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PlayStation (Games) XBox (Games) Entertainment Games

Which Console Is Leading The Online Race? 90

Posted by simoniker from the i-vote-for-the-dreamcast dept.
Thanks to GameSpy for their 'Sole Food' editorial discussing which console has the lead in the online marketplace. The author says: "If you asked me a year ago which console would be the online leader, I would have said Microsoft Xbox - no doubt." But, twelve months later, he's rapidly drawing other conclusions: "I forgot the most important lesson in publishing: Content is king. And most of the killer online content is not on the Xbox, but rather the Sony PlayStation 2." And, after citing specific examples of great titles on both PS2 and Xbox, he concludes: "There's just more games for the PS2, ergo there are more online games. It doesn't matter how good and how uniform the online user interface is if the content isn't there."
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Which Console Is Leading The Online Race? More

Which Console Is Leading The Online Race?

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  • Content? It's just a matter of raw numbers! (Score:3, Insightful)

    by MBraynard ( 653724 ) on Tuesday November 11, 2003 @11:19PM (#7450850) Journal
    There are about 20 mil PS2s in the US. There are maybe 7 Xbox's. Additionally, the PS2 online experience is opened up to dialup users.

    As of right now, the Xbox has PS2 beat or dead even in pretty much ever catagory of game interest (Rainbow Six 3 vrs Socom2? No competition). But Xbox just doesn't have the install base to get the same numbers.

    eh. Anyway, the real winner is the consumer; more than one online colsoe competitor makes gaming better not matter your preferred console.

    • That is a wild, inaccurate overstatement. While the XBox is certainly well behind the PS2 in terms of sheer numbers, there is a significant XBox user base. Hell, there are 7 XBox's in the wing I live on in my dorm, and that's only like 50 people total. I totally agree, though, that it's the consumer that ends up ahead. Online console gaming is a fantastic thing.
      • I'd suggest that the reason there are so many people on your dorm with XBoxes is that teen to students are the XBox's core market, and isn't necessarily a reflection of overall coverage.
      • He left out the second "million". He meant 20 million ps2, 7 million xbox; which is about right according to the numbers I found through Google.

      • hardcore vs casual (Score:4, Interesting)

        by *weasel ( 174362 ) on Wednesday November 12, 2003 @03:08PM (#7456242)
        hardcore gamers make up the majority of the xbox numbers. naturally you'd expect to find more of them in a college setting.

        ps2 sales have predominately been to casual gamers. why else could the ps2 have 4x the installed base and yet there's still an actual competition on the game sales chart each month?
        one would expect even a halfway decent title for the ps2 to have 2x the numbers as a good xbox game, and yet that doesn't happen.

        because xbox gamers buy more games. because they have more hardcore gamers - and hardcore gamers buy more games.

        hell, alot of the ps2 installed base was solely due to the dvd playback functionality. that and 'playstation' was the name on the tongues of parents come the holiday season. 'xbox' is relatively new, and parents are always buying last generation's winnner. (note strong n64 console sales despite ps1 overall dominance)

        but frankly, i could care less whether there are 'more' people on one service or not. pc gaming taught me that you're better off -not- playing than playing against HPBs. it just isn't fun to try to shoot someone with a 400ms ping. xbl does its damndest to minimize lag, and for that i applaud it. (though they'd do better to have more highbandwidth dedicated servers like unreal has)

        microsoft had the foresight to realize that a consistant, quality experience was the way to bring console gamers online to stay.

        Sony's just trying to keep up, and as the original poster pointed out - is leading due to their raw numbers. keep in mind, their lead isn't that significant, and their product is -free-. microsoft can not only charge for their better product - but they can charge -and- compete with free.

        that's an achievement.
    • This is the heart of it. Adding online play to a game takes a lot of engineering effort and testing time and therefore adds to the development cost of the game. This is only worthwhile if it increases sales more than the other potential uses of that development effort. If your expected sell-through is relatively small anyhow because of a smaller hardware base the problem is compounded.

      Xbox Live, while certainly a great thing for users, only increases this problem for developers and publishers because it's
      • erm wrong, the new line of XSN games allow leagues etc. If not yet then it is certainly the direction MS wants to head in with it.

        Also what is to stop a group of gamers setting up their own leagues, much like the PC world.

        CJC
        • XSN's only for first party titles to my knowledge. For reference, I'm the lead programmer on our Xbox SKU and I did the analysis of what it would take to add Xbox Live support to the game.

          We could implement our own league system on Xbox Live but it would be really expensive and time-consuming (such servers have to live inside Microsoft's data center so the testing is pretty exhaustive). On PS2 we get all that stuff basically for free because we use Gamespy for our frontend (ie. lobbies, chat, matchmaking).
      • I disagree with your take on XBL. If the install base is smaller, it is less economical for a developer to deploy it's own internet infrastructure and is easier to just let MS handle it.

