Xbox Live Sees Surge in Usage

Arts Technica reports on a large increase in usage on Xbox Live since last month. Network monitoring company Sandvine Incorporated has passed on word that, since November 7th, the service has seen an 80% increase in usage. iTunes usage has also gone up considerably since Apple's latest software update in September. From the article: "[The week of November 7th], Microsoft released six new games for the Xbox 360--one of which was the highly-anticipated Gears of War--which spiked Xbox Live traffic. This traffic pattern is similar to the spike that followed the introduction of Halo II in 2004, says Sandvine, which managed to sustain Xbox Live's popularity after the spike for the first time. Sandvine CEO Dave Caputo said that 'the effect Gears of War and other games are having on networks indicates to service providers that online gaming is not just a craze.'"

Re:

[Bryansix]

There are actually a lot of people on Live. I have a Gold account myself. While I would rather not pay for something like that I think that the pricing is not too bad. For the price of a game you can have access for a year.

Re:Microsoft continues to hide online subscribers

[swissmonkey]

If you actually followed the news a little bit, you'd know that they claim to have 4 million users of XBox Live, far more than any of their competitors...

Re:

[AuMatar]

Word games. Users!=subscribers, that includes the large number of "Silver" accounts that log in to buy stuff and download patches.

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[aplusjimages]

What about Wii word games? Has online capabilities, but no online games and won't see any for several months. Great now I can use Wii online to check the weather. That's what I want in a gaming console. Something to tell me what the weather is like outside, when I intend to stay inside.

Re:

[MeanderingMind]

Yeah, Sony and Nintendo should get on that. Both of them have zero users of Xbox Live! ZERO! What's with that?

Re:

[elrous0]

Hey, careful what you say about Sony. They might inflict MASSIVE DAMAGE on you.

As to why there are currently 0 Xbox Live users on the PS3 and Wii, I really have no idea. The really frustrating thing is that, so far, the PS3 doesn't offer backwards compatibility with even a single one of my Xbox 360 games. WTF is with THAT?

-Eric

Re:

[Xolom]

However - how many of those accounts are multiple accounts from the same user? The number of users is more important than the number of accounts.

Re:

[MBraynard]

Probably very very few. It's not like a MMORPG where there are good reasons for havingmorethan one account.

Re:

[hibiki_r]

Three words: Region Exclusive Content

Re:

[MBraynard]

Like what?

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

Probably not surprising since the 360 starts off at $399 and you immediately have to $50 dollars extra just to be able to play games online with your new system.

False. You get a free 1-month gold trial for each silver account you create (first 3).

Re:

[Babbster]

I created my Gold account in September when I bought my 360 and, yes, I got the first month free (the first charge to my credit card occurred precisely a month later). As far as I could tell, it was automatic because I was signing up with a brand new 360.

Re:

[hawkbug]

I have always been a playstation guy myself - but I'm seriously considering getting a 360 now for a few reasons. One is that it's cheaper than the PS3. I actually got a PS3 last week but haven't opened it yet. I think I'd rather sell it and take the profits and buy a 360. I've seen games on both platforms, and they look similar enough for me to not care much graphics wise. Maybe over time the PS3 will come out on top with things like physics rendering or something, but who knows at this point. I'm more

Re:Microsoft continues to hide online subscribers

[Control Group]

If all you're interested in is game demos (and they are the cat's pajamas, there's no doubt about it), you don't have to pay MS a dime beyond the purchase of the 360. Silver accounts are free, and have the same access to game demos as Gold (paid) accounts.

To date, the only things a Gold account gets you that a Silver account doesn't are a) online multiplayer, and b) earlier access to the Gears Of War trailer.

Playing against people online - with all the benefits and convenience of Live's consistent interface and single login - is worth $50/yr to me, and it might be to you. But it's essentially the only thing you're paying $50 for.

