Xbox Live Cracks 6 Million, Windows Cost Revealed 117
Kotaku offers up a Microsoft press release on the unexpectedly early arrival of 6,000,000 players to the Xbox Live service. Along with some rather odd statistics to pass on (over 2,300,000,000 hours in-game time spent on the network already), there are some very interesting numerical tidbits passed on. An astonishing 70% of Live users have purchased a title from the Xbox Live arcade. Nearly half of all users hit the Marketplace at least once a session. This all has to add up to good news, financially, for Microsoft; but are they overreaching? GameInformer reports on pricing for Live on Windows Vista. Gold-level service is exactly the same as on the Xbox ($19.99 for three months), while Silver is free. Encouragingly, if you're already a Gold member on the 360 the same will be true on your PC. Just the same, the company is now charging for services normally taken for granted as a freebie on the PC platform.
Charging for what was free (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Charging for what was free (Score:5, Insightful)
When extra content from the marketplace has costs of it's own and games are hosted by the clients I have to ask what I actually get for my subscription other than access to the service? If access is all then £40 a year is an extortionate cost.
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MMORPGs, yes... but MMORPGs have dedicated servers on Xbox Live as well.
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And don't forget Blizzard with their Battle.net. That's existed since Warcraft 2 back in the Windows98 days, and it's alwa
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The way live has traditionally worked, you only host a server for a single "match" at which point you can either host
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In any case, I don't see why Xbox Live on PC would change anything. There's nothing technically preventing game companies from making dedicated server versions of their games like they have in the past. I can't say for sure they will, but the grandparent also can't simply declare they won't without any evidence.
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One word for you. Marketing.
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Although battlenet just arranges for match making and assigns a random "host" if it's not custom maps. Peer Hosting. But most people don't know that or can't even tell. Guild wars provides free servers.
Re:Charging for what was free (Score:4, Insightful)
Free online gaming is like swimming at the public park. Playing on Xbox Live is like swimming at the gym you pay for.
There's a lot more riff-raff pissing in the pool at the park. The gym pool may not be perfect; but it's a whole lot better, simply because you are forced to pay to use it.
For that reason alone I am willing to pay for Live, and the pool at the gym.
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Your analogy might fit somewhat with MMORPGs, (ie. you may find somewhat more riff-raff in free MMO's) but not at all when comparing Live with regular online gaming.
Also, most games that are not client hosted give you some means to create your own private passworded game (ie. Battle.net). Payment not required.
And furtherm
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If they're causing more serious problems and I report them, and 9 other people report them as well, then they'll get their account reviewed and banned. They've lost all of their achievements, they've lost t
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I think you missed the point... On Xbox Live if someone is being rude or obnoxious I can block them, they're not only blocked in that game but every other game I might ever play on the service, they'll be excluded from games I host and the automatic match making will avoid putting us in the same room.
If they're causing more serious problems and I report them, and 9 other people report them as well, then they'll get their account reviewed and banned. They've lost all of their achievements, they've lost their friends list, and all of their other account details but most importantly they'll have to pay another $50 to sign back up. How much do you think the "riff-raff" would be willing to lose before they just go bother people on some free service where they can create new accounts to their hearts content?
Not really. I just assumed (obviously incorrectly) that pretty much everyone who's played online games already knows that these types of blocking and banning do very little to stop these kinds of people. If they get banned, they buy another game/account/etc. and keep right on doing what they were doing. (No, most of these kinds of "players" really don't care about achievements and friends lists.) And for every one you block, there's five more ready to take his place. And how big is your global ignore list
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Really? You're so sure? I'm glad you know how often I run into these types in my daily gaming routine. I play maybe 4 hours a day... at this point on an average week I might block 1... maybe 2 people. I've only had to report maybe 3 people total over the last year. Maybe I'm just playing the wrong games. Ob
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Really? You're so sure? I'm glad you know how often I run into these types in my daily gaming routine. I play maybe 4 hours a day... at this point on an average week I might block 1... maybe 2 people. I've only had to report maybe 3 people total over the last year. Maybe I'm just playing the wrong games. Obviously it wont get rid of everyone but in my experience it works and works well. There seems to only be so many people that are in my skill range, in my "zone", play the kinds of games I play, and play during the same hours that I play... that narrows the pool down quite a bit, beyond that once you've got 30 or so people on your block list the number of undesirables you encounter plummets to almost nothing. I'm not making some unfounded claim... THIS IS MY ACTUAL EXPERIENCE. The "zone" filtering does wonders too as it seems almost all of the ass hats game in the "underground" zone.
