🚀 go-pugleaf

Charles Doane <gdo...@mindspring.com> wrote in message news:<3CAF884A...@mindspring.com>...
> The ideas presented by STEAM are not new.  Subscription game downloads were
> done by SEGA as Sega TV many years ago, and as you can see, the idea didn't
> last.  Online console gaming has been tried as well, with the X-Band 
> matching service (SNES and Genesis, failed), the Saturn Netlink (failed)
> and most recently the Dreamcast with Seganet (pretty much dead).

Interesting.  I agree on a few of your points, disagree on others. 
For example, I don't think the whole "spontenaity" argument holds. 
I'm guessing you've played online Dreamcast and there is no big
waiting period with the popular games.  AFO is pretty much click to
connect then play.

I don't really see the whole "tying up the TV" argument, either. 
Anyone that plays videogames ties up the TV whether they are playing
online or not.

I do agree with you about the fee argument to some extent.  NOBODY
likes to pay to play.  That goes for PC's or consoles.  Could you
imagine if someone tried to charge for an online FPS deathmatch on
PC's?  They wouldn't get any players, either.  I'm not sure why but
the only "pay to play" scheme that has had any success has been for
RPG's, both for PC's and consoles.  The only reason PSO has been dying
off has been poor customer service (ie, no resolution for all the
cheating), otherwise it was quite popular.  Anyways, maybe it has
something to do with the amount of time you have to invest in online
RPG's is why people are more willing to pay for them.  FPS's and other
online console gaming is so brief in comparison that I suppose no one
thinks it's worth paying a fee.

Finally, I think it's worth noting that no one big has ever tried
console gaming.  Sega and Catapult were small potatoes.  Sony and
Nintendo have never gotten behind any of it.  As far as they are
concerned (I think), it's not worth getting into because they can't
make any direct profits from it.  Sega always did it as a "draw", an
attempt to get people to buy their console, which is something Sony
and Nintendo obviously don't need as badly as Sega did.