Thoughts on Xbox 360

[Michi]

I just can't bring myself to even consider buying a 360. Until the re-design my friend's consoles were dying left and right and it just didn't seem right to think about buying something that almost seemed purposefully meant to fail. So, yeah, no 360 for me. Even tough things like the arcade appeal to me, I'm pretty sure I could get what I want from the PSN if/when I get a PS3.

[Original_Name]

I just don't understand why anyone would think that the Xbox 360 is of benefit to anyone. In previous generations, there were ideological and artistic differences which justified the existence of separate consoles. Now we have two consoles which are ostensibly the same thing, but we have two uber-corporations wrestling with exclusivity rights for games that would have otherwise been multi-platform anyway. In what way do gamers benefit from this bisection? This isn't even a competition between intellectual properties, it's a competition between selective exclusive bargaining and extenuating circumstances (RROD, Anonymous, et cetera). Microsoft's presence in console gaming has benefited no one -- nearly every game you're playing on the Xbox would have existed otherwise. They shouldn't be here. Their presence has a completely unnecessary negative impact on our hobby. It's not the end of the world, but I don't understand what there is to like about them, either.

Not that I'm a Sony fan at all -- in fact, I very openly dislike them, but they are at least producing some respectable first-party games (The Last Guardian, Flower, Echochrome...), which I think is the bare-minimum essential feature of a console manufacturer. Still, vertically-integrated oligarchical corporations with a history of exploiting Congo's coltan industry are not qualified to receive my dollars.

[gradualmeltdown]

Xbox 360 with Xbox Live is awesome. Guardian Heroes arcade leaderboards and multiplayer Story runs have been eating all my spare time. One of the best little game remixes ever.

Treasure, Sega, and Capcom's support for 360 has been phenomenal. I have all my retro systems hooked up all the time. Lately when I go to play old Sega or fighters I simply turn on the 360 for a remixed experience. I know the old games have their charm and qualities, but these remixes have been great!

Guardian Heroes
Gunstar Heroes
Ikaruga
Radiant Silver Gun
Daytona USA
Rez
Puzzle Fighter 2
Final Fight
SSF2T HD
SF3 T.S.

[avrame]

Microsoft's presence in console gaming has benefited no one -- nearly every game you're playing on the Xbox would have existed otherwise. They shouldn't be here. Their presence has a completely unnecessary negative impact on our hobby.

Forgive me if I took the post the wrong way, but 'What?' I don't quite understand the arguement of saying that a company has not brought anything 'new' to the market, therefore, it is unnecessary? If anything, Microsoft brought an online gaming community to the masses, allowing all users to have an equal gaming platform to play and compete with one another on. Your original statemate comes off as 'why improve on existing technologies?', and that just seems to rub off on me the wrong way.

Call BS on me if you'd like, but I felt that console online gaming did not take as quite a large seating on the gaming market until Xbox Live was introduced. Sure, Dreamcast and Playstation 2 also offered online play, but did they integrate all the features together as seamlessly as Microsoft had? My opinion is 'No', but that may simply be the Halo fanboy in me screaming out. Recall that Xbox Live was not the first platform to charge for it's online services, as MMOs, and other console games had done it in the past (Everquest, UO, Phantasy Star Online).

I feel Xbox Live is a good deal, but that is partially due to the fact that I've been paying for the Membership ever since Halo 2 was around, long before the free PSN alternative was offered. As a gamer today, I absolutely cherish being able to compete with other gamers online. I look at the value of the game being roughly based on how many hours of entertainment I can churn out of the game compared to the price I paid. $20 for Dead Rising 2, over 20 hours of gameplay is a fine deal, but $60 for a 4 hour game (Child of Eden ) is not a fair deal to me. Now, for an online game, I typically tie in my online gaming hours to see if it is worth it to me. On COD: Black Ops alone, I clocked in over 100 hours of online gameplay. At $60 for a year (or $25 if you know your connections), I feel that Xbox Live was a grand deal.

