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PlayStation (Games) XBox (Games) Entertainment Games

PS2, Xbox Online Titles Show Record Player Numbers 42

Posted by simoniker from the talking-network-smack dept.
Thanks to the QT3 forums for linking to a Yahoo-hosted press release describing Sony's SOCOM II as a 'major online success', with "more than 22,000 simultaneous players in its first 48 hours", apparently taking the "number one online console game spot." The press release also reveals that "...the original SOCOM: U.S. Navy SEALs supports 11,000-14,500 simultaneous players and between 50,000 and 60,000 people are playing every day at an average of three hours per session." Meanwhile, Microsoft have announced that Xbox Live enjoyed its busiest weekend ever, as: "On Sunday, November 2, no less than 83,652 players spent a total of 262,268 hours online", and the most popular title, Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six 3, "recorded a total of 24,478 players for the day, and at one point accounted for 6,731 players simultaneously."
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PS2, Xbox Online Titles Show Record Player Numbers More

PS2, Xbox Online Titles Show Record Player Numbers

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  • Good, but not the best... (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Counterstrike [counter-strike.net] regularly boasts more than 100,000 players at peak times. Live stats can be found here [gamespy.com].

    It would also be interesting to see simultaneous online numbers from these games: Sony's Everquest [sony.com] having more than half a million players; Lineage [lineage.com] has over two million players in South Korea.

    However, good for Microsoft. Xbox Live has some really good games on it at the moment, most notably Crimson Skies [xbox.com].
    • Good, but not the best

      They meant the best they'd ever had, not the best anyone had ever had. Besides, counterstrike doesn't get 100,000 people in one game; you're talking about 100,000 across all games. There are MMORPGs which do get these kind of numbers, though.

      Arguably, some of the networked MUSHes have gotten numbers like this for over a decade, but hey.
  • I've seen numbers for some nintendo games in the 100,000s of copies sold. (Luigi's Mansion sold 250,000 copies the first week gamecube was out) Why are people so excited when these online games only get 60,000 copies out there. I think Nintendo is smarter then most people give them credit for.
    How well has Halo done? I imagine they have sold millions of copies.

    Strater
    • The story wasn't about units sold (you did read the entire teaser, didn't you?), it was about the number of people actually playing it online - ie, not counting those that just play it by themselves.
    • first of all, its not copies sold. its number of people online. and the figures are fantastic, considering how new the games are, and how "not-widespread" online console players are. that figure states that around 1/3 of all xbox live owners played at least one game last weekend (including me! :D ) not bad, eh? second, halo has sold over 3 million copies.
    • The real point of the story?

      The real point from Microsoft was that Xbox Live had its busiest day ever.

      Meaning that usage is going UP- not down. This is especially important now that the original Live subscribers are coming up on their renewal. They need to point out how the service is growing, not declining.

      Even if the numbers were only half of what they are, it is still the GROWTH they want to concentrate on.

  • Record Player Numbers!! (Score:3, Funny)

    by alefbet ( 518838 ) on Thursday November 06, 2003 @06:59PM (#7412239) Homepage
    Wow! They have record players in their online games! I thought everybody switched to CDs a decade ago.
  • I'm very suprised that the original PSO didn't have higher numbers. I believe it sold somewhere in the range of 250,000 copies, and was quite popular back when it was first released.
    • True but the original PSO had offline capability so people didn't HAVE to play online with that game (course those people were weirdos...)

      IMO, it looks like the PS2 is getting beaten by the Xbox in the online contest. In the long term, unless the PS3 manages to a TKO AND kicks Microsoft in the balls when they're down, the Xbox is going to win in the long term monetary sense. Nintendo... well, isn't even in the online scene right now.

    • Dreamcast broadband adapters were expensive and made in extremely limited quanities . I think playing over dial-up drove a lot of people away in addition to all the hacking that went on on there.

  • This is exactly why Nintendo is, in my opinion, doing the right thing by staying away from on-line play. If only 1% of your potential install base is using the on-line capabilities for a game, why bother supporting it at all?

