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Microsoft is Screwing Up Live on Vista 114

Posted by Zonk from the get-with-the-program dept.
Joe The Dragon wrote with a link to an ExtremeTech article lambasting Microsoft for its confusing rollout of the Live service on the PC. While the vision of achievements, a gamerscore, a consistent friends list, and one sprawling multiplayer network is tantalizing, the reality falls somewhat short of that goal. "The biggest mistake Microsoft is making with Live on the PC is the way they're treating the PC as if it's a console platform they can control. They're trying to lock out the rest of the world and to charge for features that PC gamers have had for free for ages. It's a shortsighted, greedy scheme that could only come from a product manager or VP who simply doesn't "get" PC gaming. The free Silver level of Xbox Live lets you log in on the PC and earn Achievements just like you do on the 360--but only single-player Achievements. Multiplayer Achievements are only for those $50-a-year Gold members. Player matchmaking is for Gold members only. Voice in games is for Gold members only. Cross-platform play between 360 and PC is for Gold members only. In fact, the only thing silver members can really do is view a server list and hop onto a specific server." Article author Jason Cross warns Microsoft at the end of the piece that it is 'not too late' to turn things around. Vista is still a young platform, and once driver issues are ironed out and Vista becomes the standard there are still opportunities for success.
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Microsoft is Screwing Up Live on Vista More

Microsoft is Screwing Up Live on Vista

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  • ob (Score:5, Funny)

    by Bastard of Subhumani ( 827601 ) on Thursday May 10, 2007 @01:05PM (#19071309) Journal
    What, right now? Which channel is it on?

  • standard? (Score:2, Flamebait)

    by Tom ( 822 )

    and Vista becomes the standard
    And how, exactly, is that going to happen with people actively turning back to XP in droves?

    • Re:standard? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Rosco P. Coltrane ( 209368 ) on Thursday May 10, 2007 @01:10PM (#19071405)
      And how, exactly, is that going to happen with people actively turning back to XP in droves?

      Get real, this is only temporary. Once Microsoft has patched Vista enough to make it vaguely palatable, and newer PCs ship with enough extra oomph to run the OS as fast as XP on today's hardware, people will just get used to it. Don't kid yourself, the forced upgrade scheme will be going as planned.

      • Re:standard? (Score:5, Insightful)

        by interiot ( 50685 ) on Thursday May 10, 2007 @01:18PM (#19071549) Homepage

        Get real, this is only temporary.
        Device drivers for certain types of devices have to be completely rewritten for Vista, or the hardware won't work. Creative is one company that's stated that only the very newest hardware will be supported on Vista... all other hardware that's just a little older will never be supported on Vista... that's not temporary, that's a permanent loss of support for hardware. And if Creative (a larger, more well-off company) won't rewrite most of its recent drivers for Vista, how are smaller companies going to fare?
        • But older devices aren't a problem. The main growth is going to come in two areas: geeks that want to upgrade for one reason or another (probably gaming with DX10), and people who buy a new computer. Either way, old drivers won't be an issue.

          For Vista to not become the standard, Dell and the other main suppliers will have to sell XP standard, and I just don't see that happening.

          • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

            by CogDissident ( 951207 )
            Actually, according to all the speed testing thats been done, framerates are actually better on XP because it doesnt clog up a system as much as vista does. The only reason gamers want DX 10 is because they'll be forced to get it if they want to play the new shiney game at all, because it absolutely won't work on older machines. I can't see any developers wanting to cut out 90% of their market for a 0-5% performance gain.
            • If you recall the recent interview with 'The Saint' about his time at Microsoft, he pointed out that the whole idea behind Direct-X was to get Windows out of the way of games because it was bloated and ugly. Now Direct-X is also bloated and ugly and Windows is getting even worse and back in the way again. Game creators are the ones who will be most unhappy, not consumers.

          • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

            by Tom ( 822 )

            For Vista to not become the standard, Dell and the other main suppliers will have to sell XP standard, and I just don't see that happening.

            Funny that you should mention Dell:

            Dell has reintroduced PCs running Windows XP on its website due to customer demand. [slashdot.org]

            Dell To Offer Win XP On Consumer PCs Again [slashdot.org]

            Sure it's a test on some models, but imagine what Dell will do if these models (with XP) sell considerably better than the comparable other models (with Vista).

