Do downloaded games have value?

[JasonhasRSI1]

[QUOTE=steer]

[QUOTE=Leo]" I do not think many of the 'partners' in this process would choose to do this."

Nonsense, no company is going to keep the online components of a game up forever. Not even Nintendo.
[/QUOTE]

No one knows that either way. That is the rub, we can only speculate.

However -

In this specific case - Halo 2 has a sizable, active online community - who are paying subscrition fees for LIVE like everyone else playing online with LIVE - and some of whom have bought the game  online from MS FOR the 360.

In this specific case, online support is being cut out from games (re)sold for the 360, during the life of the 360.


[/QUOTE]

Just so I'm clear - you're arguing that because Halo 2 was still on store shelves when the 360 came out, that there was a subset of gamers who purchased an Xbox 360 and Live subscription....for the purposes of playing Halo 2?

Complete and utter nonsense.

[BanjoPickles1]

I highly doubt Nintendo will keep the Wii's online service going five years after the Wii is dead and gone. It's flat-out impractical for Nintendo to pay for the bandwidth of a system that not many people are using.

However, I do think(or is it hope?) that Nintendo won't be foolish enough to not allow some sort of transfer of all of those VC and wiiware titles to the next system. In fact, I'm really hoping that all three of them adopt that because, otherwise, what happens when the system with the downloadable titles dies? I'm not really worried about Nintendo, since I've never had one ounce of actual hardware trouble from them(save for blowing into the cartridges) but as somebody who went through so many PS1's and two PS2's, it does worry me what will happen to my precious downloadables once it craps out.

Oh well, time will tell.

[Michael R.]

First of all, the fact that these games won't work in the future isn't the only problem. Retail released games nowadays often require playing online to take full advantage of all of its features and eventually we won't be able to fully play our games that we bought. For example: Grand Theft Auto IV is a great game but the multiplayer only works when you are playing online so what happens when the server is shut down? You will no longer be able to play GTAIV online and some of the achievements will become impossible to get. Personally, I only buy games retail for that reason.

[steer]

[QUOTE=JasonhasRSI][QUOTE=steer]

[QUOTE=Leo]" I do not think many of the 'partners' in this process would choose to do this."

Nonsense, no company is going to keep the online components of a game up forever. Not even Nintendo.
[/QUOTE]

No one knows that either way. That is the rub, we can only speculate.

However -

In this specific case - Halo 2 has a sizable, active online community - who are paying subscrition fees for LIVE like everyone else playing online with LIVE - and some of whom have bought the game  online from MS FOR the 360.

In this specific case, online support is being cut out from games (re)sold for the 360, during the life of the 360.


[/QUOTE]

Just so I'm clear - you're arguing that because Halo 2 was still on store shelves when the 360 came out, that there was a subset of gamers who purchased an Xbox 360 and Live subscription....for the purposes of playing Halo 2?

Complete and utter nonsense.
[/QUOTE]

No - I am talking about the people who bought it THIS gen off of the online store....

[JasonhasRSI1]

[QUOTE=steer][QUOTE=JasonhasRSI][QUOTE=steer]

[QUOTE=Leo]" I do not think many of the 'partners' in this process would choose to do this."

Nonsense, no company is going to keep the online components of a game up forever. Not even Nintendo.
[/QUOTE]

No one knows that either way. That is the rub, we can only speculate.

However -

In this specific case - Halo 2 has a sizable, active online community - who are paying subscrition fees for LIVE like everyone else playing online with LIVE - and some of whom have bought the game  online from MS FOR the 360.

In this specific case, online support is being cut out from games (re)sold for the 360, during the life of the 360.


[/QUOTE]

Just so I'm clear - you're arguing that because Halo 2 was still on store shelves when the 360 came out, that there was a subset of gamers who purchased an Xbox 360 and Live subscription....for the purposes of playing Halo 2?

Complete and utter nonsense.
[/QUOTE]

No - I am talking about the people who bought it THIS gen off of the online store....
[/QUOTE]

Same difference. You're arguing that because Halo 2 appeared on the Live marketplace, that it is a de facto "360 game", and thus its online component should be supported for the same length of time as any other 360 release. This is a ridiculous argument. Halo 2 is an '04 title which has been rendered utterly obsolete by its sequels, which were built from the ground up for the 360.

[andrew]

[QUOTE=steer][QUOTE=JasonhasRSI][QUOTE=steer]

[QUOTE=Leo]" I do not think many of the 'partners' in this process would choose to do this."

Nonsense, no company is going to keep the online components of a game up forever. Not even Nintendo.
[/QUOTE]

No one knows that either way. That is the rub, we can only speculate.

However -

In this specific case - Halo 2 has a sizable, active online community - who are paying subscrition fees for LIVE like everyone else playing online with LIVE - and some of whom have bought the game  online from MS FOR the 360.

In this specific case, online support is being cut out from games (re)sold for the 360, during the life of the 360.


[/QUOTE]

Just so I'm clear - you're arguing that because Halo 2 was still on store shelves when the 360 came out, that there was a subset of gamers who purchased an Xbox 360 and Live subscription....for the purposes of playing Halo 2?

Complete and utter nonsense.
[/QUOTE]

No - I am talking about the people who bought it THIS gen off of the online store....
[/QUOTE]

His point is still valid. Halo 2 and all other games downloaded are still going to be playable offline and I doubt people bought a 360 mainly for Halo 2. That is utter nonsense.

