Man I have to disagree ! I have both systems so I have no favorites but as a gamer who plays online all the time you are way off base.

The 360 has just as many games on real servers. BFBC BFMC , Chromehounds, Fronlines Fuels of Wars(50 players with jets ,tanks,heli's,Apc's,jeeps and infantry), I could go on and on. I know because most of these games are ones I in house tested. The difference is that XboxLive has more restrictions on Dedicated server use , then the PSN..

Last year I put together a petition of 80 thousand names from XboxLive Gamers that wanted real servers.

Hosting on consoles Sucks ! It limits what gamers can play with whom, and the integrity of the host's ping changes every time some one leaves and then comes in. This in turn changes who the match making system puts in the game ! So you almost never have 3 lag free games in a row EVER !!!!!

As a long time pc gamer I have been spoiled because we pay $10 less per game and 95% of pc MP games get real dedicated servers to play on.
360/console users get Screwed on this !! They pay a yearly fee to play online and $10 more per game on top of that !!!! How can you pay that much extra money and not get real servers ! We are talking about Millions of dollars !!

Its plain Freakin GREED MAN !!! Thats what it is.

I'm here to tell you, that if you think that hosting games on a consoles will ever come close to the stability of real dedicated servers,, well then you are going to be waiting for 20yrs before you see a console that can do it and do it well.



Now I will say that 1C, maybe one of the very VERY FEW, that couldn't afford real servers but they are a small minority. Plus in my BOOK they shouldn't have to give them to us ,because the Console companies SHOULD provide the servers !!!!!!!!!!!


Please know that this anger isn't directed at you,, its aimed at the problem I encounter all the time on consoles ! HOSTING SUCKS ! *SS !!!!!!!!!!!
DESODE

You dont seem to grasp the idea very well
Dedicated servers cost alot of money

Just because microsoft is charging us money for their service doesnt mean that they should host dedicated servers.And them charging money for the service is most definately NOT greed , its essential to the growth of the xbox as a platform and keeps the servers up that connect millions of players together.

Sure it would be nice in fantasy land where money grows on trees , but microsoft doesnt have enough money to host dedicated servers for over 20 million people to play on.

The only reason it works for the PC is that gamers themselves are hosting 90% of the servers with their own hardware and money.

to assume that the same system is possible on consoles is frankly ignorant.

no offense

PS , dont bring up the fact that sony is doing it , because they are taking a huge loss and one day you will not be able to play killzone while gamers are still playing rainbow 6 vegas.

that is the main advantage of peer to peer gaming , if you have an opponent , you have a game.

once sony starts running out of funding for things like dedicated servers (which based on recent press will be soon) They will either have to start charging for their service (which would become a complete failure based on the fact that its main perk is being free , without that the service is useless)

or they will close down servers

Lets see $60 for a one year membership, and Xboxlive said in my quarterly stock report that for 2009 they estimate that they have 32 million gold members. At $60 a piece ? How are they losing money ? They could atleast give us the option of renting our own servers then .

You said "to assume that the same system is possible on consoles is frankly ignorant."

No one said the "same system" is possible. If you really think that some of these companies can't afford servers your very Naive.


Do you know anything about networking or buisness ?

I mean really, I'm just wondering.

You said "dont bring up the fact that sony is doing it , because they are taking a huge loss and one day you will not be able to play killzone while gamers are still playing rainbow 6 vegas. "


Well, sony is losing money because, they missed the boat when it came to online gaming and now they are playing catch up !!! They were Ignorant ! Stupid, scared little Bit**S when they said in 2001 "We feel that online gaming is a fad that will not represent the future of the gaming world "

This statment was the day I sold my 20,000 shares in sony. Its the day their stock fell and it has never recovered. They have lost money in every divison they have since 2000 except their console division ! They are behind the eight ball and I don't think they will ever come back. Thats why Sony is losing money and if you think its because of using real servers your crazy ! No Offense.
You must not know anything about the buisness world and what is going on financially in these companies.

I mean thats fine I don't really expect you to know.

I'm just telling you that servers are not the reason they are losing money.
KZ2 is one of the few games that Sony may be paying for servers for. Most of the real servers are provided by publishers, and maintained by the publishers.

Whats really funny is that you think that KZ2 has all these servers ! Haha
Man !! for real ,, the max one game has is 32 people. Well,one server can run 256 people. That means that 8 filled up (32player)game rooms are only using 1 server. At the most they have 50 servers to support the whole world gaming on them. This is pocket change ! Were talking like $10 grand for all their servers and thats if they bought them Brand spankin new !


