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PlayStation (Games) XBox (Games) Entertainment Games

Consoles Sluggish To Get Online In Europe 31

Posted by simoniker from the slow-boat-to-bournemouth dept.
Thanks to Evil Avatar for pointing to a Reuters article discussing the relatively slowly developing online console gaming market in Europe. According to the article, "Since launching in mid-March, [Microsoft] has signed up to Xbox Live 50,000 European gamers across much of Western Europe." As a comparison, "Microsoft and Sony Corp have.. [signed up] over one million subscribers between them in the U.S. since launching services in the second half of 2002." Although it's early days for Europe, will the many separate markets/countries and varying broadband penetration help or hinder the big console manufacturers?
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Consoles Sluggish To Get Online In Europe

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  • No tech support (Score:1, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    My Gf works at freeserve tech support in the uk and they only have one guy who knows/is allowed to handle tech support for x-box, he is on holiday at the momant, so people who can't get it working have to wait two weeks till he gets back, its not really suprising not many people are taking it up if this is the level of support they get.

  • I don't think there's *any* service here in Oz (Score:3, Informative)

    by Kris_J ( 10111 ) on Thursday June 19, 2003 @12:13AM (#6240183) Homepage Journal
    Remember that earlier article about slow boardband pickup in Australia? Well, because of it on-line gaming on the whole is pretty quiet here. As far as I know, since the Dreamcast on-line experience was ballsed-up so badly, no one has dared try again with consoles.

  • It's not the console, it's broadband access (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Torgo's Pizza ( 547926 ) on Thursday June 19, 2003 @12:22AM (#6240215) Homepage Journal
    If you look at how many people have broadband in Europe as compared to the US or Japan, that would explain a lot. It's too expensive for what you get. Sheesh, it's even worse in Oz with the monopoly situation there.
    • It's not so much the expense it's that you can't bloody get it if you live in large parts of the UK.
    • Poppycock.
      Here in Sweden, practically everyone has access to fast and cheap broadband. I'm not going to pull figures out of my ass (can't really be bothered to google for it either) but I can guarantee you that the market penetration of broadband is way higher here than in both the US and Japan. Everyone in my neighborhood can sign up for VDSL (uncapped, 26Mb/sec both upstream and downstream) for about [quick math] $45/month. Access is not the issue here.

      I think it's mostly a question of neglect and/or c
      • So you expect that your forty euros (or whatever you pay for the game - I'm not in Europe), once spent, should give you unlimited access. Let's consider that: in a game like Everquest or the Sims Online where the company has to maintain centralized servers, how long do you think that fourty euros will pay for those servers to be up and running? Ignoring the fact that if you dump all your money into maintaining the servers, you make no profit. The original price of the game pays for development while the mon
        • I'd pay about 400SEK, since Sweden isn't a member of the EMU yet :)
          Anyway, I know all that. I'm well aware that running and maintaining persistent worlds and gaming servers can be damn expensive (in fact, I work for a small game developer and we have a little subscription gaming community of our own). I don't expect to be able to play such a game for free. But in the end, that's a moot point.

          What it boils down to is that I don't want to pay for development, packaging and server service, I want to pay to p

  • As usual, you Americans have no idea of Europe... (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    The reason, that console online gaming is slower here in Europe has nothing to do with higher prices for broadband (which is wrong anyway) or fragmented markets. The main reason is, that Germany (the next largest market for games/software after US and Japan) is very PC centered and people play online on their Computers instead of Consoles. Consoles are still considered toys in Germany (though I prefer them for some games) and neraly everyone has a private PC that has a fast videocard and fast cpu (much more
  • Having worked for an online retailer for quite some time, I know that the average European does not use or have a creditcard. For example, when ordering at Amazon.de (Germany), you can pay via bank-transfer, which is much more common in Germany, than paying by credicard. Yet X-Box (the only system I can speak for) requires a creditcard to connect to it's Live-system.
    Broadband is pretty widespread, and not too expensive either, is not as relevant a factor as this.
  • It's all very well saying broadband is fast and cheap in Sweden, we all know that. It's the p2p warez capital of the world. Unfortunately, for the rest of us, broadband uptake IS slow because of cost. In the UK I pay £50 (USD$83) for a 2Mbit cable connection. My download is great, i regularly get around 300k/sec+ but my upload is capped at 30k/sec. There's no bandwidth limits though (as of yet). We get screwed. Who knows why, we just do. Man, I'd love to be like Sweden and have 26Mbit both direc

  • The fact that there currently is only one Gamecube game (Phantasy Star Online) with online capabilities available in Europe certainly doesn't help. I'd love to try some online gaming, but I have a Gamecube. I don't want to buy another console just to play online.

    The Xbox is dirt cheap here in Sweden now, though. My old DVD player is starting to act weird, so I'm considering an Xbox just for the DVD capabilities. That it plays games is a nice bonus. :-)

    • My old DVD player is starting to act weird, so I'm considering an Xbox just for the DVD capabilities. That it plays games is a nice bonus. :-)

      Don't forget the DVD Remote, then, because, unlike the PS2, the XBox doesn't play DVDs without the remote. Perhaps that's not a big deal to most people (it really isn't to me, either), but it just bothers me a bit that my XBox is sitting there with a DVD decoder I've been told (and shown) is better than the PS2 decoder, but I can't use it without spending US$30.
      • it just bothers me a bit that my XBox is sitting there with a DVD decoder I've been told (and shown) is better than the PS2 decoder, but I can't use it without spending US$30.

        I was at Sears yesterday, and they had an Apex DVD player for $39 after rebate. It came with a remote. If Apex can sell the whole damned player and remote for $39, why can't Microsoft sell their remote for less?

        I think I'd rather have the Apex DVD player and the Xbox than the Xbox and the remote. At least that way if the Xbox or the
        • I think I'd rather have the Apex DVD player and the Xbox than the Xbox and the remote.

          Yeah, I can see that. I currently have 2 DVD players (1 Samsung DVD player which I bought a couple of years ago, and a Samsung DVD/VHS combo player that I bought a few months ago after my VCR broke). I haven't bothered with the DVD remote yet, but if I see it at a bargain rate I might pick it up eventually. At the moment I use the PS2 for DVD playback from time to time.

          At least that way if the Xbox or the DVD player b
          • hmm I don't know how much the PS2 network adapter costs, but that doesn't sound right to me unless you're talking about the 'greatest hits' games and the adapter runs $20-30 or less.

            $29.99 and came with the game...
    • Language: many different languages are not helping it: try to say "I'll kick your ass " in portuguese, german and polish... On the other hand many europeans speak english between themselves
    • Broadband access: Even in rich countries like Switzerland and Germany, broadband is not quite the rage. And at least sony's offering is broadband only, no modems allowed...
    • PCs: people buy broadband because they have a PC, and guess what, they already play games on it (Half-life anyone?). They don't need or want it for
    • I'm just pointing out some things as a fairly long-time broadband online gamer, and how these things seem to be handled in the US.

      * Language: many different languages are not helping it: try to say "I'll kick your ass " in portuguese, german and polish... On the other hand many europeans speak english between themselves

      Having lived in California when Diablo 2 launched and played the game for quite some time from there, I can say that this is rarely an issue for most people. The number of Koreans pla
  • They're slow...but they're catching on.

    Just last night, I was playing Mechassault with two people from Holland, and they seemed to enjoy online gameing quite a bit.

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