Xbox Live! In Europe Feature

We’ve been waiting for it, whilst confirmations of an American and Japanese release, European gamers were left with the question “When will we get it?” <br /> <br /> March 14th 2003, exactly a year after the Xbox was released in Europe will see the release of Xbox Live in eight European territories; UK, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Belgium, the Netherlands and Sweden. <br /> <br /> The Xbox Live Starter Pack, available online in the UK, France and Germany during the Xbox Live Test Drive and at retail in all eight countries from 14th March 2003, has an estimated street price of €59.99/£39.99 – about the same cost as one Xbox game. The Starter Pack includes the Xbox Communicator headset (used for voice communication during online gaming), a 12-month subscription to the Xbox Live service and special versions of two Xbox Live! starter games, MotoGP and Whacked! – both optimised for Xbox Live play. <br /> <br /> The starter games are just the beginning – from 30th November, Xbox Live will support five Xbox Live-exclusive games in Europe this year: Unreal Championship, MechAssault, Whacked!, Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon, MotoGP. In 2003, more than 50 Xbox Live-enabled games will launch, including Halo 2, CounterStrike, Star Wars: Galaxies, and Project Gotham Racing 2. More than 60 game publishers are currently working on Xbox Live-enabled games. <br /> <br /> “In my 20-plus years playing games, I’ve never laughed so much, taken such a whooping, or had such a blast as I did in a few hours playing games on Xbox Live - it’s thrilling to see our vision become a reality,” said J Allard, general manager of Xbox at Microsoft. “A few years from now we will have completely changed the way games are played. Consoles will go through their lifecycles, but online will forever evolve and Xbox is poised at the forefront of this revolution. Together with our partners we will combine exceptional gaming experiences, a world-class service and a viable business model so all parts of the online ecosystem thrive.” <br /> <br /> “We are introducing a phased approach to Live in Europe to ensure gamers have the best possible experience,” said Michel Cassius, European Director, Xbox Platform. “The feedback we’ve had from European gamers wanting to experience Live has been tremendous since we announced details at E3 in May, and that excitement has convinced us to open our consumer beta phase to a much wider number of gamers – in fact, anyone who wants to participate. That’s how the Xbox Live Test Drive phase was conceived – we’re expecting it to be the largest online gaming trial ever in Europe.” <br /> <br /> “Also, there are some tremendous Xbox Live-enabled games coming out this Autumn from Microsoft Game Studios and 3rd parties,” said Cassius. “Unreal Championship, MechAssault and Ghost Recon are just a few of the titles scheduled for release before Christmas. We wanted to make sure that gamers were able to start building their legend with these games as soon as they became available – after all, Xbox Live is all about games. This phased approach will help us bring a robust and mature gaming service to retail on the first anniversary of the European Xbox launch.” <br /> <br /> <br /> Xbox Live! will roll out in three distinct phases in Europe: <br /> <br /> 1) A consumer beta-test will begin from October 31st to November 29th, this will be a closed test involving 3000 gamers participating in the UK, Germany and France. This is designed to anticipate levels of usage in Europe and where any server glitches will be indentified and corrected. <br /> <br /> 2) Xbox Live Test Drive (30th November 2002 – 13th March 2003): Open to any Xbox owner with a broadband connection in the UK, France and Germany, the Test Drive lets gamers have an early chance to play Xbox Live. Gamers can participate by ordering a special Test Drive starter pack online, which includes all the software needed to get playing, plus the Xbox Communicator and a twelve-month subscription to the Live service. The benefits to getting in early are first choice of Gamertags, and also free months of Live – the twelve months of Live don’t begin until the 14th March, meaning that gamers will get to play for free! <br /> <br /> 3) Xbox Live Retail Launch (14th March 2003): Gamers in the UK, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Belgium, the Netherlands and Sweden can purchase an Xbox <br /> Live starter pack at their local retail outlet and get playing right away. <br /> <br /> During the X’02 presentation, Microsoft announced a number of broadband provider partners who are working with Xbox. BT Openworld, Noos, NTL, Telewest Broadband and Wanadoo, the broadband industry leaders in France and the UK, are working with Xbox to provide offers for their customers over the coming months. <br /> <br /> A Press Release from NTL today highlighted the benefits of subscribing to their service in the UK, which should go someway to showing you the cost of the preparation involved of Xbox Live! <br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> <table width=\"450\" border=\"0\" cellspacing=\"0\" cellpadding=\"5\"> <tr> <td> </td> <td>BT Openworld</td> <td>NTL Broadband</td> </tr> <tr> <td colspan=\"3\">600Kbps (stand