            • Re: (Score:1)

              by Jaysyn ( 203771 )
              My girlfriend is actually about to buy one of those Dell laptops. I hate it, but you just can't beat Dell's combination of price, configurability & the fact you can still get XP on their machines.

              Lenovo was the only other manufacturer that I saw that was still putting XP on systems, but their "economy" offering was too expensive & you were forced to use a crappy Intel graphics chip.
            • Um and if thats not bad enough next month sometime [cue acdc track name "hells bells"] Dell will be offering at the home level (ie website and cart monkeys) systems with UBUNTU LINUX PREINSTALLED i would say the school shopping season will be very interesting this year.

        • Comment removed (Score:4, Interesting)

          by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Thursday May 10, 2007 @01:33PM (#19071845)
          Comment removed based on user account deletion

          • Re: (Score:1)

            by bearl ( 589272 )
            The alternate driver the parent refers to apparently doesn't work with Vista, which is kind of the point.

            From their own FAQ: [lugosoft.com]

            Q. Under which Operating Systems can I use the kX driver?

            A. The kX driver conforms to the WDM (Windows Driver Model) specification and is therefore compatible with the following Microsoft Windows operating systems: Windows XP, Windows 2000, Windows 98 (Second Edition only), and Windows Me. Windows .NET Server 2003 may also be supported, however, this has not been tested. Windows 98 (Fi

          • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

            by JohnnyBigodes ( 609498 )
            Yup, an alternative driver exists that is of excellent interest to musicians and general use, but totally useless for gamers, as it has basically no EAX support, which is the only reason a gamer will get a Creative card anyway.

            Not knocking on the kX project itself here, I think it's fantastic, but let's not mix apples and oranges.

        • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

          by Quarters ( 18322 )
          Device drivers had to be rewritten going from 98 to XP. Some device drivers had to be rewritten going from 95 to 98. The obsolescence you are describing has been going on for a decade. History has shown it will be no obstacle to Vista's acceptance.

        • Re: (Score:1, Funny)

          by Anonymous Coward
          Does this mean no support for my Sound Blaster Live!?
        • Creative is well known for its "we don't fucking care" attitude when it comes to drivers for new operating systems.
          Besides, it's not like they have a stable driver for Vista for any hardware right now.
        • Actually, creative and many other larger companies seem to follow the idealogy that it's better to get a product out the door, and then drop proper support for it as soon as the next one hits the shelves. Is it really that time-consuming or difficult to port a driver for "card X" when they've already figured out how to work the Vista security model for "card Y?" No, but it's not worth Creative's time when they could be selling newer stuff to customers.

          Creative, and many others, have never been good at re-
      • The forced upgrade scheme has been happening for a long time in a lot of hardware, software, and general business models.

        However, no one is really being forced to upgrade right now ... some people still run Windows 2000, I imagine. Some people still run old versions of Mac OS. Especially if you build your own computer :)

    • Re: (Score:1, Troll)

      by westlake ( 615356 )
      And how, exactly, is that going to happen with people actively turning back to XP in droves?

      Don't trust everything you read on Slashdot.

      $14.4 billion in quarterly revenues suggests a far different reality than the imagination of the blogger.

    • people actively turning back to XP in droves

      Have you people really convinced yourselves of this?

  • Videocast? (Score:5, Funny)

    by u-bend ( 1095729 ) on Thursday May 10, 2007 @01:06PM (#19071333) Homepage Journal
    When I first saw this, I thought it was a videocast: "Watch MS screw up LIVE!!"

  • Bill Cosby (Score:3, Funny)

    by MyOtherUIDis3digits ( 926429 ) on Thursday May 10, 2007 @01:15PM (#19071509)
    A bit OT, I know, but every time I see a Vista story on Slashdot, I think of the line from Bill Cosby's act, "Let the beatings begin!"

    And I smile...
  • microsoft thinking they own and can control the PC platform like it's a console? Is anyone really surprised by this? It's probably the number one reason to not support microsoft (even by running pirated copies) in any way. This is the same kind of crap they do in every business they try to force their way into and all it does is degrade the user experience AND cost more.