How many people really play Halo 2 anyway? Anyone have current player numbers. I read a post from a few days ago saying 70 players were currently playing which really isn't very much and not worth keeping live limited especially for a fee based serviced. Now for all this, there are eight count them eight responses to the thread about about this on xbox live's Halo 2 community page. Don't make it a bigger deal than it really is.

[Atarifever1]

[QUOTE=andrew]

 

Steer, you always talk about how smart Nintendo is for making a profit.  So Microsoft drop a service which was limiting profit and you rip them for it. Legacy important is imprtant on PC but to limit a service like Live for a single game would be a poor decision. Besides, Halo 3 is readily available to play.

[/QUOTE]

You beat me to this post. 

Steer, you argue that Nintendo subsadizing online (you hope forever and ever) is a sustainable model, that proves why they are such an amazing company.  Microsoft charges for this service, and that proves they are unsustainable.  Microsoft then stops supporting an out of date product in order to keep their business profitable and sustainable.  Again, that proves how unsustainable or bad their model is.

Nintendo charges enough on CONSOES to make a profit.  That is great.  Microsoft and Sony basically give away entire portions of their console for free.  That proves how unsustainable they are. 

Man, you really have to choose an argument and stick to it.  Either Microsoft losing moeny to subsadize something is bad, and then it is bad for Nintendo too, or it is not bad to lose money on one thing to try to make it back elsewhere for Nintendo, in which case it is not bad for Microsoft either.

As for this being like paying for cable and then losing 20 channels, that is a silly comparison.  What you are asking is that NBC show I Love Lucy forever because you like it.  Stations drop shows all the time once they stop being profitable.  This is no different than a station dropping some shows, not channels.  The old shows are being turned off so more money can be put toward the new ones.  So long as they don't come over and take your game away, I don't see anything wrong here.  Besides, if PSO is any indication, the community will make their own (free) workaround anyway.   

[Leo1]

"No - I am talking about the people who bought it THIS gen off of the online store...."

Like I said on the last page, Halo 2 was never sold on the Xbox Live marketplace. Halo 2 has never been part of the Xbox Originals/Games on Demand program at any time.

Halo 1 was part of that program, but had no online component.

If you think we have perpetual access to any of this stuff, you're just fooling yourself because it's working well with your attempt to spin everything to leave Nintendo looking as positive as possible.

You can bet that the infrastructure for something like Mario Kart Wii will be going down in a few years once the company has moved on and the online community diminishes to the point where it's not worthwhile for the company to maintain the infrastructure. That's the point we're now at with the Xbox Live component with the original console. You often can't even find a available game with several of the modes in Halo 2 (Most people congregate on 1-2 play types), something that was unthinkable not too long ago and would never happen when the game was younger.

I think they let it run it's course to a natural death. My only issue is the delisting of DLC for the Xbox 1. Everyone recieved this news of the shutdown and rushed online to get things they had never gotten around to (I logged online for the Links 2004 content for example, but was too late), or to repurchase content on a spare console (I wanted the PGR2 booster packs on a second Xbox because I like that game so much), etc.

But it was already too late. And for that, I'm openly willing to criticize Microsoft. But the April shutdown is fair, I just wish they hadn't deleted the DLC prior to that date.

[David]

[QUOTE=Leo]"No - I am talking about the people who bought it THIS gen off of the online store...."

Halo 2 was never sold on the Xbox Live marketplace. Halo 2 has never been part of the Xbox Originals/Games on Demand program at any time.
[/QUOTE]
And this is why you shouldn't even be talking about this Steer.

In this specific case, online support is being cut out from games (re)sold for the 360, during the life of the 360.
 
You have no idea of which games are available or if online was even a major component in them, yet you scoff when people suggest that you don't know what you're talking about? 

[steer]

Who is spinning anything positive?

I do not see any positives, but I guess some cannot see any negatives.

I was unclear on my HALO 2 reference, this is what I was referring to, that and other games I already referred to. I just used HALO 2 cause it is proabably the biggest. :

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Games_for_Windows

Starting with Halo 2 on May 31, 2007, some Games for Windows titles have access to Microsoft's Live network for online play and other features, including voice chat, messaging and friends lists, accessed from an in-game menu called the "Guide". Users can log in with their Xbox Live gamertags to gain achievements and play games and chat across platforms (not every game supports cross-platform play.) Some features, including cross-platform multiplayer and multiplayer achievements, initially required a subscription to Live Gold.
 
I love the reflex Nintendo bashing.

This particular example has not a damn thing to do with Nintendo - get over it. XBOX LIVE is being unplugged - not Nintendo Wifi. THAT is what we are discussing. Besides - anything you say about Nintendo wifi is pure specualtion, just as it would have been speculation on my part to have said 3 years ago they were gonna dump LIVE 1 on April 15th, 2010.


Hey Atari - I have not spun any facts.

If you cannot take it that MS has lost boatloads of money - fine.

It is funny in your previous example you talk about how many areas of whatever MS is struggling in, and hold up gaming as their lifeboat or whatever. Yeah - THAT is inconsitent. Obviously they have some major profit centers - but console gaming is where they have struggled most by far.

Try to get a loan to run a business like they have run their gaming division. Hell, they stack the deck in their favor with loss laden features and continue to lose ground and marketshare to Nintendo and Sony.

Its their money, they can do what they like, does not bother me. But for you to hold them up as a gold standard is laughable. When did things go terrible for Sony?

When they decided to compete with MS. Fact.