Fine. Everyone's online experience is different, I'll grant you that. However most people aren't as lucky as you are, even with Live. No, I don't use it myself but I know plenty of people who do.
How is banning someone's IP any different from blocking them on Xbox Live? If someone is in a room with me I push my guide button select their name out of the recent player list and hit the "Avoid this player" option. I never see that person again, not matter what game I play with. If they want to come back they have to drop another $50 to do so, not to mention they wont even know that I've blocked them, the system will just quietly put us in separate lobbies and they're none the wiser.
If the person drops another $50 to get another account, the system might just as quietly put him in the same lobby and the same game with you again, and you would be none the wiser. If you ban someone's IP, pretty much the only way they're getting back on your server is if they find another ISP. That's a great dea
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It's dynamic, it changes frequently. They give you a short-term lease (24 hours in many cases). With many ISPs you can request a new IP address at will.
Blocking IP addresses is sooooooo much less effective than blocking user accounts that cost $50.
You've had quite a few excited exchanges on the subject of Xbox Live. But you've admitted to not using the service yourself.
Then you come up with absolute garbage information about blocking IP addresses being an e
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I even recall playing UNO one night and there was a guy in there, he seemed a little rough around the edges..
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No passwords required, because you already know who your friends are.
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And guess what. I'm never going to.
It's not really that hard to figure out what it does and does not do without actually using it. There's plenty of information out there about it, and there's plenty of free online gaming services (not to mention MMORPGs where your money actually gets you someone hosting a game server for you as well) that are similar enough to figure out what advantages and disadvantages Live might have.
There's nothing Live has
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But when you spread mis-information about not being able to create private games I think it is important that somebody post a correction.
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What I did say is that that being able to create private games is not a benefit exclusive to Live. Most PC multiplayer games already have that option.
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Yep, it's just you and 5,999,999 of your closest friends.
Sorry, couldn't resist. 8^)
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The PC, until now, doesn't have the Xbox Live model. There is no persistent identity from game to game, no gamer profile that sticks with people that allows you to look at someone else and see what games they play. The idea of a "friends list" is either per game, or you're talking about IM. If you're in the middle of one PC game, and your friends want you to come play with them in another, is there a simple way for them to send you a game invite that you can a
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Steam.
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The PC, until now, doesn't have the Xbox Live model. There is no persistent identity from game to game, no gamer profile that sticks with people that allows you to look at someone else and see what games they play. The idea of a "friends list" is either per game, or you're talking about IM. If you're in the middle of one PC game, and your friends want you to come play with them in another, is there a simple way for them to send you a game invite that you can accept that will end the current game, start the new one, and go right into the game they're in? What about playing cross platform between the PC and the Xbox?
It's called Xfire. No, you can't jump from one game right into another, but it's going to be a few years yet before PCs can do that anyway, Vista Live or not.
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Does it work for single player games too?
I love that I can be playing a single player game, and then see a friend sign in and be able to go multiplayer.
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The silliest thing I read is that microtrolls consider it a benefit that they are locked out of the rest of the Internet
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Like this pointless (and incorrect) dig at Microsoft for no reason at the end of the article.
No, no PC game offers what Xbox Live offers. Sorry. You can find individual games that offer some of the features, but most of the entire point of Xbox Live is that you have the same friends list across every game you play, which is not true of any PC games. Additionally, it does a great job of removing
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shouldn't this be "Charging for what is free"
A prime example is valve software's steam platform, you get access to multi player, content delivery and everything minus the subscription, plus the range of games keeps growing fast. you pay for just the games (i.e. the retail price or less), not for logging in.