        Since my initial post was written before I really read the article, I would add that now I have read the article, I can conclude that it is total masturbation opinion. His argument isn't based on online player statistics, but on whose games he thinks are best - and he doesn't even back it up. If you look at the reviews on A

    • The PS2 online for games like SOCOM and SOCOM 2 are not open to modem users.
  • But the PS2 kicks some serious ass!!

    Seriously though, I think that platforms that are easy/easier to mod/pirate would be the more popular. But thats another issue for another time...

  • Article quote (Score:3, Funny)

    by calebtucker ( 691882 ) on Tuesday November 11, 2003 @11:38PM (#7450932) Journal
    "... ergo there are more online games."

    Who wants to bet he wouldn't have said "ergo" if it wasn't for the whole Architect conversation in Maxtrix: Reloaded? :-)

    • Or his years as a countercultural icon in 1960's San Francisco?

      Oh, wait, that's "ergot".
    • "... ergo there are more online games."

      Who wants to bet he wouldn't have said "ergo" if it wasn't for the whole Architect conversation in Maxtrix: Reloaded? :-)

      This is obviously correct, because as we all know, professional writers learn most of their vocabulary from movies. Their writing skills and their profession are a complete coincidence, just like strong people doing construction work or people that know what the word "antibiotic" means having the legal license to prescribe them.
  • PS2 - 20 Million users
    X-Box - 7 Million
    PC - you do the counting, its simply too high

    i love my PS2 and i love my X-Box, but lets face it, neither of them are even close competitors to the online gaming giant that is the PC, every Genre is covered in many different ways and has many millions of users and all times of the day or night

    AND, with a CP, games that are meant for single player, can be modded for Multiplayer (ie. GTA3 & GTA: VC)

    • While just about everyone and their grandma has a PC, not many of those are actually up to snuff as gaming machines. Furthermore, PC online play seems really stagnant. You have the great FPSs, the MMORPGs, and the RTSs... but that's all. There's a lot more variety on consoles, really: online sports, Tony Hawk with a decent controller, etc.
      • first - i don't see why my post is flamebait, its pure numbers, there are roughly 200 Million PCs worldwide and if even a 3rd of them are being used for any online gaming whatsoever, then what i'm saying is true, heck, i think Counterstrike players are numerous enough that they beat PS2s numbers by themselves

        second, i do play my PS2 and X-Box online, and i do enjoy it, but that doesn't mean that PS2 is number 1, it just means its the best of the consoles. but playing a console online is a completely diff

        • there are roughly 200 Million PCs worldwide and if even a 3rd of them are being used for any online gaming whatsoever, then what i'm saying is true,

          They're not. Simple as that. Even if you don't consider the crossover between games, you'd be extremely lucky to come up with a number near 65-70 million.

          heck, i think Counterstrike players are numerous enough that they beat PS2s numbers by themselves

          It depends on what numbers you're talking about. At the height of CS' popularity it had about 3 times as ma
    • neither of them are even close competitors to the online gaming giant that is the PC, every Genre is covered in many different ways

      Quick, name a recent fighting game from the arcades that you can play on the PC that has a built in ranking system like X-Box Capcom vs SNK EO. While I agree that the PC is a much better platform for multiplayer games (for now) than the consoles, the PC hasn't covered every genre.

      I stated this in a post before, but the way for the consoles to really be sucessful is to o

  • Quality VS Quantity? (and a PA quote) (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Recoil_42 ( 665710 ) on Tuesday November 11, 2003 @11:52PM (#7450979) Homepage Journal
    to me, this really comes down to quality vs quantity.

    i sure ps2 online is great, and EA has really driven it home; however XBOX live is absolutely fantastically, exponentially better than ps2 online. freinds list, effortless patches, easy login, downloadable content, voice for *every single game*, rankings, rosters, tournaments, clans, leagues, game invites... it is practically flawless, undoubtedly the best microsoft produect i have ever encountered..

    in contrast, SOCOM is plagued by cheats, (and let's face it -- no one is going to develop a game that requires a 200$ hard drive just to prevent cheats) each game requires its own accoutn and password, EA is threatening to charge 10 bucks a month per game (someting MS won't allow, which is why EA has refused to develop games for xbox live, by the way)....

    also, while i dont want to scream out "BIAS!" too loud, raymond (the article's author) has always been a huge ps2 fan..

    lemme just end with a huge penny-arcade quote as i always like to do.. :)

    ----------

    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.

    ---------------
    • I think the PA quote is overstating the situation quite a bit. Yeah, you get on Live by pushing A. That's super. To log in to play Madden, I simply select Play Online and then my user name and password are loaded from my memory card. I push X a few times and I'm online. Boy, that's tough. I mean, if the folks at Penny Arcade are dismayed by having to log in to online games using a PS2, I can only imagine the trouble they've had with using a PC to play games online.