Now for the counter arguement that PSN and Steam are free, I answer that it is only worth while if your friends are on that platform. All my friends started online gaming with Halo 2, so we all have been Xbox users since. Should we had started on a PS3 game, I'm certain that we would be appauled at that idea of having to pay for online gaming. As for the PC argument, I love Steam, don't get me wrong. I hate gaming with a Mouse and Keyboard, I use those enough at work anyway, and it isn't comfortable to me. Lastly, the $60 I spent on Xbox Live was WAYYYY cheaper than the ammount I paid to upgrade my GFX card to play Starcraft 2 with my friends At least with my Xbox, I know I won't have to upgrade my hardware as frequently.


Lastly, to the people that make claims of Xbox having horrid QoS and product quality, was there a point that you had to pay to get your xbox repaired? I have had 2 RRODs in my family, both of which were repaired free of charge. Ditto with all my friends. If anything came out of my pocket for the repairs, I can see you being angry.

[Weekend_Warrior]

Yeah. I'm at the point now where I find the XBLA and indie games a lot more interesting than the standard Xbox 360 disc releases. Plus, they're a lot easier on my wallet.

Only problem is there's just so many of them coming out now.

Anyways as someone who hasn't been able to afford Live for a year or so, I think it's pretty BS I can't download most demo's anymore because I'm not a Gold member. DEMO's folks. Then I can just turn on my PS3 and get them for free from that, only problem is the 360 often gets demo's a bit faster so that's kind of annoying.

Hmm. I'm not a Gold member and I've never had any trouble downloading demos or trials.

[dsheinem]

Microsoft's presence in console gaming has benefited no one -- nearly every game you're playing on the Xbox would have existed otherwise. They shouldn't be here. Their presence has a completely unnecessary negative impact on our hobby. It's not the end of the world, but I don't understand what there is to like about them, either.

Not that I'm a Sony fan at all -- in fact, I very openly dislike them, but they are at least producing some respectable first-party games (The Last Guardian, Flower, Echochrome...), which I think is the bare-minimum essential feature of a console manufacturer. Still, vertically-integrated oligarchical corporations with a history of exploiting Congo's coltan industry are not qualified to receive my dollars.

MS' presence has certainly benefited gamers as a whole, as they did for gaming what Windows did for computing - take a bunch of features that were already out there but not well developed and synthesize them into a functional user-friendly experience. In the process they have also introduced little innovations here and there, created a platform that allows for relatively easy coding/porting, and helped make a lot of money for people at all levels of the industry (including indie developers). If you can't appreciate any of that, I don't know what to tell you.

Also, at the list of respectable first party games for Sony. They have at least a dozen first-party franchises across the PS1/2/3 that are all excellent. MS has less but has only been around for about ten years --- but they do have their fair share of excellent first party titles as well (whether they appeal to you or not).

Oh, and every console manufacturer uses Congo materials: http://kotaku.com/5574360/did-buying-yo ... -the-congo

[fastbilly1]

Now for the counter arguement that PSN and Steam are free, I answer that it is only worth while if your friends are on that platform. All my friends started online gaming with Halo 2, so we all have been Xbox users since.

That is pretty much the best statement about the whole situation. To offer a counter for Avrame, all of my friends are on Steam, very few are on Xbox Live or PSN. So we do alot of our multiplayer gaming via Steam.

Lastly, the $60 I spent on Xbox Live was WAYYYY cheaper than the ammount I paid to upgrade my GFX card to play Starcraft 2 with my friends At least with my Xbox, I know I won't have to upgrade my hardware as frequently.

That is not a fair comparison. The money you spent on a yearly service does not equal hardware. At the end of the year, your Live subscription is gone, your hardware is still there. If you paid for a service like Gametap or OnLive, that would be a fair comparison.

It is no secret that PC gaming is more expensive than console gaming, and that PC gaming can be more complicated. But it is a different kind of gaming. If you dont want to put the time into PC gaming to get the most out of it, it will be a soso experience, one that is easily replicated with consoles. But if you are willing to learn and experiment, there is an amazing world out there. Mods are the most obvious of these things like Counter Strike, Team Fortress, BF1942: Desert Combat, etc. But fanmade patches that make broken or buggy games playable and live on (ie Titans Quest 1.17), are just as important. But this is a discussion for another topic.

If anything came out of my pocket for the repairs, I can see you being angry.

