Cross-platform Games

Originally Posted by Gavin

It will mean that PC users need to pay extra for a Live subscription to play their favourite Microsoft games online, no doubt.

Or maybe they will keep it free for PC-only multiplayer. I doubt it though.

Good point. Thinking of getting rid of the xbox360/games and spending the money on up-grading the PC to Vista etc Will keep the gamertag going for now though.

[Uncle Peter]

I wonder if it also means that the netcode for more PC games will go down the P2P route as opposed to being hosted on dedicated servers. The upshot being that people who have shaped accounts or have hard bandwidth caps could be in for some nasty surprises.

See here for speculation about a FREE xboxlive service because of windows crossplatform gaming;- http://www.cableforum.co.uk/board/34226641-post1.html

[SnoopZ]

Am i the only one who thinks this cross platform gaming is a really bad idea? Atleast i think it is with first person shooters anyway.

Originally Posted by SnoopZ

Am i the only one who thinks this cross platform gaming is a really bad idea? Atleast i think it is with first person shooters anyway.

Microsoft have said they have redesigned the control system to take into account gamers who use Keyboard & Mouse and those that use a game pad so that were all playing on a level playing field as it were. Wait and see is the answer to this. I think cross-platform gaming will be the business myself.

so basically they are going to cripple the pc gamer. imo you are loads more accurate with mouse aiming meaning a console gamer needs some leeway so what they prob mean its easier to kill on a console than a pc shame really it would have proved a point but handicapping the pc gamer will imo make it no different.
If it isnt free I will not be trying it due to this handicapping

Originally Posted by zinglebarb

so basically they are going to cripple the pc gamer. imo you are loads more accurate with mouse aiming meaning a console gamer needs some leeway so what they prob mean its easier to kill on a console than a pc shame really it would have proved a point but handicapping the pc gamer will imo make it no different.
If it isnt free I will not be trying it due to this handicapping

Fair points but like you I don't know what the control system will involve, only Microsoft know this information and they havn't given any clues about it as yet. Reserve judgment until the facts are known. As for being Free, Microsoft know that PC gamers don't like to pay for anything - so they will have to come up with something, and by the few press snipets its looking likely that it will be free to some extent.

See you on the battlefield one day then

Originally Posted by zinglebarb

See you on the battlefield one day then

Challenge Accepted. I nominate Matt D as my second, just in case I'm feeling poorly on the day in question.

we will need some rules of honour. it has to be an FPS we both have to agree to a maximum playing time before the challenge ie 8 hours play time then a 1 v 1 deathmatch if there is any chance of that maybe find an empty server if thats how MS works em (they be my terms lol add any you wish ) oh yeah no noob weapons

Originally Posted by zinglebarb

we will need some rules of honour. it has to be an FPS we both have to agree to a maximum playing time before the challenge ie 8 hours play time then a 1 v 1 deathmatch if there is any chance of that maybe find an empty server if thats how MS works em (they be my terms lol add any you wish ) oh yeah no noob weapons

Noob weapons!?!? - so the thermo-nuclear-laser-guided-lock-on-can't-miss-destroy-all-opponents-with-one-button-launcher is out of the question then? Drat!


How about pointy sticks and no name calling?

[jerryl]

i saw on this article that some1 built an xbox 360 into a laptop, so it was like a cross between a laptop and a xbox 360, u had a keyboard and a controller

Interesting first impressions from Eurogamer on Shadowrun:

But does it look like it's going to be brilliant? Well it looks like it could be a brilliant advert for cross-platform gaming over Xbox Live. Microsoft has been making a bit of a song and dance about the fact that Shadowrun is one of the first games that will allow PC gamers to take on Xbox 360 gamers over Xbox Live. Which, if you think about it, is a pretty reasonable idea. It's just it's probably going to be one of those reasonable ideas that people very quickly take for granted, without ever giving any credit to the people who came up with the idea. Because, to judge from a recent demonstration of Shadowrun, Live on Windows Vista is indistinguishable from Live on Xbox 360.

"You can voicechat, you can create a Friends list, and you can do game invites just like on the console," explains FASA's studio manager, Mitch Gitelman. "If you're already a member of Xbox Live, your stuff works on Games for Windows Live, too. You use the same gamertag, and can show off the same gamerscore and achievements on each platform. The rest of the Xbox Live features, like Marketplace are coming later." More importantly, it was impossible to tell whether people were playing with a controller or via keyboard and mouse.

"There's a number of different ways that we've balanced it," continues Gitelman. "For one thing we have an accuracy model sort of like Counter-Strike in a way: what happens is as you fire your weapon you become more and more inaccurate, so you have to use short, controlled bursts. So we played around with that, and we played around with the aim assistance on the controller. What we found when we first started was that the controller people were absolutely owning the mouse and keyboard people, without a doubt. So we had to make some adjustments - there's things like smoothing and all that sort of stuff." There's also the fact that Shadowrun isn't just about crackshot crosshair accuracy, but more on that later.

You can read the full article here:- http://www.eurogamer.net/article.php?article_id=73695

[SnoopZ]

Here's the correct link.

http://www.eurogamer.net/article.php?article_id=73695

Originally Posted by SnoopZ

Here's the correct link.

http://www.eurogamer.net/article.php?article_id=73695

Ta! Too many 'http'