Re:

[GrayCalx]

Lemme just say you will LOVE the 360 with its online capabilities. Never messed with a ps3. I'm sure their online service is good too but since i have a 360 and can only speak to that one. It is awesome. I got my 360 with Madden 07 (some kind of best buy deal) but had no intention of opening madden (i wanted to trade it on craigslist). I spent a good week with my 360, never having bought a game just downloading demos and playing with them or watching trailers or whatever, its all very cool.

Re:

[Jearil]

Well about the gold subscription thing, a lot of games now come with a free gold trial to play online, and someone else mentioned that you can get a free gold trial just by making a silver account. I don't know if that's true, but getting a trial gold account shouldn't be hard in any case.

The demo thing is really cool, and I wish they would expand it more. It's probably more up to the developers to make demos for their games, but I know I'd rather be able to try a game out quick before buying it. I even bou

Re:

[KingSkippus]

For what it's worth, if you want an Xbox 360, you can now get a $100 rebate [microcenter.com] on either system (core or pro) if you buy it in a Micro Center store, and at least my Micro Center (and I suspect most Micro Centers) had plenty in stock, like 50 or so of each. No stupid lines, no 300-400% markup on Ebay, no fuss, no muss.

That brings the cost of the core system down to just $200 (cheaper than a Wii!) and the cost of a pro system down to $300.

In my book, people's best bet is to buy an Xbox 360 pro and a Wii for

Re:

[hawkbug]

That's exactly why I'm thinking of getting one now, the $100 rebate at Microcenter. $300 for the version with a drive sounds good - but aren't they just laptop drives, and couldn't I just get the core for $200 and spend $80 and throw a 120 gig HD in it from NewEgg?

Re:

[stuffisgood]

No sir, they are proprietary unfortunately :(

Re:

[KingSkippus]

I doubt that the drive is proprietary, but the encasement it's in looks like it is. I haven't really investigated, I'm not sure what would be involved in doing that. You might have to rig up your own interface, or at the very least, something to physically attach it to your Xbox.

Re:

[PygmySurfer]

They're 2.5" laptop drives with a plastic case and funky connector. I don't know how easily it'd be to swap it out, though - I've not seen much online about it. And well, you'd have to get the case somewhere, either with a $100 hard drive addon, or a 360 premium system. Or maybe someone has them listed on eBay.

Re:

[robaal]

AFAIK the drives themselves are just 2,5" SATA hard drives, electrically the connection is also SATA + power but the HDD case - console connector itself is some non-standard shape.

There are some converters on eBay that let you connect the 360 HDD to a normal PC SATA port so you can look at their photos to tell which pin is what (they're just bare PCBs).

Re:

[ShapeGSX]

They also have a deal where if you sign up for their credit card and spend $400 in store that day, you will get enough points on the credit card to get $100 back. That makes the XBox 360 Premium just $200. Talk about a no brainer. I got mine 2 weeks ago.

Re:

[AcidLacedPenguiN]

why not still flip it and then buy a new one later on? He says that he doesn't really have a use for it at the moment, and let's say that the average Ebay sale is now $1000 (cooled down from the $1400s a few weeks ago) he could then flip it for the thousand and buy a new one once they start showing up on store shelves making about $400 profit (to be enjoyed on say, a 360 or a Wii. . .

Re:

[hawkbug]

Yeah, I actually did flip it yesterday. I made $200 on the 20 gig version, which isn't huge - but still enough to either get me an Xbox 360 flat out at Microcenter now, or just apply the $200 to a PS3 in the coming weeks. I'm still deciding. It was damn hard not opening that box though...

Re:

[Thraxen]

Yeah, and have you actually used Sony's and Nintendo's offerings? They aren't even remotely as comprehensive as Live. Not even close. Hell, with Nintendo you are stuck typing in a long Wii console numbers just to add someone to your address book... and once you do that, instead of the other person getting a "friend request", they get nothing. Instead, they must also add you blindly. Once you have both blindly added each other then you each become "active" in the other person's address book. Yeah, grea

Re:

[Dorceon]

Yeah, great system.

