Alpha Posted July 18, 2004 Share Posted July 18, 2004 Rob Fahey 11:48 16/07/2004 Online console gaming service growing faster than AOL or TiVo, says MS Microsoft has announced that there are now over a million users of the Xbox Live console online gaming service, which makes it into one of the fastest-growing online services of any description in the world. The company announced the milestone for the service, which it originally set for itself as a target for June, in a statement last night - revealing a number of other statistics in the process, such as the fact that over 160 million hours have been spent on the Live service so far (around 20,000 years) and that an average of 265,549 hours are played each day. According to Microsoft, the growth of the service is three times faster than other consumer online services such as internet access and information service America On-Line or digital video recording service TiVo. The statement also listed the top 15 cities around the world in terms of Xbox Live user base, and while 12 of the cities were in North America, there was room in the top 15 for London, Seoul and Tokyo, with the latter being particularly surprising given the low installed base of the Xbox in Japan. "Great game content has been and will continue to be the key to the success of Xbox Live," according to Microsoft's corporate VP of worldwide marketing and publishing, Peter Moore. "What really sets the service apart from others is that we make it incredibly easy for consumers to get online, find their friends, join a game and start playing right away; Xbox Live is a great experience every time they play, regardless of what they play."Credits: http://gamesindustry.biz Related Links:»» XBOX Emulation Forum»» Online Gaming Forum============================ So how many people here use XBOX Live? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mag Posted July 19, 2004 Share Posted July 19, 2004 This is truly unbelievable, to think Xbox Live would be dominant in the business, people paying for the service yearly compare to ps2 free online gaming service (with the exception of FFXI). I guess they might even rose higher once Halo 2 release Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wizard Posted July 19, 2004 Share Posted July 19, 2004 The difference between the 2 is. Sony doesn't charge anyone, it's the game's company that does. FFXI, Evercrack and some other games are pay2play. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lancerx Posted July 19, 2004 Share Posted July 19, 2004 (edited) yeap, amazing isn't it? Now with EA support will be better GC online is amazing too, isn't it ? just to think i was a nint. loyal:( Edited July 19, 2004 by lancerx Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
An4L_Dr1p Posted July 19, 2004 Share Posted July 19, 2004 i got xbox live and some times it's hard for me not to get pissed at ppl when they tell mei am racing dirty in Toca racer 2 and scream at them then ram them head on at 160mph an then get kicked from the game. it's fun. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sane Posted July 19, 2004 Share Posted July 19, 2004 Live is highly impressive, you pay 50 bucks a year but for that you get well maintained servers and lagless gameplay. Plus you can manage a list of people that you like to play with and see when they are online and what they are playing. You can also send them invites to play games. The people online vary of course, there's losers like the guy above me here but also lot's of nice, mature people. Personally I think this setup should be applied to all consoles, servers maintained by the console manufacturer or atleast one company. This way you can get a stable experience with more features than possible with game developer maintained servers. This is worth 50 bucks to me. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gryph Posted July 19, 2004 Share Posted July 19, 2004 Doesn't the speed depend on the interent connection you have at home? So the gameplay wouldn't be lagless for people on dial up? Or how does that work? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Agozer Posted July 19, 2004 Share Posted July 19, 2004 Doesn't the speed depend on the interent connection you have at home? So the gameplay wouldn't be lagless for people on dial up? Or how does that work?I'm with you on that...In my opinion you need a broad band connection for lagless gameplay. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sane Posted July 19, 2004 Share Posted July 19, 2004 That's why broadband is required for Live, without it you can't get it. It's harsh for the 56k people but it allows things to be lagless for the rest. Although sometimes there will be people using bittorent or something while playing, that will lag things, but most people understand that that is a silly thing to do . That's rare though, for example I just played PGR2 online for about 3 hours and haven't seen any lag at all which is pretty impressive considering this game is highly detailed and races can have up to 8 people racing. The downside of Live is in the variety of games available. Personally I'm a huge racing game fan, that's why I got live in the first place, racing games are one of my favourite genres already but with live they get nearly unlimited replay value. PGR2 is the perfect example on how to make a game online, not only do you get to see scoreboards for every race you can do in the game on the screen when you're about to start it (which is really bad for your ego) but you can actually download ghosts of all those times. Each time you finish a race a ghost of your run is uploaded to the server, other people can download it and race against it, or watch how you play to improve their technique. But other than racing and shooting, which I don't care for, there's not much to do. I have top spin tennis which is cool but I really miss some other genres. KoF 2k2/2k3 will soon be released though, that's something to look forward to playing on live (it beat the hell out of kaillera ). Also Tecmo is going to release DOA online, which I won't be getting probably because I dont care much for DOA but they did set it up in a great way. They made it so about 8 people can join a game, 2 fighting against eachother and the rest watching. The watching people can talk to cheer them on and they can rotate the camara with their joypads while waiting their turn, the first in line will fight against the winner or something. This is as close to a real arcade experience as you can get in your own home. I only hope more developers will be as creative as this for games to come. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dooz Posted July 19, 2004 Share Posted July 19, 2004 I've never been a fan of online gaming on consoles. But that's just because I've never had enough money for anything higher then a 56k internet connection. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gryph Posted July 19, 2004 Share Posted July 19, 2004 That's why I like the PC online scene. A HUGE community. HUGE selection. And no extra charges except for MMOGs. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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