Claudio Todeschini, a highly experienced writer in the gaming industry, takes a stance on Windows Live - the forthcoming gaming service for Windows Vista users only. Here's what he thinks about it and why he's okay with Windows Live fees.
Read his thoughts here: http://www.yougamers.com/articles/16...mans_thoughts/
The idea of paying for something that has always been free is repulsive to some but I agree that it could bring with it some benefits ( cross platform gaming for instance is a nice addition which hasn't been possible before. ) So yeah if you want the extra's then you got to pay for them, if you don't the silver account is free and offers the same pc multiplayer options we're used to from the past. I really can't see anyone loosing anything at this point, and will be waiting how this works out. Though, to be perfectly honest, I don't have a penny to spare on a gold subscription anyway so I'll have to rely on others to form a final conclusion.
I guess since I already have an XBL gold Subscription, which I believe carries over? I've not really thought about it. But as mentioned, since it lets you do PC to PC for free, it's only really charging you for things you wouldn't normally be able to do... *shrug* We shall see. It is frustrating that it's Vista only though.
I agree that for many (like me) this is all a freebie bonus - because they already play for Xbox live gold for their consoles.
I personally expect that very few PC gamers will pay for the Gold features early on - it will be mostly PC + Xbox 360 owners.
Rest will all will depend on how strongly MS will start squeezing PC people to upgrade to Gold (I'm sorry.. I meant 'Adding new and innovative features'). With X360 they essentially said 'pay up' by moving most of the interesting demos to Gold for the first 1-2 weeks. So, if you fancy trying out demos before buying, it's either Gold or wait a while. Considering the size of X360 demos (up to a gig), hosting them can't be free for MS, so I'm happy to pay for Gold just to be able to sample most X360 titles before buying.
A persistent on-line identity, matchmaking services, demo downloads... Sure, if I need those, I'll pay. What I want most from such on-line gaming services, though, is a completely hassle-free purchase model for games. No more installation media to scratch or serial numbers to misplace. Just log in, browse and search the game list, and click on "play." The service would download and install the game, if needed, and let me play. The payment model could be anything the publisher thinks he can get away with (1 EUR / hour, with a lifetime maximum of 50, or a lot less, or a lot more, whatever), just as long as it was clearly stated up front. Saved games would also be stored on the network.
I could basically save my C&C3 campaign, take a sledgehammer to my desktop, count to five, buy a new machine, log in, and continue where I left off, with a minimum of hassle.
In time, maybe the service could start recommending games, like Amazon recommends books, based on your history with them. Or, they could match people who have played several similar titles. Or... you get the idea.
For a good service, and quality intellectual property (content) I would pay.
It really depends on what they'll do with the gold idea. i don't know all the features it will give except for the cross-platform multiplayer and multiplayer achievements (don't even know what they are [rofl] ) and a couple of other features which weren't that interesting to me so i forgot about them already. so for me it really depends on the features i get with it if i want to pay for it, 50 dollar a year isn't much and i can miss it so that isn't the problem.
we'll just have to see
dont need console gamers , i got no console, Am not gonna hang about or around console gamers. They got deseases, i just know they do. Gotta be careful nowadays ya know. VISTA VISTA VISTA, an attemp to push vista. WARNING:dont do consoles, take control, use a pc. But anyhow's its just a lame attemp to push vista plus have some or more control of. VERY LAME And so ludicrus to pay to play, Xfire supports themselves with just advertisers, So do others. WHAT a bunch of pick pockets. There are even ppl out there that dont even realize fully that there are internet games to be played that dont require out of pocket.
Maybe you should read the newsflash againOriginally Posted by mark heffernan
Actually, I can see the point.
One problem people have with Games for Windows - LIVE is that it most likely will *require* Vista. It's not actually spelled out anywhere, but all of the LIVE enabled games announced so far are Vista-only titles. Most gamers don't like Vista.
And to be honest, right now, Vista is a bad idea for gamers. Driver problems, compatibility issues and other bugs all around. Yet every gamer has to eat it sooner or later simply because of DX10. The push of Vista to gamers should have waited until drivers and games were actually ready, but I guess MS thinks otherwise. Or they overestimated the abilities of Nvidia and ATI/AMD to have fully polished drivers ready in time.
(And yes, even ATIs Vista drivers have their share of issues. They are not quite as bad as Nvidias, but they are not fully polished yet either)
In any case, most gamers can forget Vista until autumn. Don't get me wrong, many will jump the moment first Vista-only title worth anything pops up. Halo 2 might not be the final breaktrough, but if Shadowrun is as good as previews make it out to be, that might be already the point when majority of gamers at least dual boot to Vista.
I was already around when we had the first painful transition like this - from DOS to Win95.
Back then all games were for DOS, and Windows was a joke 'for the silly people who want to use Word (on Win3.11)'. Then we had Win95 and DirectX. MS pushed it for gaming. Initially drivers were a joke, DirectX was a joke, games for Win95 were clumsy jokes. Then we had first Win95 titles that were better than you could have for DOS, and the snowball went on from there.
Today most don't even remember DOS.
10 years from now we laugh at the whole XP/Vista DX9/DX10 transition, while gaming on Son of Vista (or it's successor) using DX12 or something like that.
Yes, people ridiculed Win95 like people ridicule Vista and it's problems. It got better. People should not eat the new stuff without questioning it, and by telling MS when they are pushing crap forces MS to fix it (or risk people not adoptiong it). So yes, criticism towards Vista is good. It's just that MS and hardware vendors will fix their blunders - they have too much money already invested not to do it - and Vista will come and 'own' the gaming PCs. It'll take time, but it's going to happen. Too many *billions* in hardware and software sales depend on it.
You can hang onto XP (or Win98 if you so prefer) as long as you like, but pretending that if you complain enough, Vista will go away and XP will stay (or Linux will take over the world overnight) is just silly. These things happen slowly. I'm sure MS is already reacting to feedback about the worst bits of Vista, and we'll see SP1 for it before the year is out.
Ugh, Don't - I've blocked going from Dos to Windows 95 from my Memory. Had to spend most of my time restarting in MSDOS Mode anyway. Although I'm still proud of managing to get 613k of Conventional memory free to get Falcon 3.0 to run
The fact it's Vista only is one of my biggest gripes. Feels like they're basically pushing Vista, not windows live which annoys me. I'm quite looking forward to Shadowrun for instance, but I wanna play it on the PC, not the 360, and as it stands I'm not going to be able to because I just don't want to upgrade to Vista yet :( Sigh - Damn them and pushing their new versions.
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