alone)</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Monthly subscription</td> <td>12 x £29.99 = £359.88</td> <td>12 x £24.99 = £299.88</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Cost of modem</td> <td>£85</td> <td>Nil</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Cost of installation</td> <td>£65</td> <td>Nil *</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Standard tel line rental</td> <td>12 x £9.50 = £114</td> <td>N/A</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Standard tel line installation </td> <td>£74.99</td> <td>N/A</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Total first year cost</td> <td>£698.87</td> <td>£299.88 </td> </tr> </table> <br /> <br /> * special offer to end of 2002 <br /> <br /> <br /> Microsoft does seem to be the only company that is seriously embracing the online genre. It has set-up four ‘data-centres’ in Seattle, Tukwila, Tokyo and London, which should provide a secure and stable service. Additionally Microsoft seem intent on helping the publishers achieve the results that they want to by removing the hassles associated with maintaining online titles such as managing the hosting, networking, security and billing so that the developers can focus on creating the game. <br /> <br /> The service is essentially a matchmaking service; gamers are given a unique id known as a gamertag, which is then used for all games across the Xbox Live! service, giving players the opportunity to build up reputation amongst the gaming population. The service will feature a number of features such as real-time scores, statistics and league tables. As with every internet chat facility, you’ll be able to build up a ‘friends list’, which allows you to see when you friends are online and invite them for a game. The service has one excellent feature that should stop the Achilles heel of PC online gaming; OptiMatch allows gamers to select opponents based on their skill in relation to yours, so no more getting ‘whooped’ as soon as you enter the action. <br /> <br /> Of course it’s not just online gaming that’s opened with Xbox Live!, the service will allow you to download extra content for games which can then be stored permanently to the hard-drive. We’ve already been told that Splinter Cell will make use of this facility, expect virtually every worthwhile game to follow suit. <br /> <br /> “Within five years every important game will be online,” claimed an optimistic Allard. “There will be new categories of collaborative and competitive console games that are possible only online. The ability to download new worlds, levels, characters, weapons, vehicles, teams, statistics and missions will change the way developers think about creating games, and will change the way gamers play them.” <br /> <br /> The Unplugged session with Allard produced a few revealing moments, firstly the topic off banning Xbox users with Mod-Chips arose, to which Allard stayed intentionally quiet upon, claiming that it was Microsoft’s job to protect the publisher’s intellectual properties and that those with mod-chips did infringe this right. No decision was announced, however it does look likely that Microsoft will impose the right to scan your machine for alterations. <br /> <br /> Moving on to other topics, Allard did hint that online gaming may not be what all of us our thinking. The dream of playing ‘high-twitch’ games such as beat-em-up’s may be a little while off yet, and also suggested that true global gaming may still be a distant dream. From his comments we got the sensation that certain Xbox Live! games will be restricted to their territories, so a European gamer may not be able to play against a Japanese one. Rather worrying, however it was claimed that this is simply because of publisher decisions and that ultimately it comes down to them. <br /> <br /> Microsoft’s approach to Xbox Live! has been refreshing, if any company can convince the average gamer of the merits of online gaming it’s them. By handling all of the chores associated with online games, we should see an influx of games supporting the service – something that crippled the Dreamcast before it even got off the ground – and that’s where the future lies in the quality of the games. We got to sample three titles, Unreal Championship, Moto GP Online and Mech Assault. <br /> <br /> Each of the titles amazed us by how well they worked, each of the games were high action and aptly demonstrated how important the voice communicator really is. Initially I suspected the peripheral as nothing more then a gimmick, however after a few <I>’head-shots’</I> and <I>’double-kill’</I> you can’t help but shout out. I was amazed at how quickly even the most reserved people were shouting out, this could well be the future of online gaming, it instantly brings you closer to each other and gives something that’s been sorely missing from the whole online equation. <br /> <br /> There’s no denying that Microsoft impressed us with the quality of Xbox Live! and judging from the line-up of titles the support is certainly there. However the question remains to be seen as to whether the mass-market European gamer is ready for it, judging by the embarrassingly quiet state of the booth we’d say Microsoft have got a hard job on their hands to convince them. <br />