I didnt have to come out of pocket, I just took the 360 apart and fix it myself. I was upset about it, but I do enjoy the Halo series.

[Original_Name]

Yes, I believe that if a company does not bring anything new to the market, they are unnecessary. I wasn't aware that this is a controversial idea to have.

I personally question just how much of Microsoft's offerings originated in their own offices: http://retro.ign.com/articles/974/974695p10.html (about a quarter of the way down). Especially keeping in mind how often Sega seemed to update SegaNet's online services and hardware (Broadband Adapter, MP3 VMU, Zip Drive...), I have my doubts that the service wouldn't have soon reached the functionality of Xbox Live. But this is all conspiracy and speculation, so I'll concede that Xbox Live was the best service at the time of its introduction.

Frankly, I tend to forget about online services and focus on game library and collective artistic direction. I'm old-school like that. Maybe I'm an irrelevant old fogey, but I just don't think that a decent online service justifies all of the unecessary scrambling of the industry in the name of an already world-dominant corporation being that much more profitable. They may have ironed out a few flaws in the previous developments of online console infrastructure, but they don't contribute video games. That's a video game company's primary function. I redact my statement that they haven't benefitted anyone in any way, but I do maintain that overall they haven't been a positive force.

Your statement about an online platform only having value if your friends are on it probably serves my point better than yours though, doesn't it? Like, that divergence of players is caused by the presence of this extraneous platform, as I referred to in my previous post. In practice, yes, your friends are on Xbox Live, but I don't really understand why they still would be. With any sense of consumer coordination, the implication is that we could all be playing on free online platforms by now. Steam and PlayStation Network have rendered Xbox Live's infrastructure obsolete. The value of said obsolete service is that people continue to support it in spite of that?

Well, I paid $60 for my import copy of Rez... considering what friends of mine pay for drug trips of similar duration, which are not structured to have focused artistic merit, I'd say it was a good deal. Anyway, I'm glad you're getting your money's worth out of the service, but that doesn't mean you wouldn't be finding a superior service in the absence of the Xbox brand.

@dsheinem: I wasn't trying to form a comprehensive list of first-party Sony titles, I was just naming a few legitimately interesting titles this generation that in all likelihood would not have ever existed without Sony as a first-party.

Microsoft bought a bunch of third-party companies that would have otherwise been making games elsewhere: Lionhead, Rare, Twisted Pixel. They also bought out the rights to a series which began development on the Mac, then Dreamcast/PlayStation 2. This is not an impressive track record, and only emphasizes my point. The only completely first-party titles I can think of that we can thank Microsoft for are Forza Motorspot, a couple of casual Kinect titles, and a South Park tower defense game.

...and that last part is just depressing. Not that I had any doubt that Microsoft used them as well, but that whole situation is just unbelievably tragic. I don't really like my 3G iPhone all that much, but it's going to be my last phone for a very long time.

[MrPopo]

I wish people would stop bringing up MMO subscription fees as an excuse for Live having a subscription fee. With an MMO you're playing on their servers, so they need a big farm for the player base. And MMOs develop a ton of content in between expansions (at least, the good ones do). Your money pays for both. Live is a peer to peer matching service. You're comparing apples to oranges.

[k.vlaros]

To Original Name,

I agree Microsoft can't deliver first-party titles to the degree of Nintendo and Sony. Not by a long shot, in fact. I disagree that this is a problem. I don't even really see Microsoft as a video game company. They make electronics. [edit: what I mean is their role in this discussion is as electronics designer, software development kit producer, online infrastructure engineer, marketer and a couple other things. In other words, like most of the rest of their best work, they create a platform for others to grow in] That's what I want from them: a really good bit of consumer electronics with some user-friendly operating system wrapped around it and by extension also a good development suite for creators to create games with. I could see the landscape being better for having a console making less involved in also developing games, leaving that space for third-parties. And I think your characterization of Microsoft as a rapacious predator of the 'little guy' developer (buying Rare, etc) is unfair. Why not celebrate that the creators of great art works were rewarded for their efforts with an opportunity to sell to Microsoft? I'm sure no one "held a gun" to each studio executive's head.