"How much money do these publishers make ? "

Lets take COD 4 for a example ok, Now I'm also a activision stock holder and their report in may told me that they have 13 million online players currently on xboxlive(alone). Now at $60 a game thats $780,000,000. Now keep in mind that when the game was released they had $29 million in the total production and marketing of the game on release date. The thing is, that this is just how many current online gamers they have playing on xboxlive. They have sold way more copies of Cod4 then 13 million. I'm not exact on the figure,but last I heard it was around 35 million copies sold. Do the math !

Now,are you starting to get the idea of how much money they are making ?
This is just one game ! and it hasn't even reached its sales cycle end !!!
Have you ever thought about how many servers you can by with say 50 grand or even 200 thousand dollars?



The money that some of these publishers make is unreal ! And I repeat its GREED that they don't provide servers for some games. At the very least they could let us rent servers.

Desode

Its simply not financially feasable for a company to do , period

even with the amount of money MS makes with the live fees you assume that it should only be allocated to the xbox division , but the money goes to spread out throughout the company where funding is needed.

MS is not making immense enough profit to even consider making XBL dedicated servers for tens of millions of people

Personally, I don't care for huge MP games. As good as MAG looks, I suspect you'd just end up with a room full of individuals doing their own thing rather than using the options the game presents. And it does sound incredible. Just doesn't work.
I prefer to have player hosted games, but that's because I pretty much game with the same people all the time and we know who can and can't host. Not crazy about gaming with the public, since they usually don't play in the spirit of the game. Also, games hosted on a dedicated server are doomed to have the plug pulled on them. I believe that's a regular practice of EA's with sports games. Chromehounds is an incredible game, but one day the plug will be pulled and it'll be pretty much bricked as a result.

We will just have to agree to disagree on some of this. I don't think that MS's live fees should all go to dedicated servers, by any means. XBL does a lot with what you get for the money you pay in fees.
Like I said most of the time the publisher uses their servers.

I do think that microsoft should not charge a game publisher a fee to run their own dedicated servers.
That is how it works right now. There are lots of publishers that want to use dedicated servers for their games,but MS makes them pay extra to use dedicated servers and they make it a huge hassle. Thats my main gripe with MS.

I appreciate your debate Guiltyspark, and I appreciate your ability to debate with out getting nasty. Since I have been here on these forums , you have always made posts that I have enjoyed and dispite our disagreement on this topic you have my respect. Thanks for taking the time to voice you opinion with me.
DESODE

Thats a good point RAW, and I feel the same way at times about not playing with a huge group. I will be sad to see Chromehounds go when it does. I must say though on the flip side it wouldn't have been the ongoing war we all love if it hadn't been on dedicated servers. It would have been nice if they had some options in there to keep it alive when the plug is pulled.

Thats one of things I love about Frontlines Fuels of war on XBL. You get huge 50 player dedicated servers, with lots of options and you can also host your own private or public 16 player match, via hosting with your xbox 360 also. Plus when you make hosted matches, it appears on the server list with all the Huge dedicated servers. That game with have a huge life span even after the dedicated servers go down some day. THQ did a great job with the XBL version of that game.

DESODE

FOW really is a good game. Some balancing issues with it, but it was a very nice first attempt at their own game. Had more going for it than BFBC in fact.

CH is nice since you can play the massive map battles (almost MMO) in the persistent war...but you also have the option for privately hosted rooms and a small selection of maps to play the reg game time or others. In the persistent war, play vs bots OR humans to kick it up a notch. Brilliant game, only lacking in a forced cockpit view and some build restrictions. Wish we had another on the way. All games can learn from Chromehounds.

Yeah and THQ stuck with it too. They had a little bit of a rocky start, but they fixed alot of things. They fixed most of the balancing issues. The auto turrets were a real pain at the begining. They added Squad leader to squadleader chat, and proximity chat. vehicle chat. Since the atuo turrents where so bad at the start , they ended up making it so the turrets couldn't see the EMP class. that was a brilliant fix. They released a ton of new maps with new weapons, vehicles and aircraft. I really don't think I have ever seen a dev team work so hard at fixing a lot of complaints, and they got it right ! . Do you still have FFOW RAW Kryptonite? If not and you haven't experienced all the balencing fixes, you might want to pick it up again for cheap on the used bin.
DESODE

massive shooter games are very much possible

When i was playing planetside i had some pretty memorable gaming moments that i still rememember

I was in a tank with some random stranger and we were rolling through the forest towards a base when we were ambushed by an enemy patrol and had to bail out of the tank , we were on a elevated peice of road and there were ditches/trenches to each side of the road , while my tank driver bolted for it and got shot , i hid next to a tree by the trench while the enemy patrol walked by looking for me ( think that one scene is lord of the rings where they are hiding from the ring wraiths )


it was simply awesome