    Maybe I'll start up an XBL-like service for Linux that actually works and is open. So I'll finally be able to tell if my friends are pl

  • I hope this fails (Score:4, Insightful)

    by moderatorrater ( 1095745 ) on Thursday May 10, 2007 @01:18PM (#19071555)
    As a PC gamer, I sincerely hope it fails. Battle.net was the first example of free online play, but other games are following suit. Microsoft is pulling this shit right as it's become standard for RTS's (at least) to include a free online service. In addition to that, it'll create more lock-in for gamers. The upside is that it'll standardize things like in-game voice chat and online play, but it isn't enough.

    • Re:I hope this fails (Score:5, Informative)

      by CogDissident ( 951207 ) on Thursday May 10, 2007 @01:28PM (#19071759)
      Standardize online play, humm, lets think, what company has already done this?

      Yeah, thats right, Steam and Stardock both have these features (well, ok, not voice chat, but the other things). Both are free, cross-platform, and supported by many, many developers.

      Congrats M$, for entering a market where not only do you have two strong competetors, but you offer a clearly inferior service for vast amounts more money.

      • Re:I hope this fails (Score:4, Insightful)

        by powerlord ( 28156 ) on Thursday May 10, 2007 @02:17PM (#19072581) Journal

        Standardize online play, humm, lets think, what company has already done this?

        Yeah, thats right, Steam and Stardock both have these features (well, ok, not voice chat, but the other things). Both are free, cross-platform, and supported by many, many developers.

        Congrats M$, for entering a market where not only do you have two strong competetors, but you offer a clearly inferior service for vast amounts more money.


        Yeah ... except:

        1) Everyone knows who MS is, and anyone interested in gaming has probably heard about Live! (as well as anyone with even basic familiarity of an XBox 360). While Steam may have the same sort of recognition, Stardock doesn't (even though its a great system).

        2) Vista will probably have the Live! starter pushed down as a required update (like IE7 was for XP), and/or require its inclusion and support for a "Games For Windows" logo. Next thing you know its the de-facto standard, and even Stardock and Steam will probably have to play "catch up", or support Live! in some way.

        Its amazing what having a monopoly will let you do in a marketplace, and MS certainly has a monopoly in the desktop arena. Of course if I was Stardock and Steam, I would be pushing for court orders to require Live! to be optional based on illegal tie-ing. That won't actually STOP MS (unless a court officer decides they need to spin off the games division ... an interesting choice and one that could work), but it MIGHT slow them down a little.
      • Which platforms is Steam on? Would that be Windows XP AND Windows Vista?

      • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

        by Darundal ( 891860 )
        No they don't. Stardock and Steam don't try to charge you a monthly or annual fee for the right to play their games online. All they do is offer standardized online play. The live thing isn't about standardizing (it's just easier to do it all out of one thing for them) but about taking an FPS or a sports game or some other game and charging for online like companies do for MMOs. Except they aren't MMOs.
    • battle.net was just Blizzard following suit of previous developers such as Westwood Studios. Next your gona say Command & Conquer sprung from Warcraft.
      • "Battle.net was the first online gaming service incorporated directly into the games that make use of it" according to wikipedia [wikipedia.org].

        Up to that point you had shitty services providing shitty game experience that was hard to use by the average person. On the other hand you have Blizzard providing their own servers and first party support.

        Next you're going to tell me that heat was as good as battle.net ;)
  • A while back, there was info on TF2 that stated PC gamers would get cross-platform battles with the 360 users. I do not know how the online works for the 360, so if this Live is something separatly implemented selectivly in Online support, I would not know. But from my understanding, it would seem that only the gold Xbox 360 users would get to face PC users in TF2. More over, does this mean that we PC users will only have access to 360 users via this Live on PC (and thus through Vista?) Anyone with a better
    • I'm not sure, but I believe the 360 could communicate with PCs relatively easily. At the base level, it would only make sense the the 360 uses BSD sockets, as does almost everything else.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by cgenman ( 325138 )
      360 software can only communicate with PC's through MS's Live servers. Networking can only happen through MS's API's, though layers can be built upon those. If you're on the 360, you can only offer multiplayer through Live Gold. So anyone consoler who can go online for multiplayer battles on the 360, can also do so vs PC players.

