Alex Navarro Assistant Editor	Currently Wishing I Had Time to Play: F-Zero GX (GC), ESPN NFL Football (Xbox), ESPN NHL Hockey (Xbox), Otogi: Myth of Demons (Xbox), Animal Crossing (GC), Freedom Fighters (PC)

Driving Away the Masses

It's no secret at this point that I'm a big fan of sports games. Considering the innumerable sports reviews and previews I've written since my hiring on at GameSpot and my semiconstant rantings about sports, sports games, and, really, sports anything both on the forum that is GameSpotting and on our actual forums, it's pretty obvious that sports games are personally one of my top-tiered genres. This year, so far, I've amassed Madden NFL 2004 for the PS2 and both ESPN NFL Football and ESPN NHL Hockey for my Xbox. One of the common threads between all three games is that they support online play. Over the last couple of years, I've even turned into what one might consider a bit of an online sports junkie--it's kind of hard not to these days if you're a fan of sports gaming, given the insane list of cool things you can do with ESPN's, EA's, and Microsoft's online networks. However, this last statement inevitably brings me to the primary topic of this column--that Microsoft and some other things are irking the hell out of me in regard to Xbox Live.

It will be a while before you see this man on Xbox Live.

Before you start thinking I'm going to go off on some sort of biased, unintelligible rant about why "M1cR0$0Ft iz TeH sUxx00rZ!1111", stop. I'm not going to say anything of the sort. In fact, I happen to think Xbox Live is a fantastic service. My current taking of issue with Microsoft has nothing to do with the service itself, but rather with the distinct lack of similar online support compared with the PS2. If you look down the roster of this year's sports titles, EA and Sega are both online for the PS2 (as well as 989 Sports, but we're not going to talk about them...ever). On the Xbox side, Sega is also online for the Xbox, as is Microsoft, of course. Yet, no EA support. No Madden, Live, NHL--hell, not even Tiger Woods. If I may be forgiven for indirectly quoting Jerry Seinfeld: What's the deal with that?

There have been a lot of different stories floating around as to why exactly EA has still not jumped on board with Xbox Live. Some people say it's EA's fault, claiming that they wanted some sort of crazy monthly fee for having their games play on Xbox Live. Some people say it's Microsoft being too restrictive and nutty about the use of their servers, and in so doing, they turned EA off to using the service altogether. Some people say it's both of them simply being major juggernauts in the industry, and egos clashed to the point of nonsolution. Whatever the reason, something happened to make EA not want any part of Xbox Live, and since it appears that neither company will be offering to kiss and make up anytime soon, that completely and utterly sucks.

But all is not lost, right? Sega is still online for Xbox, and really, the ESPN games thus far this year have been the best around. I love both ESPN NFL Football and ESPN NHL Hockey to death, and whenever a free moment arises, I take the opportunity to go online and beat the hell out of some unsuspecting user (or GameSpot forum moderator). However, all is not well. Though ESPN NHL Hockey didn't support league and tournament play at all, ESPN NFL Football does--on the PS2. For some inexplicable reason, league play just isn't available to Xbox Live users, unless, of course, they own Microsoft's first-party sports titles. Could this be another case of fees or server use being the culprit? Or is there something more to this?

Microsoft has been working hard lately to try to make its Xbox-exclusive sports titles more appealing to sports fans. This year, it debuted the XSN network, its answer to Sega's and EA's online networks. XSN has all kinds of nifty little bells and whistles, like leagues, tournaments, and even e-mail updates for scores and transactions within your leagues. It's all really cool, except for one problem--you have to play Microsoft's sports games in order to use any of it. Fever, by all accounts, isn't a bad game, but it's far from being able to compete with the big boys of video game football. Both this year's Inside Drive and Microsoft's first entry into the National Hockey League, NHL Rivals, have good potential to be solid games; but again, it's still tough to say that either one will be up to the level of Sega's and EA's titles. But of course, that won't stop Microsoft from marketing the hell out of its games and doing its best to push XSN down the figurative throats of Xbox-owning sports gamers.

The online XSN service is really great--too bad the only game that uses it so far isn't.

Perhaps this is just the paranoia in me, but it almost seems like Microsoft is simply trying to hog the ball. Obviously the company wants its titles to be the most profitable and successful, but it seems like it's willing to actually prevent other companies from having their sports games be the best they can be on the Xbox, so long as it means that XSN is the best online service on the console. So, if you want to go out and spend your money on the football game with the best online service, regardless of quality of gameplay, then you'll go out and get Fever. However, if you want the best online version of the best football games out there, period, you'll have to get them on the PlayStation 2. Now, I don't know much about business, but I do know that driving your customers away from products supported on your console to the same products on a competing console is, generally speaking, a bad idea.

Keep in mind that this is all just speculation at this point. I don't really know one way or another exactly why the PlayStation 2 has the best online sports roster, and I probably won't until one company or another comes right out and says what the deal is. Until then, I'll just keep on playing ESPN NFL Football on Xbox Live, and at the same time, I'll keep on wishing that I could play with online leagues--you know, like the people who own a PlayStation 2 can.