There have been countless lists about what's wrong the whole Live for PC thing, but I'm unoriginal so here I am writing this. It is pretty long so bear with me please, I just hate seeing the missed opportunity. I'm just going to mention the main three things that bother me about the platform.
First of all, why the hell does it only run when playing a game? The PC environment is perfect for an app that just runs in the background. Steam does this now, why can't Live? Even on the Xbox you don't have to be playing a game to send a friend a message, or check to see if he is online. Its complete bullshit.
Second, Vista's only sucks. DirectX10 is great, but the platform is unstable at the moment. Why not put it on XP? Real gamers still want DirectX 10, and will upgrade someday when Vista's is a resonable OS, and when there are actualy DirectX 10 games available. What the Live for PC is offering now is NOT worth upgrading for, so why not stick it on XP and let people get used to it and get some bugs worked out?
Third, payment. People have been playing online for free on PC for years. Nobody is gonna start now. Unless they are really, really stupid. And whoever thought that PC gamers would start is also really, really stupid. This includes things like content updates. The system might work on consoles where the platform is controlled, but it will never work on PC. You all know what happend with the oblivion horse armor.
The thing that really bugs me is that on the surface its actually a really, really good idea. An environment where all you have to do is sign up, and all of a sudden your connected with all your friends in every PC game, all over. Send your buddy whose playing Bioshock a message and tell him to get his ass on Unreal Tournament 2007. All your friends in one place so you dont have multiple people across games. It is something to download updates for your games as they are released, as Steam does today. Live for PC could become an amazing venue for digital distribution. It really makes alot of sense, and I am actually surprised nobody at Microsft thought of the idea before now. But the product as it stands now is complete shit, and if things keep going the way they are Steam is going to become that platform .
P.S. First blog. Yay,
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Well, yes, if it hadn't already been done. I mean, they're late. It's a good idea connecting it to the console, if that's what you mean, but it's still late, and underachieving.
Personally I don't see that as a problem because my plan would be to get specific games that are multiplatform, that I prefer on PC, on PC and then the rest on 360.
Obviously this alienates devoted PC gamers who aren't willing to have a 360 but I guess it's a marketing thing to get people to buy more 360s.
But none of this can even be thought as reasonable if the gameplay is compromised.
i also agree that live for pc wont be a quickly growing idea since after all, pc gamers have been playing games on-line, getting patches and content packs for free for years now so i don't see where people will line up for this feature. also being on a computer you know people will come up with ways to get around having to use live to do the stuff.
i also feel that the switch to vista only games is to try and push more people to go buy vista. i highly doubt people are rushing out to by vista for halo 2 when you can just pick up a used xbox and halo 2 for 130 bucks with tax. part of me feels that vista is going to be known as MEpart2, playing with it in stores i have yet to like it, and i've yet to talk to any one who has it that likes it.for the first few days a co-worker kept telling me that he liked it, after having it for a week he asked me for a copy of xp.