      All games for all consoles must be thoroughly approved by the console creator along many aspects, including crashworthiness, wording of error boxes, networking behaviors, etc. T

  • M$ Wants to you to pay for mods, maps, addons..... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Joe The Dragon ( 967727 ) on Thursday May 10, 2007 @01:30PM (#19071779)
    and other free things that pc games have had for a long time. That want to lock things down to there way and as it is that will be very bad for pc gaming. EA games likes to nickel and dime you on there xbox 360 games.
    It would suck to have a MMORPG type game where you would have to pay The full cost of game, live gold, the games Monthly Fee, and live points for content updates.

    M$ need back down on pushing game to be dumbed down to support xbox controllers, be more open to cheaper ESRB stile ratings organizations, support the use of user made mods and user made maps online with out any kind of lock down, Let developers have games that can be Cross-platform with pc - xbox 360 - mac os x - ps3, and so on.
    Some of the Platform standards for a games of windows are good but they should add a common update system that is easy for games and other apps to use and is free for developers to use to make easy to keep all of your games up to date.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by dabraun ( 626287 )

      M$ Wants to you to pay for mods, maps, addons.....
      and other free things that pc games have had for a long time.


      Oh, yes, no PC game has ever charged for an add on pack with additional maps and other content.
      • M$ wants to get rid of the free add ons and make you user there point system to buy them.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by dabraun ( 626287 )
          Microsoft wants to maximize profitiability (they are a business, what do you expect?)

          To do so they ship a variety of updates for games, some of which are free and some of which are not. Bug fixes are free (you see xbox games update for bug fixes and game balance improvements all the time), some features are free or provided via promotion (effectively ad supported but the only ad is that the description says who sponsored it.) The first new gears maps were provided this way (free, sponsored by some other c
  • that Live is dying?
    • No. Just Microsoft throwing the baby out with the bath water. Don't expect this situation to improve until Live 3.0 comes out.

  • Is it just matchmaking? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by PhoenixOne ( 674466 ) on Thursday May 10, 2007 @01:32PM (#19071827)

    If it is just matchmaking and a score-board, yeah $50 is a bit much. But if Microsoft is hosting the games on their servers and checking to make sure nobody is cheating (as much as you can for PC games), then it might be worth the $4.25 a month they want.

    I do agree however, that they *need* the Live interface to be part of Vista and not just something that you run from inside games. Being able to see if my friends are playing a certain game while I'm downloading porn...um, checking my email would be nice.

    My bet is that Live Vista will suck for the first couple of months. In a year, it will be acceptable. And in 2 to 3 years it will become the standard. Being able to see that your friend is playing Shadowrun while you are playing WoW will be the killer app.

    • Re:Is it just matchmaking? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by fistfullast33l ( 819270 ) on Thursday May 10, 2007 @01:41PM (#19071985) Homepage Journal
      That's an incredibly expensive investment on Microsoft's end. Why host the servers yourself? Even Sony, who's launching Home for free, isn't hosting content on their server, it's P2P. As for detecting cheating, that would require access to source code that I'm sure most 3rd parties won't be willing to give up. I doubt they're doing game hosting and cheat detection.

      • Re:Is it just matchmaking? (Score:4, Insightful)

        by PhoenixOne ( 674466 ) on Thursday May 10, 2007 @02:02PM (#19072295)

        Detecting cheating doesn't require access to source code.

      • Re:Is it just matchmaking? (Score:4, Informative)

        by cgenman ( 325138 ) on Thursday May 10, 2007 @08:58PM (#19077931) Homepage
        Microsoft doesn't host live games. Microsoft serves as the lobby and matchmaking server for live games, similar to how gamespy works. And from what I've seen, they do some rudimentary but pretty effective cheat detection.

        One big bit of all of this is who pays for the cost of maintaining game servers. Under the old model and Sony's model, the game developer pays for all RnD, development, deployment, and upkeep. Under Microsoft's model, the brunt of the costs are born by the player. Microsoft provides the developers libraries to interface with their game-agnostic voip, messaging, and game invitation systems. Rich Presence is as simple as sending an update command. Supporting voice chat can be done solidly in a day or two, rather than weeks of custom coding. Fast matchmaking is all handled by their servers, and leaderboards are as simple as making some API calls. Don't get me started on how much better it is to have a unified friends list.