    While I can appreciate console manufacturers trying to attract the PC gamer with the lure of online multiplay, I'd much rather sit down with three other friends (or more, if you rotate out people) and play Super Smash Bros.: Melee, or TimeSplitters 2, or even The Bouncer.
    • In a market as competitive as the console one is at the moment Nintendo could really use that extra 1%. You have to remember that especially at the 20+ age range the amount of time you can spend round at your mates house playing console games is severly limited, times like that id appreciate an online mode. Sure its not quite the same, but it would be nice to have one.
    • Percentage of installed base is entirely the wrong way to look at such things.

      The reason is that every console has a huge percentage of their installed base of people that just own a small handful of games for their console, throughout the system's lifespan.

      Everyone and their mama has a PS2, a couple of GTA games, and a couple of Madden games.

      The thing is that the small percentage (which is larger than 1%, at least for the Xbox, and is rapidly inflating for both systems) is largely a subsection of the

      • I agree.

        I always wonder how Microsofts 5~ attach rate is the highest in the business. Hell, I've bought about 15 games just this year alone. I've probably bought about 30 different games.

        And, I use Xbox Live a lot.

        So- I'm probably the 20%, who buys 80% of the games.

        I do know someone else with an Xbox who has only purchased 1 game, and always rents. They're dragging the numbers down. (And always borrowing my games, dammit)
        • Easy. They count bundled games in their attach rate. Consider that most bundles had at least 2 games with them, and it's not hard to envision a ~5 game attach rate.

          --Jeremy
          • Not that simple. They have touted a very high attach rate since launch (highest in console history), even when they didn't bundle games with the system.

            Even if you do count the 2 bundled games, the additional 3 would still be an outstanding attach rate.
    • Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • Some numbers for comparison (Score:4, Interesting)

    by edwdig ( 47888 ) on Thursday November 06, 2003 @07:50PM (#7412619)
    I just signed on to Battle.net with Warcraft 3 Classic. The greeting message says there are 10,404 users currently playing Warcraft 3 Classic. Exited and check The Frozen Throne. There are 22,541 users playing that. It Also says there are 151948 total users online on Battle.net right now.

    Warcraft 3 is almost a year and a half old. Frozen Throne is losing its appeal too - the numbers were much higher over the summer. Yet those games still have numbers not too far off from the hottest online console games.

    Also, those numbers were for the US East Battle.net server. Keep in mind that Battle.net is broken into 4 seperate servers for different parts of the world.

    Xbox Live's record players is 1/2 of the number of a random sampling at Battle.net's numbers - or rather, of 1/4 of Battle.net. This isn't really a peak time for Battle.net, as the most recently released Battle.net game is decreasing in popularity.

    My take: Nintendo is right and the time isn't right yet for online console gaming from a business sense.
    • ya, the GC can get away with no internet play, this round, and still be really fun. But if the PS3 and GC2 don't have a ethernet port builtin, and a standard online system(ala xbox live), they will be missing out.

      The harddrive is nice, and should be included in the GC(a nice mini laptop hdd, please!).
      The dvd/disc size is nice, for large programs, pretty much needed in GC2.

      But seriously, builtin online play should be added. maybe cross console play too?
    • I'm pretty sure that when PC online gaming first sprang up, they didn't have all these big numbers instantly.

      My take: you gotta start somewhere.

  • I might have invested in the PS2's Everquest if I could enjoy the world with friends playing on their PCs, but the PS2 game appears to have its own ("exclusive") world, which is silly.
  • they have a long way to go to catch up with the PC gaming community. battle.net regularly has more players than that online and playing at any time, and it's only for 3 games mainly. someone else already mentioned the counter-strike players. add in all the other online games and the xbox live population is just a drop in the bucket

  • I believe PA said it best... (Score:3, Informative)

    by Recoil_42 ( 665710 ) on Thursday November 06, 2003 @09:17PM (#7413250) Homepage Journal
    its actually EA vs. MS, but since EA is sony's bitch anyways....

    quote from PA :

    it was easy to think of EA's offering and Microsoft's offering as fungible initially. EA was doing theirs for free, and Microsoft had a pay service, and obviously free is... nice. But while I was being desiccated by Las Vegas nights soaked with alcohol, it seemed to me that their service is free because it sucks. It's free because it is so without ambition that it can be offered for nothing, until such time as they want to charge for it. Why else would they reserve the right, why else would they go through all the trouble?

