="Bebi_vegeta"]

[QUOTE="UnnDunn"]

Let's say you're a developer working on a hot new title, and you want to build in multiplayer online support for it. Here's an (overly simplified) look at what you would have to do if you were using Xbox Live.

First, you'd have to set up an online game session. So what do you do? You program your game to fire off a quick message to Xbox Live saying "Hey XBL, set up a new online session for me plzkthx, and make PlayerA the 'owner'." Xbox Live then comes back and says "here's your game session; it's got the following players in it... PlayerA, PlayerB and PlayerC" and bingo, your session is started. As players join and drop off, Xbox Liveautomatically grabs IP addresses from the players, sets up voice channels between the players and fires off messages to your game advising it of new players. XBL is also monitoring the connection speed/quality of all the players and letting the game know.You never have to worry about IP addresses, or setting up voice channels or any of that low-level stuff. All you have to do is keep your lobby screen updated as players join/leave, talk and the connection quality changes.

So then the game is ready to begin. You fire off another message to Xbox Live saying "OK, let's do this. Time to start the game, we're playing with the following settings..." and you tell XBL the game specifics, like map selection, game type, etc. The game begins. As the game goes on, you're sending/receiving your proprietary game packets to/from other players with the updated gamestate information. To send/receive these packets, you aren't talking to the other players directly... rather, you're talking to Xbox Live APIs. You say "send this packet to PlayerC" and Xbox Live takes your packet, encrypts and signs it, and sends it to PlayerC's IP address. PlayerC's Xbox will receive the packet and its Xbox Live API will decrypt and inspect the packets for integrity before passing it to the game, which updates its screen to reflect the new gamestate. Once again, as the developer, you don't have to worry about IP addresses, you don't have to worry about encryption, you don't have to deal with voice support... all you have to do is send and receive your gamestate packets and update the gamestate accordingly.

When the game ends, you simply tell Xbox Live "hey, the game is over, here's the stats and here's who won and lost!" XBL takes this information and stores it in their stats databases for leaderboards and trueskill purposes. Again, you don't have to worry about maintaining your own stats database, or implementing your own skill-tracking

The infrastructure to support all this stuff is massive, complex and expensive. But the end result is you, as a developer, don't have to worry about the heavy lifting of implementing online multiplayer. Doing online multiplayer is as easy as doing system-link multiplayer. And since online multiplayer is easy for you to implement, you're more likely to put it in all of your games. Meaning we (as gamers) get to enjoy online multiplayer in tons and tons of games, from the smallest developers to the biggest AAA productions. We even get online multiplayer in Peggle. Well worth $50/yr if you ask me. If you built a system as complex and robust as Xbox Live, you'd be wanting a subscription fee to use it too.

Of course, all the haters will continue to complain about how "PSN/PC do online for FREE!" or bleat about "dedicated servers"even though their systems are nowhere near as complex or robust as Xbox Live.

UnnDunn

So why is PC live free again?

Hard to sell because there's many alternative that do the same thing for free?

You realise that's how most online services work :?

dream431ca

[QUOTE="dream431ca"]

You realise that's how most online services work :?

UnnDunn

Really?? Resistance 2 works exactly the same way as you described, so does Killzone 2.

If XBL is priced. And IF I was a dev then maybe our game won't be as much to put on live. Maybe we can gain more. IF I was a dev. Which I'm not. So how does this make it worth the price tag again? Oh because they can put more into the game. Okay. ... yes, and that will in turn to Make the Price tag of the game go up. ahah....:| :cry:

Oh wait. You're saying we pay what the devs should pay. Okay. Yes thats why live is priced. Good for the devs. And that makes it good for us?

Hard to sell because there's many alternative that do the same thing for free?

Bebi_vegeta

[QUOTE="Bebi_vegeta"]

Hard to sell because there's many alternative that do the same thing for free?

UnnDunn

[QUOTE="UnnDunn"]

[QUOTE="dream431ca"]

You realise that's how most online services work :?

dream431ca

Really?? Resistance 2 works exactly the same way as you described, so does Killzone 2.

[QUOTE="dream431ca"]

[QUOTE="UnnDunn"]Bzzt. Wrong. Neither PSN nor Steam work this way.

UnnDunn

Really?? Resistance 2 works exactly the same way as you described, so does Killzone 2.

Cool, but all I want is to play games online, so PSN and steam are great choices for me because:

A) I don't have to pay for either of the services

B) I can play games online with ease

[QUOTE="Bebi_vegeta"]

Hard to sell because there's many alternative that do the same thing for free?

UnnDunn

Exactly implemented in the "game". Really, what do you need to play online gaming? Robust??? can you define that?

[QUOTE="UnnDunn"]

[QUOTE="Bebi_vegeta"]

Hard to sell because there's many alternative that do the same thing for free?

crazy-player

On XBL, your game talks to the XBL APIs and all that stuff is handled for you automatically.