It is if you're trying to prevent people from using your online service to find children to molest.

Re:

[mgabrys_sf]

Actually, Wii-wise all you have to do is email the person, they reply to the email sent and that's it. No blind emails, and it works. Well, at least for people with a brain who aren't trollfuckers. I do it every so often just to light up my disk slot.

Re:

[Thraxen]

That works for adding an e-mail address. But why doesn't it work that way when you select the option to add a Wii? If you do it that way you have to type in the long ass Wii console number and then you get a message warning you that the other person must also add you... and, as I already stated, they don't get a notification that you want to add them.

Anyway, my point is the whole system is very limited and no where near as or user friendly as Live.

Re:

[mgabrys_sf]

AH! I got it. Yes, the console to console system is "less than user friendly" to be sure. Apologies - the (all day) jackhammers across the street are affecting me reading ability as well as my mood it seems.

Re:Microsoft continues to hide online subscribers

[RexRhino]

I have played free multiplayer games on PC, and now pay the $50 for xbox live, and I can tell you that just being able to block users you don't like, report users who are abusing the system, etc., is well worth the $50.

Free means that anyone can sign up, create an account, abuse the system all they like, and then sign up for another free account with no cost. $50 a year means that if someone abuses the system, and has their account disabled - well, it costs them another $50 to come back on. At that rate, it is not financially viable for them to abuse the system too much.

Re:

[RexRhino]

While I agree with you, there are other ways to acomplish banning problem users, they are harder to police and implement than having a paid account. For example, you could include a hardware ID number in each console, and ban the ID number of a particular console... but what happens when someone sells the console on Ebay and then the purchaser can't play online with the console they just purchased? Or, if games have registration number, how do you buy and sell used games? (Unlike PC games, console games act

Re:

[Thraxen]

Yes, but if you don't like a certain player you can select the option to avoid that player and you won't have to worry about them in ANY game. Also, if they do get banned then you also don't have to worry about them ever again unless they pony up $50 for another account. What makes Live great is everything is global. Your friend's list is global and applies to all games. Your friends list shows you when they were last online and what they are currently doing if they are online (e.g. what game they are p

Re:

[aplusjimages]

"With both Nintendo and Sony with free online play right out of the box"

Show me a Wii owner that is playing online right now.

"Phony accounts."

[aztektum]

Couldn't have anything to do with people generating Silver accounts to access regional specific content could it? [penny-arcade.com]

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[mingot]

Maybe, but I really tend to think it's GoW, CoD3, and Rainbox Six Vegas. I know more than one person who has purchased a 360 just to play gears of war. Very fun game.

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[bigman2003]

Possibly during that time- but not anymore: http://www.majornelson.com/archive/2006/11/28/xbo x -live-security.aspx [majornelson.com]

As Major Nelson (and other from Microsoft) have said many times, blocking people from getting content based on their location is not their (MS) idea. It's the content providers.

Microsoft would love to sell more movies to people all around the world, but the distributors in the other countries generally have an exclusive agreement. So, they had to start blocking the Silver accounts with fake lo

Re:

[colman77]

No.

Sandvine is monitoring traffic. Signing up for an account uses considerably less bandwidth than an 8-person multiplayer session... so much less, I'd bet, that new signups are practically insignificant next to the daily bandwidth used by Halo 2 or Gears of War.

Re:

[bVork]

If they're monitoring bandwidth, then maybe the introduction of downloadable TV shows and movies is responsible for the spike in usage. Those files are huge.

Re:

[twistedsymphony]

Except the summary says "The week of November 7th" and the Movie/TV download service didn't launch until November 22nd (MS made a big deal out of this because it's the 360's 1 year anniversary.)

But you are correct that the movie TV service would be responsible for a significant spike in bandwidth usage, the day it launched the Xbox Live content servers crashed HARD.

