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stingu
05-19-2002, 11:44 PM
Here's something I found on XBOX 365 -- I'm just wondering in the part of the article where it says the "consumer tests" start this summer and then it says there will be a headset, $49.00 subscription for one year. The way it's worded seems to maybe mean that consumers get to test the system for a year???

Microsoft's $1 Billion Bet on Xbox Network 5/20/2002, by Elizabeth
On Monday, Microsoft will announce the next big thing: an ambitious billion-dollar-plus investment in an online game service to be called Xbox Live. Microsoft hopes to create what it describes as the equivalent of an online Disneyland, globally accessible over the Internet, where gamers who subscribe can find partners for dozens of different adventure, racing and sports games.

While Sony and Nintendo have online plans, networked game playing is peripheral to their video-game strategies. For Microsoft, it has been integral to the Xbox plan from the beginning — the wedge with which Microsoft hopes to gain entry to the nation's and world's living rooms and become an entertainment powerhouse.

It is a bet as ambitious as it is expensive. When Microsoft opens the electronic doors for its service this summer, the Internet technology in its three data centers in London, Seattle and Tokyo will have more capacity than its own Microsoft.com, which itself is one of the world's largest Web sites. The risk is that Microsoft is entering a quagmire that will soak up vast amounts of investment and lock the company in a bitter, potentially unwinnable battle with Sony and Nintendo, which will each be describing their own online services at this week's game industry convention, the Electronic Entertainment Expo, which starts Wednesday in Los Angeles.

For Xbox Live to become a success the company acknowledges that it will have to attract millions of customers willing to pay $50 or more for each game's software and perhaps a $9.95 monthly subscription, in addition to the $40 to $60 a month for the high-speed Internet connection the service will require.

Those are big if's, because while video games have become a wildly popular form of home entertainment, online game playing — so far mainly employing personal computers, not game consoles — has never appealed to more than a fraction of Internet users, and in almost all cases, only when it is free.

Even more daunting is the fact that there is little evidence that video games have expanded much beyond their core audience of adolescent and college-age males.

"Gaming is a very age-specific and demographic-specific device and experience," said Mitchell Kertzmann, the chief executive office of Liberate Technologies, an interactive television equipment supplier based in San Carlos, Calif.

There have already been well-publicized failures in the online gaming business. During the Internet bubble, start-ups like Total Entertainment Network and MPATH rose and fell on the promise of offering Web game portals for paying PC customers. And Sega, the one video-game company that did start an online service, Sega.net, way back in 2000, has dropped that service and no longer even makes game consoles, now focusing instead on software.

"It only works when you get to significantly high numbers of subscribers," said Lawrence Probst, chairman and chief executive officer of Electronic Arts, the largest maker of computer and video-game software. "We've learned that the hard way with EA.com," he said, referring to the company's online computer-game service, whose only profitable component is the medieval-themed Ultima Online, which has about 200,000 subscribers.

He said he came to believe that it would be the "social" experience offered by the Internet that would drive the next major generation of video games. That is why he committed the company to add the $40 to $50 worth of hardware to each Xbox needed to make every console Internet ready.

Now Microsoft is ready to tap that built-in capability. On Monday, the company plans to announce that it will begin consumer tests of Xbox Live this summer with a one-year subscription and a headset, for $49, that will enable Xbox owners with high-speed Internet connections to compete and converse with one another online. Despite speculation that the company might use its online network connection to link Xbox users to Microsoft's other services, Mr. Allard insists that Xbox Live will stay focused on gaming.

Robert J. Bach, a Microsoft senior vice president in charge of its games division said the company was planning a service that he compared to Disneyland for its safe, wholesome environment — in contrast to the "Coney Island" he said that the open Internet can sometimes become. "Compare Coney Island to Disneyland," he said. "When you're at Disneyland, there's no trash, no violence and you never see security. That's what we have in mind."

Mr. Allard invoked to the same metaphor to criticize his biggest competitor's approach. "I won't deny that I've occasionally referred to Sony's online service as Sony Island," Mr. Allard said.

Sony, which has said that it will begin selling a $40 adaptor for connecting the PlayStation 2 to the Internet either via dial-up modem or high-speed connection in August, makes no apologies for its approach. Although the company will not attempt to match Microsoft's ambitious online theme-park environment, neither will Sony attempt to charge users for playing its video games online — at least not initially.

If the gaming experiences are comparable for players, a free service based on Sony's market-dominating video-game console could prove an insurmountable rival to Microsoft's fee-based "walled garden" approach.

Moreover, unlike Microsoft's command-and-control approach to the Xbox Live network, the Sony service will not force independent game publishers to provide their online PlayStation games through Sony's own network. That difference was highlighted when executives at Electronic Arts said last week that they planned an online alliance with Sony but remained unsure whether to get involved with Microsoft's XBox Live. Electronic Arts said it worried it might risk losing its customers to competing Microsoft games.

Sony executives, meanwhile, questioned whether Xbox Live could ever justify itself financially.