        The Original Xbox was a nightmare of unsupported requirements, which added weeks to any development schedule. This time around, however, they're actually doing things right enough that it seems to be cutting development time rather than adding to it.

        Sony's stance has been, by and large, "The developer can do it." So if you want voice chat, you go to a middleware solution. If you want downloadable content, they'll implement that at some point. Really, they just haven't supported development in the substantial way they've needed to to be considered comparable. That's why you're seeing games like Oblivion showing up on the PS3 without downloadable content or other goodies.

        And really, that's the distinction. Games being developed for Live, even Live Vista, get a greatly simplified development path and fire-and-forget hosting (until the next blizzard takes out washington). So you're far more likely to see all games, not just big hits, take advantage of the features.

        So it's a tradeoff. I think a lot of game developers are a little peeved at Sony for promising the world, then making us develop it. Similarly, with the exception of Horse Armor pretty much everything on Xbox Live is something people have felt like games should be able to do for a long time now, but nobody has had the monopoly to do so. Paying 5 bucks a month? It's a lot, and I wonder how many developers will opt to go that route. To me, it's worth it, but I'm not what you'd call casual.

        I can understand how people who are used to free online play would be annoyed by this, but the experience of a unified online gaming service is worth it. Too bad they didn't throw in some online play for the PC.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Cutriss ( 262920 )
      It's not hosted, and it never was, except in the Phantasy Star games and Final Fantasy XI. I like Live a lot, but you do have to admit that all the smoke and mirrors about "paying for good servers" is really lame when it's just a peering service like Battle.net.

    • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

      by GWLlosa ( 800011 )
      What you're looking for exists. Its called XFire (http://www.xfire.com/ [xfire.com]). No reason to pay $$$ for something they can do on ad revenue.

      • I tried using XFire some months ago. Good idea, but it didn't work well for me (bugs). I'm probably try it again when I have some time.

        On the other hand, if Microsoft makes Live part of IM and it comes bundled with all the new games, I'll be using it automatically (zero effort). IMHO this is XFire's biggest issue (see Netscape vs. IE for an example).

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by CODiNE ( 27417 )
      No it's NOT a great service for MS to offer. It's just another go at market lock-in. If they get big with this thing you can bet it's going to cause all the usual problems that their "standards" do. Don't buy into it.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by vux984 ( 928602 )
      I do agree however, that they *need* the Live interface to be part of Vista and not just something that you run from inside games.

      It doesn't really need to be part of the game (although integration is nice). It certainly doesn't really need to be part of Vista. It can be its own thing.

      Being able to see if my friends are playing a certain game while I'm downloading porn...um, checking my email would be nice.

      Only if your friends are able to see your downloading porn. And even then only if they are able to see

      • True, I wouldn't want everybody in the world to know what I'm doing at all time. I'm actually a very private person and somewhat paranoid. I wouldn't want to tell the world that: "PhoenixOne is trying to find flowers for his mom." but I would like the option to tell my friends "PhoenixOne is playing City of Heroes and is looking to group."

        Yeah, micro-transactions is the "killer app" for the marking people. I remember the sick feeling I had when Microsoft announced that the future of gaming would be like

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by vux984 ( 928602 )
          but I would like the option to tell my friends "PhoenixOne is playing City of Heroes and is looking to group."

          I think we're a hairs breadth away from that now, with current messengers. After all you can already set custom status messages in most messenger apps. All we need is to extend that functionality a bit, and make it a bit of a standard. with games that don't support it, you can set the message write in the messenger, and for games that do support it you'd be able to set the message from inside the ga

    • Being able to see that your friend is playing Shadowrun while you are playing WoW will be the killer app.

      That's the killer app for me on the 360 and the main reason I can't fathom going back to PC gaming. It's just SO easy with Live on 360. If I'm trying to have a bit of gaming fun in my limited free-time, the ease of playing an online game with friends (and not random 13 yr olds) makes it well worth the $50 a year to me. YMMV though if you don't have many Xbox playing friends...