    I've spent enough time on Live with recent titles that it's impossible for me to compare the two approaches. You don't sign in to Live, you don't create a password, you push A. Every game supports voice and a universal friends list I can view from the web. I have a hard disk built in for content. There is an ethernet port. That's not so you can put a jelly bean in there in case you need it later, it's so you can put in a cable and access the Internet. You assholes.

    That is all to say nothing about game invites. If I'm playing a game by Ubi Soft, I can still receive invites to play games from other developers - each publisher doesn't have it's own little fairy land where I can only play games with other people who have their games. I can be playing Crimson Skies and get an invite to play Ghost Recon. If I say yes, the tray pops out and I put in the other disc. Then, it joins me automatically. When I can do that with games from EA, I'll shut the fuck up. Until then, they need to act like big people and make choices that are of value to consumers.

    ------

    and i wholeheartedly agree.

    btw, off-topic, i just got the grand theft auto double pack (xbox version). absolutely fantastically awesome. everything is so shiny, im all ADHD for it. ;) most definetly recommended to any xbox owner. the upgrades are as promised.
    • EA's problem with Xbox Live is that they do not want Microsoft managing their customers' experience: they don't trust Microsoft to play fair with them (and can you blame them?).

      PA's analysis is from the gamers' perspective, and that's perfectly fine, but EA is looking at this from their shareholders/company perspective: if they turn over their online customers to Microsoft (which is exactly what would happen if they supported Xbox Live) then they could be putting themselves out of business.

      So, if EA is ho
      • "EA's problem with Xbox Live is that they do not want Microsoft managing their customers' experience: they don't trust Microsoft to play fair with them (and can you blame them?)."

        Don't trust them? What are they afraid Microsoft would do> to the online game? The PS2 online game is total shit anyway, what do they have to lose, actually putting effort into it?

        "PA's analysis is from the gamers' perspective, and that's perfectly fine, but EA is looking at this from their shareholders/company perspectiv

    • Thank you, thank you, thank you.
    • I wonder how much money MS paid them or how much free merchandise they got...
      The fact that you quoted them proves it was well spent.

      Seriously, the PA people are shills. Ignore them. They hype what they are PAID to hype. And their unthinking fans won't buy anything unless it gets the PA stamp of approval. That's viral marketing gold right there. /. get's 3,000,000 page hits a day and deals up about that many ads and still can't support itself with advertising revenue alone. And the cost of bandwidth pe
      • Thats funny, because they've never steered me wrong before.

        not to mention that for people getting paid to hype products, they seem to point out those same product's weaknesses an awful lot.

        Mike and Jerry are most definetly NOT "shills". I have no idea where they make all their money (i assume their wives have jobs...), but facts are facts, and as a regular reader i have never seen anything suggesting any kind of "wrongdoing". PA is great, their comics are funny, and the guys are honest as can be.

        check ou
  • For me, at least, the release of Crimson Skies, Rainbow Six 3, Amped 2, and Top Spin in the last 2 weeks is somewhat akin to a rebirth in interest in Xbox Live. Wild Chicken multiplayer in Crimson Skies is just plain FUN. Plus, Counterstrike just went gold, and should be in stores by 11/18. It's a good time to be an Xbox Live gamer.

  • PC v. Console (Score:3, Insightful)

    by superultra ( 670002 ) on Friday November 07, 2003 @12:04AM (#7414307) Homepage
    I was going to reply to one post, but I see a lot of posts generally saying the same thing: -in dainty Royal British accent - "Ah yes. Good for them. We have five gaziollion times those numbers, and have since 1981. I play nethack. Good day sir!"

    My response, to all of you, is this. Before you ride off into your cs_dust sunset your high PC Nightwind horse, keep in mind first and foremost that higher numbers for console online games only means that the competition will increase for online PC games. We're on slashdot. Competition is good around here, right? Secondly, the overall online experience for consoles is significantly more streamlined than that of a PC. Everyone has voice chat. Everyone's on broadband. Cheaters are vastly undernumbered compared to the PC. Heck, I get in game alerts on XBL. Sure, I get IMs while I'm playing BF1942, but at worst everything crashes or chugs, and at best it completely interupts my game.

    High numbers of console online players is *good* news, for everyone. Oh, and I can see all the way up your large nostriled PC l33t nose. And, um, your piss is going down your leg, not on everyone else's parade.

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