Microsoft merges Windows 8 with Xbox Live Microsoft has demonstrated how the forthcoming Windows 8 will communicate with the Xbox platform, in its first showing of how the company aims to bring "everything you know and love on Xbox 360 and Xbox Live to Windows." Xbox Live for Windows 8 Program manager Avi Ben-Menahem took to the stage at Build 2011 yesterday and …
That MS is eventually planning to introduce subscription plans to "take your Windows online" just like they're already doing for the XBox platform ? :-)
Being an PS3 user its one of the things I never managed to grasp; having to pay in order to play your games online. And if I install said games onto my PC I can simply play online for free. Makes perfect sense to me, after several beers that is ;-)
Yeah but for WoW and other MMO's of its kind, you are paying for the running of the game servers, for new content and for 24-7-365 support.
there are games for the Xbox that host the games on the players machines yet you still have to pay subscription for this privilege you are essentially paying just to allow one Xbox to talk to another over the internet which is provided by someone else.
You do not get anything for your Xbox live subscription that is not free on PC's, PS3's and Wii's.
I think the saying is "moeny for old rope"
I suspect that the M$ money-bunnies have been casting envious glances at how Steam is cleaning up in the games download business, and will seek a similar type of setup called "Xbox for Windows". That way, M$ can get its own games out without paying Steam, and M$ can then charge developers to use the Xbox for Windozw delivery system.
The functionality and quality of online experience is generally considered to be better on xbl than psn (technically not socially, having to listen to american children complain about 'them arabs' etc is just as heinous on either platform). Better chat functions, better development libraries have generally resulted in a more reliable online experience (black ops release for example) and there is of course the not having your security provided by Mr bean aspect as well.
However I personally use PS3 as that's where my friends are but I'd happily pay as going online to repeatedly shoot your friends is easily worth 40quid a year....
"Yep, Windows PCs, WinPho and Xbox 360 users will all be able to play against each other."
Been tried many times before, and always ended in whining and ragequits, because the PC players wind up pwning the l33t console players almost without exception.
I can only imagine the wailing from people trying to compete from a phone...
"Been tried many times before, and always ended in whining and ragequits, because the PC players wind up pwning the l33t console players almost without exception."
^^THIS^^
They tried it with a number of FPS games, and the superior PC controls let them run rings around their joypad-encumbered opponents. As a guy who likes his consoles, but adores his PC, I found it goddamned hilarious. If they brought it back, they might actually have created a reason for me to buy Halo. Plenty of willing and vocal targets on that shower of Microsoft mediocrity.
For sure. The funny thing is, all generations of XBox and PS can use mice so there has been nothing stopping them from rectifying this for ages. All you need do is release an "FPS controller" with a trackball on it and the problem is solved. Hell, it may even be better than keyboard+mouse as you would have analogue strafe / run as well as look.
Yes, I know you can buy trackball controllers, but not *Official* ones.
I would imagine that there won't be cross over on all games.
Battlefield will always have dedicated servers for PC clients and PC players will stick to that.
Stuff like CoD with client hosting should have settings to keep console players away from PC players. It's perfectly acceptable to be able to detect which platform you're playing on and just have the option to search for 'console only' games.
For racing and sport games this will be great. As it will be for coop gameplay on things like resident evil 5 for example.
This is a natural bit of progression for MS. If Sony had any kind of joined up thinking, they would have looked at tying their platforms together years ago. I hope MS make this work and push it to the very limits of convergence, just so some people would STFU.
I'm no fanboi, but would love to see MS pull this one out of the bag.
There was some chatter on a YouTube retro gamer tag about this. I have to admit to joining in.
The lvie experience just puts too much in the hands of the game vendors. Look what happened to Sony; more than a month off-line and then they force their users to sign away their rights, to be able to continue using the service.
The Internet is suffering increasing infastructure grief with DNS problems, bandwidth throttling, contention ratios, lag, etc., etc. ... suspension of accounts for whatever, etc., etc. and ... I just look at it and think, "Why would I pay good money to wind up in this world of pain?"
... just give me an Atari 2600 and a copy of PacMan. I'll be happy. Or else a large room and I'll throw a LAN party ... at least if someone beats me at Quake then the object of my frustration is in the same room!!!
They took Valve's existing idea behind portal 2(on the PS3 and Mac and Win) and integrated in their products. Way to go with innovation there M$... Don't forget to patent it as the most bloddy obvious thing on the planet.
How about game devs started actually coding this thing into their games already. Sheesh.
Some may think this funny due to Sony's recent security issues, but how many PoC and In the Wild Exploits currently exist for Windows? On the order of over 500 give or take, right? I mean yes most are application based, but some are in the OS itsself right? And the Xbox is supposedly "secure" right?
So let me get this straight, MS thinks tying their only real Security Paragon into Windows is a good idea? If I was an MS shareholder, Id be pretty pissed off at that idea.
As someone that seriously dislikes the Xbox because its a rather cheap one trick pony, I think its hysterical. Since when does Unsecure + Secure = Secure? Microsoft's good idea fairy strikes again, much like she did with ActiveX.
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