Re:

[Thraxen]

GoW is awesome. If the game mechanics aren't for then, fine. Also, who cares if the game only has 4 v 4 online? There gmaes with more players out there, play those. In my experience, games with massive amounts of people usually amount to a unorgangized mess in online play. I used to play in clans in a couple of different PC online games (UT for example) and although you could find public games that were 16 v 16, serious clan matches were almost aways 5 v 5 or something similar. If you like massive amo

Re:

[mingot]

I hate to feed a troll, but you decided on whether or not you liked a game by WATCHING someone play it?

Re:Gears of War?

[bigman2003]

I LOVE 4 on 4. It's so much better than 12 on 12 (Call of Duty 3) or any other big game.

Most big games have so much chaos going on, that it becomes difficult to really come up with a strategy. The game becomes:

1 - Kill one guy
2 - Die
3 - Respawn
4 - Repeat

Gear of War brings the game down to a 'Survival of the Fittest' mentality. The rounds are short enough that waiting isn't a problem, but trying to stay alive is important.

They could not have done it this way with games with too many people.

Also, small maps means that the last guy standing can't go and hide in a corner waiting for the timer to run out.

Re:

[PrescriptionWarning]

I love Gears for that fact, but sometimes you just gotta play with a whole flock of fodder for your gun :)

also, I have found Rainbow Six Vegas to be extremely entertaining due to its unforgiving, yet realistic and fun damage models. Its great taking those guys out who think the game is like Halo or something. Also I suppose the ability to choose your weapons and the large number of weapons to choose from in Vegas makes it that much more appealing than Gears at times.

Re:

[bigman2003]

I understand the appeal of a lot of weapons, but I was totally confused in GRAW. Does Rainbow Six have the same weapons? Personally, I would need a chart to understand the subtle differences between the 15 different automatics. I am not a 'gun buff' at all, so I really don't know anything about them.

Unfortunately for the Clancy games, they can't really come up with interesting and unique weapons (ie Needler). That operate differently, and have a signature look. And, why DOESN'T the Army put chainsaws o

Re:

[lightning01]

Clancy games don't have "interesting and unique" weapons (like the needler) because they are supposed to be grounded in the weaponry of today (or a few years into the future). Thus the limits on standard gunpowder charged projectile spitting guns. Perhaps one day Clancey will start writing science fiction and we will see a Rainbow Twelve team with terro-pulse rifles and magna-grenades.

Re:

[PrescriptionWarning]

I will have to agree with your statement about the weapons in GRAW, and how they all feel exactly the same... but to me it seems they've done a better job in Vegas, by having each weapon different from each other in subtle, yet important ways. For instance, each weapon has certain ratings pertaining to its accuracy, damage, clip size... also some weapons can have silencers while others can't (important for keeping yourself off your opponents radar)

lastly, most weapons have a few customization options, such

Re:

[Pojut]

You quite obviously have not played Double Agent on Live...

Halo 3 beta

[imbroken3a]

The Halo 3 beta probably isn't hurting either.

Re:

[IKnwThePiecesFt]

That isn't starting until Spring of 07? Unless people are getting gold accounts now just to sign up for it early, I don't think it would really affect anything yet...

Related to PS3 launch?

[elrous0]

I was actually holding out, hoping that MS would make Gold accounts free when the PS3 launched. But it looks like they're not going to do that any time soon. So I finally gave in and threw down my $50. It's not that much, and I was just itching to get online with those Burger King games.

-Eric

O' RLY?

[lu5t]

ARTS Technica.. Is this because of all the apple news there?

Sneak King

[wbren]

I think the cause for the rise in Xbox Live usage is obvious: the wonderful, delicious Xbox Live-enabled games [bkgamer.com] recently released by Burger King! Sneak King alone probably accounts for 80% of this recent surge.

Defender

[Is0m0rph]

I think the spike was due to Defender. Seriously though 3 major online games were released GoW, RB6 Vegas, and CoD3. Not to mention the other games released with good online play (TH P8, etc.).