"If I were Microsoft, I would spend my money first on selling units rather than building an online service," said Kazuo Hirai, the president and chief operating officer of Sony Computer Entertainment America.

None of this deters Mr. Allard. Just as 3D graphics propelled growth in the last generation of video games, he said, Microsoft's ability to create a social experience will drive the next generation of gaming. "The pendulum has swung too far in the single-user direction," he said.

A critical component of the social experience planned for Xbox Live will be the audio headset, enabling players to cheer and jeer one another. The technology includes a "voice masking" feature that will conceal the identities and even ages of the contestants — a Disneyland safeguard meant to deter adult exploitation of children online.

Some analysts agree with Microsoft that voice capabilities could take video gaming to the next level.

"You're looking at a service that will become a new phone network overnight," said Richard Doherty, president of Envisioneering, a research and consulting firm in Seaford, N.Y. "By Christmas, Microsoft could become the nation's fourth-largest phone company."

Source: NY Times

OppiumNitrates
05-19-2002, 11:55 PM
interesting . . .

RadRider
05-20-2002, 12:42 AM
It says that beta testing will start this summer. It then says, in the same sentence, that the price model is to include online gaming for a year, plus the voice communicator headset, for $49.99. Damn, that sounds like a good deal. I'm going to jump on! Especially after that cool video. :D

Did anyone notice that in the Xbox live video, they show that new fighting game TaoFeng? It actually makes me want to play that game now. darnit, I want to play all kinds of games on Xbox Live now. Now that I've seen a demonstration of it, it seems even better than I thought it would be!

stingu
05-20-2002, 12:46 AM
Yea, no kidding. I want to be a "Beta" Tester!!!!

sinizuh
05-20-2002, 01:30 AM
$50 for 1 year of Xbox Live AND a headset? wow :O that's a great deal. this "public beta" is kinda odd... everyone will be wanting to sign up for it...

they have been private beta testing ever since xbox first came out... and now the public beta testing... final Xbox Live is gonna take a while to come out... maybe Fall (at the soonest)

RadRider
05-20-2002, 01:33 AM
Mind you, the public beta testing will be in select locations only. I'm pretty sure that Canada is out of the question, possibly even for the final product - which would seriously, seriously suck.

Dre
05-20-2002, 01:36 AM
Sorry dudes, but I'm pretty sure you misunderstood the sentence. 49$ for the headset. Only the headset. Then 9.95/month (speculation on the price) for xbox live service.

RadRider
05-20-2002, 01:43 AM
For Xbox Live to become a success the company acknowledges that it will have to attract millions of customers willing to pay $50 or more for each game's software and perhaps a $9.95 monthly subscription, in addition to the $40 to $60 a month for the high-speed Internet connection the service will require.

It doesn't say that Microsoft will do this, rather that the company realizes this is the mindset it needs to be in for marketing.


Now Microsoft is ready to tap that built-in capability. On Monday, the company plans to announce that it will begin consumer tests of Xbox Live this summer with a one-year subscription and a headset, for $49, that will enable Xbox owners with high-speed Internet connections to compete and converse with one another online.
This is what Microsoft is officially doing though. Although that one sentence still isn't so clear when I read it. It could be read the way I posted before, or that the beta testers will have to pay $50 for the headset and a year long connection. I think my previous post is more accurate though, as beta testing has typically been free.

Also, this could be a really terribly-written paragraph, that simply doesn't mention the actual yearly cost and only mentions the price of the headset. This is probably the most likely, and I damn the writer - learn to write effectively and clearly! I like to think it's the first way I interpreted it though. Time will only tell..

l Maximus l
05-20-2002, 02:26 AM
Regardless of the price, I'm going to be on-line the first day possible. I hope they do the Beta testing at the Corporate Office in Redmond, WA since I don't live too far away. If I did, all of you dudes can gaurantee I will give a full and thorough report :D

OEM Alien
05-20-2002, 02:30 AM
Originally posted by sinizuh
$50 for 1 year of Xbox Live AND a headset? wow :O that's a great deal. this "public beta" is kinda odd... everyone will be wanting to sign up for it...

they have been private beta testing ever since xbox first came out... and now the public beta testing... final Xbox Live is gonna take a while to come out... maybe Fall (at the soonest) "$50 for 1 year of Xbox Live AND a headset?" *prays xboxonline has their own broadband service i can use by then* man that would OWN if ms had their own broadband service available to all, wherever they live!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
if not, i'm screwed. :confused::confused:

LynxFX
05-20-2002, 02:40 AM
If they do it with the one year subscription and communicator for $50, I'll do it.

sinizuh
05-20-2002, 02:50 AM
now i'm confused :O


the company plans to announce that it will begin consumer tests of Xbox Live this summer with a one-year subscription and a headset, for $49

both for $49 or headset for $49? wish they worded it better :P

RadRider, it's online public beta testing... anyone/anywhere can do it... and they'd be smart picking up some canadian testers to see how the ping would be.