Lets See How Long This Lasts (Score:1)
I'm not sure the many thousands of people playing online right now would be keen to pay for traditionally free multiplayer components just so people can settle the whole "keyboard/mouse vs gamepad" debate. I like the idea of Windows Live Anywhere overall, but Microsoft are shooting themselves in the foot (for massive damage) by making the unwashed masses pay.
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Are you kidding? I wouldn't do it for long, but I'd pay for Xbox live just to enjoy the satisfaction of joining a game with a bunch of joypadders and
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Sure games would have to support m&k options, but wtf why don't they? RTS games *need* keyboards, among other genres. Key binding, quick text chats...it's a goddamn travesty that these next-gen boxes are joystick only. (reason enough to ha
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If it was like former Microsoft keyboards and mice, it would be overpriced and with no quality.
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For what do we have to pay? (Score:1)
For Microsoft to make money. (Score:1)
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Good attempt to flame Microsoft for no reason, though! Don't let those silly things like "facts" get in the way!
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There are no "gold member only" demos. The most you get are demos that hit Gold members earlier than they do Silver, usually by about 3-4 days.
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A 'silver account' is barely an account at all; all they give you for 'silver' is the ability to walk into the store. Awfully kind of them.
And very telling that they don't bust out the number of Gold subscribers vs Silver.
Games for Windows (Score:2)
Considering the fact that microsoft games are very few why we have to pay the same fee of xbox live for much less game, but maybe the right question is why we have to pay for play online? we have already paid 50-60 euros for the game, WoW costs 5 euros and you also get some free weeks also lineage2 it's totally free to download you just pay the monthly fee. And why we have to pay for trailers and demo too? we can get them for free
Welll..
A) Microsoft is starting a new labeling scheme they call "games for windows" where they certify games as of reasonable quaility, within the bounds of the MS standardized control scheme, and capable of working with Xbox Live. So what you are paying for is access to that community of members, including ladder boards and a bare handful of competitions. You also get to accrue "gamer points" apparently a new way to measure penis length.
B) I have no idea what you mean by "pay to download trailers and de
Oh man... (Score:1)
Gears of War made me skew the figures up... (Score:1)
Re:Gears of War made me skew the figures up... (Score:5, Interesting)
"An astonishing 70% of Live users have purchased a title from the Xbox Live arcade."
Which is a figure that to be fair on MS, gets more impressive when dummy accounts are taken into consideration.
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...I had to create a second xbox live account so my friends who came over to play Gears of War splitscreen.
I also keep a second account... but not just for gears. Ever since Halo2 came out, and they created a distinction between free play vs. ranked (have be be gold member) play. I want to play in ranked matches. I want to play with my friends. An extra $7 a month +/- is practically nothing for the privledge of enjoying these great games with my friends.
That's my take on it.
-GiH
I hope Live on PC doesn't stick... (Score:1, Interesting)
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However I also object to paying just to be able to use games online. I mean, the 'service' of finding matches with another player, and have your local bandwidth/computer systems take up the load, I consider a mandatory part of a game with 'online content' and one that should be bu
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If that is the alternative, then I sure hope live catches on on windows aswell. More so because I own an xbox, and it'd be nice to play from that with friends of mine who can actually afford hard
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It's all fun, I'm just a save file packrat and the idea that I won't be able to go back and revisit the fun makes me sad.
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I don't own an Xbox at all. With the size of Microsoft and the fact that they can crank out
PC Online is very different than Console Online (Score:3, Interesting)
Microsoft is doing what they've always been trying to do. Just because it's had success in one area, it tries to push it's product in a totally unrelated area expecting the same success.
I have to say that Xbox live is really well done. However, it's successful because it's the only game in town on the Xbox and 360.
On the PC, there's a plethora of games out there that allow you to play online for free after you purchase it. I can see if my friends are online to play against via IM, Yahoo Messenger, Googletalk, ICQ. I can email them and chat with them. I can VOIP with them. I can download game demos from many sites. I can download videos from many sites.
What can Xbox live offer me that I can't get for free online? Gamerpoints? I can play with UNO with people on Live?
Honestly, if I have Halo 2 for the PC, who is still playing Halo 2 on the Xbox? Halo 3 will be on the 360 by that time, so all those Halo 2 PC gamers will just be playing against someone else who has Halo2 on the PC.