      • Re:Is it just matchmaking? (Score:4, Informative)

        by SScorpio ( 595836 ) on Thursday May 10, 2007 @03:52PM (#19074407)
        That's funny because what you want is exactly what Xfire does: http://www.xfire.com/ [xfire.com]. It includes a IM client and voice chat. You can also join a server your friend's are playing on through the buddy list. It also includes a built in bittorrent client for downloading demos and patches. The only thing it doesn't offer is achievements so you won't be able to show off your e-penis. It's free through and offers a great system to keep in contact with your friends and meet new people with it's friends of friends feature.

        • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

          by Alsee ( 515537 )
          you won't be able to show off your e-penis.

          Well, you can always log onto Second Life for that.

          -
        • The difference between Xfire and Live is that Xfire is "simply" an IM program at heart. Live is a full-fledged multiplayer service. Whereas Xfire changes itself to work with other games, other games change themselves to work with Live.
    • I, for one, can't wait to see how great and industry-leading Microsoft's version of anti-cheat software will be. Because, you know, like no one can cheat in Halo 2 or anything. Bulletproof.

      And of course, who wouldn't want to be called a fag by an 11 year old for 15 minutes straight?

    • Being able to see that your friend is playing Shadowrun while you are playing WoW will be the killer app
      My friends and I have been doing this for years with http://www.xfire.com/ [xfire.com]
  • MS probably got the idea when they saw that PC gamers will happily pay $2 for horse armor! >:(

  • Lets get our **** straight before we talk, please? (Score:1, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I wish idiots like these people will get over themselves and get their facts straight.

    Lets look at his claim:

    ". They're trying to lock out the rest of the world and to charge for features that PC gamers have had for free for ages."

    Lets check his facts:

    "Multiplayer Achievements are only for those $50-a-year Gold members."
    Name a game, any game, on PC, that has achievments BEFORE live came out.

    "Player matchmaking is for Gold members only."
    Very few, if any, on PC, have "TrueSkill"-esque matchmaking. Infact, mo
    • While most of your points make sense, it's hard to take seriously someone who blasts others for not having their facts straight and then uses the phrase "jump the shark" in a way wholly incompatible with its meaning. Check Wikipedia and UrbanDictionary.

    • Re: (Score:1, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      "Name a game, any game, on PC, that has achievments BEFORE live came out."
      Battlefield 2

      "Very few, if any, on PC, have "TrueSkill"-esque matchmaking. Infact, most PC games offer a server list, and make it up to you to find your own fun..."
      There are pc games with skill based match making. Microsoft's very own Rise Of Nations for example.

      "Again, very minute crop of games have built in voice chat. 99.99% of PC multiplayer games use a keyboard for talking..."
      Bit of an exaggeration. Many games have voice chat in

      • Bit of an exaggeration. Many games have voice chat in addition to keyboard. Of course 99.9% of console games are unable to use the keyboard for talking.


        Except online PS2/PS3 games, the majority of which do support keyboard chat.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by dabraun ( 626287 )

          Except online PS3 games, the majority of which do support keyboard chat.


          Unfortunately you spend most of your time talking to yourself.

  • How is this a problem? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by ravyne ( 858869 ) on Thursday May 10, 2007 @02:47PM (#19073225)
    How is this a problem? If the free Silver account allows you to freely view and join servers, just the same as most PC games do now, how are you losing anything? Are you bitching that adding extras like matchmaking and voice chat, not to mention a mechanism to ban known cheaters, will cost you less than 5 bucks a month?

    The vast majority of current PC games supporting free multiplayer seem to provide the same thing that the free Silver account will. Also keep in mind that the Account is the same for your Xbox 360 and original XBox. Personally, having one consistant identity, with the same reputation and buddy list, across 3 different platforms is pretty much worth the money to me already.

    The arguement in the article seems to be "Some PC games provide some of this functionality for free, therefore any system bringing it all together should be free too!"
    • It's nice that it brings it all together but not really worth paying extra for. For years pc gamers have had all this functionality without having to pay subs on top of the games retail price. xfire covers your buddy lists and lets you know who is playing what game, and where they're playing. Teamspeak/Ventrillo cover comms without the 12 year olds screaming, some games have it built in but much like xbox live you have random kids shouting whatever. All the extras like maps/mods/soundpacks are free, and ge
    • Just to be able to play cross platform games. I have a number of friends that are console gamers. Well, I'm not, and not likely to become one. However Id' love to play online with them. If Live lets me do that, I'll sign up and a monthly fee is just fine. Also, it isn't like it fucks over existing PC games. Those that want to do their own networking (ie any non-cross platform game) will still do so.