Honestly, whats the point of all this? I didn't bother trying understand top post, but even if one day its been concluded that xbox live/psn is better than the other, is it supposed to convince the other guys to buy the other console? I don't see any sheeps admitting ownage and getting a PS3/360 just because their online suck.

[QUOTE="UnnDunn"]

[QUOTE="Bebi_vegeta"]

Hard to sell because there's many alternative that do the same thing for free?

Bebi_vegeta

Exactly implemented in the "game". Really, what do you need to play online gaming? Robust??? can you define that?

I think what he means is a tightly integrated system that can be managed only by Microsoft. In other words, no flexability and developers have to follow exactly what guidelines MS has layed out or they can't be a part of Live.

[QUOTE="crazy-player"][QUOTE="UnnDunn"]There are no alternatives that do the same thing for free. On PC, most games implement their own custom online gaming systems, none of which are as robust as Xbox Live/GfW Live. Those may be alternatives, but they don't "do the same thing"... not even close.

UnnDunn

On XBL, your game talks to the XBL APIs and all that stuff is handled for you automatically.

But us customers don't. :|

[QUOTE="crazy-player"][QUOTE="UnnDunn"]There are no alternatives that do the same thing for free. On PC, most games implement their own custom online gaming systems, none of which are as robust as Xbox Live/GfW Live. Those may be alternatives, but they don't "do the same thing"... not even close.

UnnDunn

On XBL, your game talks to the XBL APIs and all that stuff is handled for you automatically.

When you say voice, you mean IN-Game chat... there's many 3rd party support that are better.

Again, many 3rd party support have better stat tracking...

[QUOTE="UnnDunn"]

[QUOTE="Bebi_vegeta"]

Hard to sell because there's many alternative that do the same thing for free?

crazy-player

[QUOTE="crazy-player"][QUOTE="UnnDunn"]There are no alternatives that do the same thing for free. On PC, most games implement their own custom online gaming systems, none of which are as robust as Xbox Live/GfW Live. Those may be alternatives, but they don't "do the same thing"... not even close.

yoyo462001

If XBL is priced. And IF I was a dev then maybe our game won't be as much to put on live. Maybe we can gain more. IF I was a dev. Which I'm not. So how does this make it worth the price tag again? Oh because they can put more into the game. Okay. ... yes, and that will in turn to Make the Price tag of the game go up. ahah....:| :cry:

Oh wait. You're saying we pay what the devs should pay. Okay. Yes thats why live is priced. Good for the devs. And that makes it good for us?

LOXO7

[QUOTE="LOXO7"]

If XBL is priced. And IF I was a dev then maybe our game won't be as much to put on live. Maybe we can gain more. IF I was a dev. Which I'm not. So how does this make it worth the price tag again? Oh because they can put more into the game. Okay. ... yes, and that will in turn to Make the Price tag of the game go up. ahah....:| :cry:

Oh wait. You're saying we pay what the devs should pay. Okay. Yes thats why live is priced. Good for the devs. And that makes it good for us?

UnnDunn

Still doesn't justify the price tag.

Is it just me, or have there been too many "XBL is/isn't worth the money" threads lately? What's up with that?

Nerd_Man

[QUOTE="yoyo462001"][QUOTE="crazy-player"] PC does the same thing and in most cases, better. XBL should be free just like PSN, Wii, and Steam is. crazy-player

On XBL EVERY game has voice. No Teamspeak required.

[QUOTE="yoyo462001"][QUOTE="crazy-player"] PC does the same thing and in most cases, better. XBL should be free just like PSN, Wii, and Steam is. crazy-player

[QUOTE="Bebi_vegeta"]

[QUOTE="UnnDunn"]There are no alternatives that do the same thing for free. On PC, most games implement their own custom online gaming systems, none of which are as robust as Xbox Live/GfW Live. Those may be alternatives, but they don't "do the same thing"... not even close.

dream431ca

Exactly implemented in the "game". Really, what do you need to play online gaming? Robust??? can you define that?

I think what he means is a tightly integrated system that can be managed only by Microsoft. In other words, no flexability and developers have to follow exactly what guidelines MS has layed out or they can't be a part of Live.

Leaving me with no choice but to pay $50...

It's worth it because the entertainment is well worth the money.

If I play golf on Sundays for the whole summer that equals about $600.

If I play on xbox live every weeknight for the entire year it costs........only $50.

I don't know, I may have to quit golf so I can pay for live.

[QUOTE="crazy-player"][QUOTE="UnnDunn"]There are no alternatives that do the same thing for free. On PC, most games implement their own custom online gaming systems, none of which are as robust as Xbox Live/GfW Live. Those may be alternatives, but they don't "do the same thing"... not even close.

yoyo462001

Some games have implemented voice chat... and teamspeak or ventrilo is pretty awsome for free.