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Small Arms gets as much play time on my 360 as GoW and Halo2. So lets not kid ourselves. Everyone has live accounts to download and play dashboard games. ALL my friends did, so it has to apply to everyone!
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The choice to go to Live for games is not yours to make anymore, it is put squarely on the developers. If a game comes out that uses Live and you want it, then you will be using Live or you will not be playing the ga
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Halo PC Online going strong (Score:1)
I play it -almost- every night. I find a subscription service to Xbox hard to justify considering the amount of time I play on consoles. They're just too inconvenient compared to PCs, but that
PC gaming sucks... kinda (Score:2)
Does this figure represent XBL Gold accounts? (Score:3, Insightful)
A PC is not a gilded cage (Score:5, Interesting)
The same is not true on PC (much though MS would wish otherwise). There are countless online systems available, and countless ways that games use those systems or integrate with their own. I really don't see many companies being interested in this unless MS waves a big fat paycheck under their nose. The Valves, Blizzards and NCSofts of this world aren't suddenly going to dump their products just because MS is trying to muscle in. And I don't see the likes of Gamespy or XFire disappearing either unless MS engage in some extremely anticompetitive behaviour to kill them off.
In fact I see next to no reason for users to be interested either. Unless you own a 360 already and therefore get Windows Live Gold for free, where is the incentive. What is so compelling about the MS service to justify forking out $50 to use it when the same can be had for free elsewhere?
It's "Games For Windows" (Score:2)
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The requirements as they stand on MSDN now (Score:3, Informative)
Games for Windows: Technical Requirements [microsoft.com]
* 1.1 Games Explorer Integration
* 1.2 Support Parental Controls
* 1.3 Support Rich Saved Games
* 1.4 Support the Xbox 360 Common Controller for Windows
* 1.5 Support Multiple Aspect Ratios and Resolutions
* 1.6 Support Launch from Windows Media Center
* 1.7 Direct3D Support
It's only a matter of time before we get a 1.8 Windows Live Gold support
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What is so compelling about the MS service to justify forking out $50 to use it when the same can be had for free elsewhere?
The same reason it's always been to fork over $50 for Xbox Live - quality of service.
You've listed only one pro for PC multiplayer, and that is the free-ness (as in beer) of it all. Personally I can think of a couple more:
- Support for user mods.
- Text chatting... but that's more a hardware difference than a service one.
Allow me to explain why I believe Xbox Live is worth ev
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Why I like my dedicated server: (Score:2)
So, locally, we have no lag. People over the Internet can still connect and play with us, but we all have pings of 0-5, and a few of us have admin rights.
Personally, I don't think it's as fun to give someone a bad review on Xbox Live as to pimp-slap them around the map for swearing -- or turn them into a Llama (so everything they say gets turned into random textual
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In fact I see next to no reason for users to be interested either. Unless you own a 360 already and therefore get Windows Live Gold for free, where is the incentive. What is so compelling about the MS service to justify forking out $50 to use it when the same can be had for free elsewhere?
What Xbox Live offers is not available for free anywhere else. It is not available for money anywhere else!
If I play a game with someone that I like, I can instantly get a list of the games they play online cross references with the games that I play online, tag them as a friend - I can be notified in-game when they log on and log off, And with in 3 seconds invite them to the game I am hosting while I am still playing. Or, when I log in, I can go to my list of friends, see what they are playing right now,
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Blizzard would certainly say "Fuck you, MS, if they're paying anyone, it's us." But Valve might just bend over because they like it.