      I also don't understand this sentence: "The

      • You'd have to pay extra. Each Live subscription gets you only a single gamertag (your online identity). Everything is done through the gamertag - friends, feedback, stats and so on.

        The advantage of the friends list is that it integrates with the rest of the system. If you're online and I log in for some Crimson Skies I can invite you to come play with me no matter what game you're currently playing. You'll get a popup showing the invite and if you accept your system will prompt you for your Crimson Skies d
      • Fair comment.

        I think they're just pointing out that, while online works on both, XBox's iteration has that much more polish. Logging on in Madden is a simple process, but logging on to XBox Live...uh, well, you don't have to. Instead of selecting "1 Player" or "Multiplayer", you select "Play Online". For the most part, there is no login.

        They jellybean comment just refers to the fact that the XBox has online capability from the get-go, not as an expansion pack. I don't find it a very useful statement

      • I do like the idea of having a friend's list but, and this may be just be, normally if I want to play someone online with my PS2 and I already know them, I contact them through some internet messaging service using my computer. I don't see how useful it would be for me to have a friend's list with my PS2. I wouldn't turn my PS2 on, connect to a server, just to see if anyone I know was around. Now, the XBox Live friend's list is accessible via the web but again, how useful is this? If I'm already at my comp

    • Re:Quality VS Quantity? (and a PA quote) (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      The entire problem with the horrible monstrosity, the Xbox, is summed up in a sentence in your post.

      "...effortless patches..."

      "Effortless patching" will make the console game market the same cesspool of unfinished, buggy software that PC gaming currently is. Why bother to put another month of dev work into the game to polish it and fix those last few bugs, when you can just patch it after it's released?

      The fact that console games were NOT patchable has meant that console game developers put a lot more ef
      • I agree about buggy software sucking.

        I also think it is nice that the people at Ubisoft could patch Ghost Recon so an unforseen networking issue did not make it near impossible to find a game to play in. Or when MS patched mechassault to add more features to the lobby.
      • "Effortless patching" will make the console game market the same cesspool of unfinished, buggy software that PC gaming currently is. The fact that console games were NOT patchable has meant that console game developers put a lot more effort into getting the game *right* before they release it.

        You're a crazy person.

        There are plenty of console games that crash and generally have all kinds of bugs. Enter the Matrix leaps to mind but it isn't alone. Pick up a copy of GamePro magazine and check their monthly
      • Games go through strict console quality assurance tests but lets face it some bugs get missed. Having the ability to fix those bugs is great for the consumer and developer. The consumer doesn't need to wait for a sequel to get the game play promised and the developer might get more customers because they were able to fix the game.
    • EA can charge as much as they please, just as SEGA charges for PSO. That's not the issue. The problem (for Microsoft) is that EA wishes to completely bypass the XBox Live service in favor of their own. We all know what happens when Microsoft doesn't get complete and utter control of such a thing. This is the issue. Microsoft is banking on total control of online content with this platform, hence the reason for its excellent network capabilities out of the box. XBox Live is a great service, however I d
    • They make a damn fine Joystick (not the best, but better than most, and the best one that I've owned).

      Keyboards and mice are superb too.

      I also really enjoy Slashdot, which while technically not a Microsoft product, this place really gets a lot of mileage from that company.
    • EA is threatening to charge 10 bucks a month per game (someting MS won't allow, which is why EA has refused to develop games for xbox live, by the way)....

      BZZZZZZT!

      Oh, I'm sorry, but that answer is incorrect.

      The truth is that Microsoft DOES allow third party publishers to charge money ON TOP OF the Xbox Live fee, if they so wish. Sega already does for PSO Ep I&II, at $8.95/month, which is ON TOP OF the $50/year Xbox Live subscription cost. Expect games like True Fantasy Live Online to charge ex

  • It doesn't matter how good and how uniform the online user interface is if the content isn't there.

    One can't help but suspect that the uniform user interface created the lack of content. Even in the general population, freedom creates more opportunities and productivity, but the game creator demographic leans more libertarian than average.
    • Much in the same way that the uniform user interface of keyboard and mouse created a lack of computer games? Or that the uniform laws of physics created a lack of ball games?

      The uniform interface that was mentioned refers to the ability to go on-line with any game without entering a user name or password. It refers to having friends lists that you can use to invite friends to play with you, or that you can use for voice chat. It refers to basic functions working predictably across the board so you don'
      • How you can conclude that ease-of-use improvements and accessibility create a lack of content is beyond me.

