Saturday, December 23rd 2006
The real challenge to Xbox Live: reaching the masses
One of the major features of Xbox(360) is internet gameplay. Xbox Live is one of the most important things separating the Xbox(360) from competition coming from Sony and Nintendo. However, most Xbox(360) owners do not use this feature. Only 10% of people owning an Xbox had an Xbox Live account, and 50% of Xbox360 owners have an Xbox Live Gold account.
While there are over 4 million owners of the $50-a-year Xbox Live Gold accounts, there are several reasons that this number is not much higher. The first and most important reason is an intimidation factor. Immature players who are pitted against very experienced players may be scared away from Xbox Live. There is also no shortage of "aggressive and sometime verbally abusive players" who can make even the best players stay off of Xbox Live. "A lot of casual gamers are intimidated by online in general, both in terms of the technology and the human competition," said Cole. "That's changing, but it still has a ways to go." In an attempt to make Xbox Live a friendlier service, Microsoft recently started an Xbox Live Video service, as we reported here.
Source:
CNET
While there are over 4 million owners of the $50-a-year Xbox Live Gold accounts, there are several reasons that this number is not much higher. The first and most important reason is an intimidation factor. Immature players who are pitted against very experienced players may be scared away from Xbox Live. There is also no shortage of "aggressive and sometime verbally abusive players" who can make even the best players stay off of Xbox Live. "A lot of casual gamers are intimidated by online in general, both in terms of the technology and the human competition," said Cole. "That's changing, but it still has a ways to go." In an attempt to make Xbox Live a friendlier service, Microsoft recently started an Xbox Live Video service, as we reported here.
23 Comments on The real challenge to Xbox Live: reaching the masses
Negative, the first and most important reason people dont use Xbox live is the fact you have to pay for it, if they made it free to play games you own Xbox360 games online i am sure the vast majority would do so. Micro$haft should alow gamespy or someone else to offer an alternate free service and they would soon see that take of like a rocket.
Quick question, anybody try using a keyboard and mouse on 360 for a FPS?
And mebey a hack on some mouse pointer software could do the mouse part.
All this on top of charging 59.99 for new games.
EDIT: From what I gathered last night, downloading a movie is kinda like ordering a PPV on cable or sat. Once you start playing, it expires in 24 hrs. Is that how it works?
Why pay 50$ a year to play an un-polished shooter with a gamepad and extra for videos i can download on my PC for free?
The reasoning behind playing a shooter(or any genre of game, for that matter) on 360 is because some of them aren't available on PC(Call of Duty 3 and Gears of War jump to mind immediately), and multiplayer doesn't require a LAN or server. If I could only get a mouse and keyboard to work in gameplay on the 360, I'd be perfectly happy.
Then what is the cable going to the 360's for?
but still i dont think 50 bucks a year is bad at all,as long as your not a kid and have a job is nothing.......i just wish it were cheaper to get ms points it kinda expensive
People just aren't playing online because they are too weak, and cannot quickly adapt to new things. I truly believe this, because Xbox Live is free for a first month.