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If you think that's bad try purchasing an oem copy... errr LICENSE for Office 2007. They send you a cd case, you cut through the stickers that say "You owe us your first born and agree to all this bullshit by breaking this seal." only to find that when you open the case there is no disc, instead, under the clear plastic where the disc would normally be you see "This products d
Seems like a ripoff (Score:1, Troll)
I don't play online extensively, but the few times that I have tried to load up a game online, I've found that half of the time I join a "game" where no game is actually taking plac
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the only PS3 game I have that supports it so far is Resistance- I'm not about to subject myself to playing a FPS online, though I suspect that I may play Motor Storm online once I pick it up
Every game I have for the PS3 supports online - Resistance, Blazing Angels, Ridge Racer 7, MLB2k7. The online experiences vary with each, but the connections are consistent. The only game I've experienced lag in was Ridge R
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I've played more hours of XBL than I care to admit, but trust me, it's a lot. I've played everything from saintsrow, cod2, cod3, halo2, chromehounds on my 360 and many many more on my regular box. Lately, with COD3, my disconnect rate is nearly nonexistent. A host quitting results in the game being taken over by another random host. cod3 suffers little to no lag whatsoever, and cod2 rarely had much more. Halo2 is even better for picking non-lagging games. Players don
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Tell me something, how much less than $5 would you have to pay for something not to be overpriced?
Maybe you're just a cheap bastard?
Or maybe since you think paying $5 to $20 for PS3 online is fine but $5 to $10 for Xbox is expensive... well maybe you're just a PS3 fanboy?
Could be?
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UT 3 multiplayer requirements...VISTA LIVE GOLD? (Score:1)
Anyway Microsoft can in fact do this since most game developers have already married Microsoft and have no plans on getting divorced. The future looks just cruel
I have a Xbox 360 today, but I've only tried the trials of arcade demos, and yeah some games are really fun but NO WAY WORTH $5-10 today. There are so many other free great alternatives. And I'm not willing to pay to play versus people on Xbox Live. I h
Re:UT 3 multiplayer requirements...VISTA LIVE GOLD (Score:2)
No PC game maker is going to tie himself to live. (Score:2)
Anyone who's claiming Live will solve any multiplayer problems they've had in the last 5 years is having wistful thinking. It's a matchmaking service! Most games don't even need such a thing. You can't use that for a real FPS for instance. Nobody wants to
Re:No PC game maker is going to tie himself to liv (Score:2)
You clearly have never used Live. I suggest doing so before giving your criticism. If you did, you would know that Live is much more than a match-making chat server. You would also know that Xbox 360 *does* multitask and handle buddy lists (beautifully, IMHO, though there's always room to be better)... I would say XBL buddy list integration is better than any PC system I've seen.
Xbox Live (Score:2)
I've been a live member on the 360 for nearly a year now, and have really liked it. I play alot of games online and have never seen any serious issues. Every once in a while there might be a laggy session, but they seem few and far between. What I'm suprised at is how much content I have purchased via Live. Like this morning, Worms hit the Live arcade. I started the download as I walked out the door for work.
Live seems to encourage impulse buys. They make it easy to get points (just click confirm a
It was necessary (Score:1)
Pay for dumbed down on line play NO WAY (Score:2)
-NO MODS
-Games dumbed down to work with the xbox 360 controller
-M$ can force games makers to pay to rated by the ESRB or other $2000-$3000 game raters.
-People may be banded for just trying to use a mod form all games and may even have there windows key black listed.
-Forced to use M$ severs
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live means
-NO MODS
Says who?
-Games dumbed down to work with the xbox 360 controller
Expectation to support the hardware doesn't require the game to be designed around the hardware. Besides. Simple interface != dumbed down.
-M$ can force games makers to pay to rated by the ESRB or other $2000-$3000 game raters.
Any game that wants to be carried in major retailers needs to be rated anyway.
-People may be banded for just trying to use a mod form all games and may even have there windows key black listed.
'banded'? If you're cheating, I have no pity. A wallhack is entirely different from a TC. There is no logical reason for MS to blacklist license keys because you violate their game service. If you get your Hotmail banned, does your license become invalid? You pulled this out
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Free? It still is. (Score:1)
What you had that was free will still be free. Battle.net will still exist. All the other "services" you used will still exist.`
The only thing that will change is those "Games for Windows" games that will plug-in to the unified service of Live. THAT wasn't available before. The service is a LOT more than just "matchmaking for online games", which is what the old free services were.
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How is this better than Steam? What features does it have that Steam doesn't already do, better?
If you're going to bend over for a large company trying to build a game network, it may as well be a game company.
Then again, Valve is a bunch of former MS guys. They might just bend over -- not because MS is forcing them, but because they like it.
You don't NEED Live to play online (Score:1)