        Because a lot of people would feel like Cern's hypothetical developers [slashdot.org]. I wouldn't want to develop under someone else's idea of how I should code the interface. I presume other people would have the same desire for individual expression too, especially in a community well-known for rampant individualism. :-)

        (And Cern, if you're reading this, I sympathize. I've been wrongly Flamebaited, too. I hope y
        • I suppose I understand where you're coming from, but I do get the feeling that you haven't actually played with XBox Live. The structure that Microsoft has implemented is based, for the most part, on transparency. I suppose if you're coding a game about hacking, you might want the online interface to be very non-standard and elusive, but, for the most part, I assume game makers focus on the game aspects more than if you should press "X" instead of "A" to access XBox Online. The consistency being fostere
          • I suppose I understand where you're coming from, but I do get the feeling that you haven't actually played with XBox Live.

            That's true, but believe me, my inner caveman is nagging me night and day to get an XBox and DOA Xtreme Beach Volleyball. I'm just afraid I'd start skipping work to tweak the "jiggliness" settings. Don't tell anyone. ;-)

            The consistency being fostered by XBox Live is closer to the ideas, that, for example, "Ctrl-C" is for copy on a Windows app, and "Ctrl-V" is for paste.

            Okay, but fo
            • I think you're all arguing over an almost completely different kind of consistency than what exists with XBox Live.

              The consistency has to do with the features supported and the idea that you don't have to sign into different services to play different games.

              The player can use their friends list to invite people to play, regardless of what game they are playing at the moment. The service can handle the exiting from one game and loading (and connecting to a game) of the next when the user decides to accept
              • Agreed.

                I'm in no way chiding anyone for saying their opinions without using XBox Live first, but in this case the you'd really have to understand the functionality to understand where us XBox users are coming from. The standardization is not complete front end standardization. A developer can make a Friends list front end where everyone is represented by a hamster and the friends jump around the screen. What the standards (to my knowledge) dictate is: the universal Friend's list must be accessible. Vo
  • In terms of finance : Xbox is killing the PS2. With its right hand tied behind its back and blindfolded. With a pay-to-play system and everything else already provided (no need to buy a network adaptor and for the FFXI people a hard drive as well) even if the PS2 was to suddenly get another 50 million PS2s sold and put online, in the long run the Xbox WILL win. The only way they would lose this battle is if Bill Gates decided to spill a couple gallons of coffee on the servers, "accidently" pull the plug on
    • It's a open vs. close system issue... historycally open system always won... but I don't see why in the future should it have just an online console, today the market is large enough to allow more systems to attain the critical mass.

      Moreover there's no need to be number one to survive and even flourish; afaik Burger King and Pepsi are all but about to go out of businness, and their chances to become #1 are just marginally higher than zero.
    • I appreciate your "pity" for my "foolishness," but you must realize that Gamecube gamers are generally well-aware of the network situation before they buy the machine... And really, we don't care. In fact, you'll find that from my GameFAQs link in an above post, most gamers don't care about online gaming in a console right now.

      I've got PSO on my Gamecube, and overall it costs me less to play it than an XBox Live owner, evern if I have to buy an adapter to play it online. Is that so foolish? You get to

  • Consoles (Score:3, Funny)

    by tiny69 ( 34486 ) on Wednesday November 12, 2003 @01:15AM (#7451297) Homepage Journal
    I have a Digital VT510 serial console sitting in front of me. I really like it since I can connect to two differnt computers via serial connections at the same time. Finding MMJ cables and DB25 --> MMJ adapters is a pain though. I also have a Digital VT420 serial console floating around here somewhere. It's possible to get NICs for them so that they can get their own IP and connect online.

    Oh..., you're talking about game consoles...

  • There's just more games for the PS2, ergo there are more online games.

    how does one imply the other?

  • My comment (Score:3, Insightful)

    by jonathan_the_ninja ( 704301 ) <watashi_o_katana@linuxmail.org> on Wednesday November 12, 2003 @07:45AM (#7452241) Journal
    I think that any system that has a game that is worth playing is worth getting. When it comes to gaming, I just want to play the fun games.
  • Is there somewhere you can get a list of what games are available on x-box live and PS2 online?
  • If you cross the Atlantic to here in Europe you will notice that the assumption that the Xbox will be ahead of the PS2 is actually true, and indeed the structure of the PS2's online system in Europe (the fact that is complicated and disjointed) does play a part in putting people off, but it is still not the main issue. Ironcially, the main issue is also about content, but over here, the Xbox is winning on this front. After all, previously the only PS2 game that's going to make you go online with it is SOCOM
  • ...or even listen to an author that lists 'Britney's Dance Beat' as his top 5 online game.

    What a tard.

    Did you also notice that the games they list are also available on other gaming platforms?

    What a tard.

    Gotta stick with Tech TV's X-Play for somewhat acurate game reviews.

    Dolemite
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