[TheGame]

Holy Shyt :eek:

Originally posted by gekko


But you need to look at PS2's online plans a little more closely.

1) $40 modem.
2) Monthly charges for certain games
3) Some games will support narrowband, but others require bband
4) Future games may require a $100 HD

I think it was best described as "What a ****in' mess." Let's look back at Dreamcast shall we? For Dreamcast, every single DC owner could go online. And don't start with me that they didn't promote their network right. SegaNet, making games specifically for online play, and they promoted it like crazy. Still, not many people played online. Well guess what? Things won't change for PS2.

The $40 modem will kill it. On DC, you could try a game online and if you didn't like it, big deal. On PS2, it's going to cost you $40 to realize you don't like it. Is it worth it for me to pay $40 just to try it out? $40 is the price of a game, you know? It's gonna hold a lot of people back, and a lot of people here too, cause I hear you guys bitching all the time about "Buying a PS2 and a mem card makes it such a worse buy than getting an Xbox."

Monthly charges for games is somthing that will drive users away like crazy. PSO was a killer game, and had tons of people playing it. But there were quite a few who weren't willing to pay $15 every 3 months to play PSOv2. Some die hard fans just didn't want to pay it. And I don't care if FFXI is released in Japan and named the greatest game ever made, your userbase will still be greatly limited.

And lastly, very, very few people will waste their money on a PS2 HD for online gaming. It's not worth it. If I can play a game like PSO happily for over 200 hours and only save to a portion of a 128kb memory card, I can be just fine playing a game and saving on a 8MB one. If it comes with a HD, use it. But if it doesn't, make the game work with what the gamers already have, it's not that hard.

it's all about promotion... If Ps2 has the right games put online, the online network will be a decnt size, if Ps2 has the wrong games go online, the online network will fail. Price has nothing to do with it when there are online killer aps left and right for Ps2. Plus if Sony advertizes it right, or they get it where online gaming will be cheap (monthly) things will work out just fine.

And right now, the way I see it, Nintendo has the only chance for great online play, but I still don't hold out much hope. But after looking at Xbox and PS2, it doesn't look good for either of them. Nintendo isn't ready to go online, and like I said, it looks like they're the only company who learned from Dreamcast. Nintendo basically said they won't really do anything with online play until they, as a software maker, are ready to release a game that supports it. But if the meantime, if a 3rd party like Sega wants to use their own servers, they'll release the modem without any problem. We won't be hearing much of Nintendo's online plans until they have a game ready to launch the network with. Remember they've already tried this stuff with 64DD and GB Mobile unit, and they've seen DC do it, there's not much money to be made my putting your games online.

But what exactly gives Nintendo the best chance of having great online service? PLEASE answer this.

Dreamcast had a decnt amount of Online users because Sega promoted the online gaming themselves. Remember the free 50 hour deal? There were a LOT more people online in those days, then when it dropped the ommunity (on NFL 2k1 and NBA 2k1 at least) seems to be cut into 1/3 of what it was.

But that's not the point, Sega promoted online gaming well... Nintendo will not promote it at all. I doubt there will be any online games by Nintendo for GCN in it's lifespan... if there is a day when one comes out, that's when the network should start picking up slack. But until Nintendo starts doing some promotion of thier own, GCN online network is doomed to fail.

Also, I want to point out the fact that you keep mentioning Ps2's $40 modem... GCN's is $35... not much of a difference there... plus I think you need to read more about the HDD before you go and say it will be $100.

Now for your other points:

1) Most hit online games are FPS or RPGs, both can work out much better on a PC. Look at it from the developer's standpoint. You're making a hit new game that you want people to play online. Where's the money going to be made? PC, easily. Has a much larger userbase, and more people play it online. You can also release an expansion pack and bring in more cash. There's a ton of new games coming up that will be huge online games, Neverwinter Nights, Shadowbane, WarCraft 3, World of Warcraft, Unreal Tournament 2003, Doom 3, Quake 4, Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell, just to name a few. Notice they all have one thing in commom? Yep, PC games. It's where there's money to be made. FPS don't do nearly as well on consoles due to the controls, and it's harder to add new stuff and really control the server. RPGs like that are just much easier to play on PC, and really need a mouse.

As a developer, I'd rather it be on PC... BUT having a game on PC brings big risks... If M$ paid enough for a game to be on Xbox, I'd rather have it on X-Box. Why? Less risk of being hacked, and less risk of people copying games. Plus Xbox games cost more, so there is more money to be made... and as a developer, I would't have to hold back on visuals because not everybody has the latest graphics card.

2) Xbox makes multiplayer easier? No it doesn't. Xbox is ethernet-only, and how many people have Xbox near an ethernet jack? Most people, like myself, will need to move it near their PC to hook it up, and good luck hauling around your HDTV with it. But let's say you had one in your room. You want a 32 player game. What's easier? 4 players and 8 Xboxes hooked together? Cause if this is every man for himself remember, you can see what your friends are doing. Plus you got a much smaller area to deal with. Also, if there's 2 spots open in a game, and you got 4, you can't join. Oh ya, good luck chatting with that keyboard that doesn't exist.

Um... have you played NFL 2k2 online? Apparently not.

That's what type of Multi-play I'm talking about

Now on a PC, you got your keyboard and mouse right in front of you. A monitor all to yourself, and you're good to go. 32 people join a game, and you're all good to go. On PC you don't share your screen with everyone, you all just join a game seperatly. Ever play a FPS with a controller? Ya, it sucks. But then sharing your screen with 3 other people? Give me my PC any day

On Xbox, you could do the same thing... And I would take a controller over a keyboard and mouse any day. With X-Box all that is needed is a keyboard... one X-Box and a TV...

Now if you want to talk about PC Multi Play with friends in the same house, we can talk about paying near $6,000 just to set up the PCs.