Another Publisher going the way of EA?

[BigJosh359]

GameSpy Industries, a leading online entertainment and technology company serving the games industry, and Midway Amusement Games, LLC, a subsidiary of Midway Games Inc. , have signed a technology licensing agreement under which GameSpy will facilitate the online game play of Midway Sports(TM) games, NFL(R) Blitz(R) Pro and NHL(R) Hitz(R) Pro, and the Midway Sports Asylum(R) game, NBA Ballers.

To meet the unique needs of the sports genre of games, GameSpy offers customized features on top of its industry-standard online matchmaking systems, which enables gamers to challenge opponents for one-on-one matches, utilizing the GameSpy.net Chat software development kit (SDK). The company also develops tools to manage user-created lobbies where distinct groups of players can gather for password-protected tournaments.

"Midway is famous for creating best-selling multiplayer games. Adding online gaming to our fast-paced Midway Sports titles is a natural progression," Jon Dean, vice president, sports business unit, Midway Amusement Games, LLC, said. "As we make that progression, we will of course be innovative with our online play and not just simply provide online functionality. Our designers are utilizing GameSpy's range of customizable options to create the optimum online solution for Midway Sports games on the PlayStation(R)2 computer entertainment system, offering a high-quality gaming experience for consumers."

GameSpy offers a suite of multi-platform SDKs to enable online gaming, as well as the reliable back-end infrastructure that has matched players in more than one billion gaming sessions for more than five years. GameSpy's middleware supports multiple gaming platforms, including PC, PlayStation 2, Linux, Apple Macintosh and Dreamcast.

"Midway came to us with very specific requirements, and we rose to the challenge of coming up with an effective solution within a matter of days," Mark Surfas, founder and chairman, GameSpy, said. "We pride ourselves on delivering innovative work as well as quick turnaround."



Please tell me I'm reading this wrong, i just woke up to this, so please correct me for saying that Midway sux now.

[LTM360]

Originally posted by Josh-XBA
Please tell me I'm reading this wrong, i just woke up to this, so please correct me for saying that Midway sux now.

I don't know if I'm gonna help too much Josh, since after Mortal Kombat 2 I've thought that since. I cannot think of one Midway title worth mentioning. NBA Jam was fun, but it couldn't move up to the times, so we have NBA Street which I like alot better.

[Knight]

I could care less about Midway they haven't yet made one XBox game I even want and there games are just junk.

[Casper]

Guess me and Shaggy are the only ones on this board that absolutely love Hitz..I was all excited for Hitz Pro coming online until E3 when the Midway rep told me that it wasn't going to be on XBL....thanks MS for screwing us out of the deals...just let them use their own servers...come on already!!!

[bluefire712]

Originally posted by Josh-XBA
Please tell me I'm reading this wrong, i just woke up to this, so please correct me for saying that Midway sux now.

Basically, it's saying Midway is now going the ruote with Gamespy which for obvious reasons would be in stiff competition with a service such as Xbox Live.

They're both multi-game multi-publisher online matchmaking services with similar features such as friends, voice chat (Roger Wilco), and downloads (FilePlanet). Most of Gamespy's software/services have a very cut-down free/trial version, but almost all of them are paid monthly or for upgrades. It seems like Gamespy will eventually be cut out though since Midway has been losing market share for a long time now and Sony will want to keep all the games first-party to gain all the benefits/profits from their online service and not be cut out from a company like Gamespy.

Midway has never made a Live game anyhow, so it's not like they started and then suddenly stopped. They don't make any good game anyhow IMO.

[bluefire712]

Originally posted by casper
....thanks MS for screwing us out of the deals...just let them use their own servers...come on already!!!

It's not that easy. When you take other companies and tie out Microsoft you could run into some major problems. Such as:

1) Basic options don't work
Gamertags, friends list, invites, voice chat, etc. don't work properly or aren't embedded.

2) Online prices skyrocket
Each game will then charge a seperate fee since a different company will own different datacenters for each game and maintain its own servers.

3) Billing
You have your credit card with several different companies and it may become very difficult to stop getting billed for a game you tried to cancel. Microsoft won't be able to help you then.

4) Odd policies
Like EA titles on PS2 there's a disclaimer about it's supposed "free online gaming." Did you know that once new sports titles come out (the 2004 versions), they're legally allowed to back out of providing any service whatsoever to people who want to play the 2003 versions online.

5) Lag
In order for gamertags, invites, etc. to work in all games you need to have a place where all the information combines and is distributed. Xbox Live offers that, unlike PS2, that's why they are unable to maintain the basic overall level of basic optoins that Microsoft can.

I fully support Microsoft not allowing people to take over their own operations. Everyone knew fully well this was the way Xbox Live was going to work. If you don't like it get a PS2 or play on XBConnect.

[Xbox Owner]

I didn't read through the whole thread, but..

Didn't Midway say they were just PS2..THIS YEAR? I thought they said after this year, they're looking forward to puting they're games online..for all consoles.

[Shadow20002]

Since Mortal Kombat series, there are nothing i like in Midway.

[Trento52]

I don't really know about any midway products other then sports and mortal kombat but i don't think it is that big of a deal for me but there is always room for more games for xbox and haveing more online titles would be great.

[DocHoliday78]

Originally posted by casper
Guess me and Shaggy are the only ones on this board that absolutely love Hitz..I was all excited for Hitz Pro coming online until E3 when the Midway rep told me that it wasn't going to be on XBL....thanks MS for screwing us out of the deals...just let them use their own servers...come on already!!!

No way i love hitz too. I am undefeated in that game 131-0 in the first one and 145-0 in last years. I did come close however i was down 3 goals in the third but i won the fight against Shanahan, i was Forseberg, and i scored 3 goals to send it into overtime with Blake. I then won the shootout, not my pick, by one goal. I was freaking out but when i won i went crazy.

[Spaztic]

I would love to kill someone in hitz online. Maybe then I could find someone that can give me a challange.....I have only lost in hitz 2 times and that was when I first started to play!!!

[Casper]

Originally posted by Shaggy
I would love to kill someone in hitz online. Maybe then I could find someone that can give me a challange.....I have only lost in hitz 2 times and that was when I first started to play!!!

Guess I'm just gonna have to stop on down there next time I go to KC and show you what's up

My custom team is the ish...my center is 6'5-205 lbs. with a horsehead named Mr. Marbles...he knows the hell outta everyone and has a slapper that's hit 140

[Viper87227]

A small handful of games aside, everything midway makes it crap anyways. They usually feel rushed, lacking, and crapilicious. This doesnt affect me in the least, since the NHL and NFL Pro games didnt stand a change agaist Sega Sports anyways.