      I'd be pissed if MS was saying all games had to use it, but they aren't. IT is jsut being made available so th
  • Get xFire. Free, does the same thing, and it can patch your games for you. Who needs a scoreboard when companies like EA do it for free and make the info publicly available.

  • The OS X version is baffling too (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Andy_R ( 114137 ) on Thursday May 10, 2007 @02:57PM (#19073397) Homepage Journal
    Microsoft have decided to put a "Windows Live" icon on the Mac version of MSN Messenger. It doesn't do anything, it's not clickable or selectable in any way as far as I can tell.

    It was added in one of the annoyingly regular 'you must upgrade NOW or you'll never be allowed on MSN again' updates that Microsoft like to do for no clear reason (as opposed to the spurious 'upgrade to the latest version' messages that you get when someone tries to send you an animated gif that tries to get you to install the PC version).

    Does anyone know why it's there?

  • Cost... (Score:2, Interesting)

    by provigilman ( 1044114 )
    I thought Windows Live Gold was free to anyone who already had XBox Live Gold? Isn't that sort of the whole point? You already have an XBox, but maybe you want the PC version of Oblivion versus the Console version? While I understand that there are people out there who don't own an XBox and might just want to be able to play Halo 3 with their buddies, most of the people that I know that want this already have an XBox and XBox Live...so I guess I just don't see the big deal on the price.
  • Apparently MS hasn't heard of T.E.N. -- Total Entertainment Network.

    For a brief year or so, before network games were fully Internet-enabled, they provided a service to allow LAN-only games to piggyback over the Internet protocols, and use their servers for games and meetings for games. Things like Duke Nukem 3D were a standard there. So was Quake (although it was Internet-enabled, T.E.N. was a big enough meeting place that the service adopted it.)

    Anyhoo, they charged $10/month, but went out of business a
  • I hope Live dies; it's a ridiculous idea to pay money for something that you already get for free with every damn game with multiplayer. Achievement points? Who gives a fuck? If that's what amuses the X-Box monkey then good for them, but I certainly don't care. I just want to play my games on multiplayer for free, and that's what I'm already getting.
  • Day and Age -- I've noticed a trend with online gaming-it's a way to make steady revenue for providers, and in turn developers alike. People seem to be more than willing to pay for it. I'm a bit of a pirate, have been for a long, long, long time. Sure I buy games, but I play about a 50/50 mix of games bought (many used) vs games downloaded/emulated. When I was a kid and playing games on the TRS, Apple IIe, C64, hell even the 286/386 we weren't always buying games, we'd copy them once someone bought them and
  • This is for folks like me, who don't touch their PC's for gaming. The only multi-experience I have is on Xbox Live. If Microsoft can extend the subscription that I already have onto a home PC or my laptop at work, I might be tempted to do more PC gaming... especially when I have to travel with work. Rather than a "greedy" move, it seems pretty smart to me. I get more out of my current subscription and maybe use my home PC for more than a hyped-up Internet browser.
  • They're trying to lock out the rest of the world and to charge for features that PC gamers have had for free for ages.

    Wow, who could have seen that coming?

  • Reminds me of this

    as we celebrate mediocrity all the boys upstairs wanna see
    how much you'll pay for what you used to get for free
    - The Last DJ/Tom Petty [rockmagic.net]
  • This only affects MS games, not everyone else. Name one massive hit that MS games has put out. Sure MS Flight Sim is huge in its niche but people that play this game are already hyped to shell out more money to improve their experience. Where is MS's killer FPS? (ok Halo II but that is a port that should have been done 2 years ago they sand bagged it for Vista) MMO that did not fail? I am in the Industry on the PC side and really this is nothing. This whole Live thing on the PC is just a way to make
  • "the only thing silver members can really do is view a server list and hop onto a specific server"

    you lucky, lucky bastard! try being a silver member on xbox live. you can't even do that.

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