Back in reality, millions of people find that Microsoft's fee for the Gold service is money well spent and continue to pay for it. If this article were in any way a reflection of how gamers assessed the two online services, that wouldn't be the case. Microsoft seems to understand the console market better than McShea, at least for the moment--online services don't seem to be the deciding factor when it comes to choosing consoles. Microsoft knows that it's games, not online features (which McShea admits are basically on par with each other), that bring in gamers. And gamers decided by-and-large that despite the Gold fee, the 360 was still a reasonable deal.
There's nothing about the current game marketplace that seems to change that calculus. There's no incentive for Microsoft to offer its service free (even though it constantly offers the service at a steep discount) so long as gamers are willing to pay for it. And so far, they are.
Without knowing how many people were playing each game online, it's difficult to judge whether EA's decisions were or were not justified. If just a few thousand people are playing these older sports games, then it's probably justified in shutting them down.
Without more information, all this rage is looking pretty juvenile.
@SauhlGood The number of people without a constant connection is tiny compared to the number of people who have computers that don't meet the minimum system requirements. They're being left out in the cold too, but no one seems to care about them--because it's expected that you own a certain video card or processor to run a game. Requiring a connection is no different than any other system requirement--some are going to have it, others aren't. People know if they have a good connection or not, just like they know if their video card is maybe not quite up to snuff for a game. Upgrade, or move on to some other game. Gamers make this choice all the time with system requirements, and this choice is no different. But we don't see extensive whining when a game requires a mid-range video card, leaving older computers unable to play it. There's just one reason why we see it with online connection requirements: piracy. Gamers (even those that don't pirate) still have this soft spot for piracy, even though it very nearly sank the PC gaming industry. It blows my mind.
99.9% of the time, we're connected to the internet when we're on our PCs, so I don't buy the outrage that some gamers have over this. I imagine the game will continue to run if your connection goes down, but with limited features. More and more, these complaints about games requiring an internet connection have become more transparently about piracy and less about inconvenience. EA has explained why they've done things this way. Either you're okay with it or not. They're clearly not worried about losing sales over it, and so this whining and stomping of feet isn't going to move them.
It's not a cop out at all. Scalability is one of the chief headaches for PC development, and it's a problem that doesn't exist at all on consoles. There might be only two GPU types, but making sure your game scales well from the low end GPUs all the way up is not a trivial problem. It takes a large amount of time and money, and makes quite a few optimizations impossible.
It's not a matter of laziness, but an actual development problem that often forces compromises.
This is nonsense. Had Flower, Journey, or Heavy Rain been released on the 360, they would have sold just as well as on the PS3. Of course titles like those in particular can only be found on the PS3--not because 360 gamers don't want to play them, but because developers like Chen have chosen not to release them on that platform. It has nothing to do with the gamers and everything to do with the choices the devs make.
He's got this completely backward. The reason you don't see those three games on the 360 is because Sony paid them money for exclusivity. It has nothing to do with gamers. There's no significant difference in demographics for either console.
@Leinhartx: And I find it difficult to imagine that anyone sees any significant difference between the two (save for, as I mentioned, the second screenshot). Point out the improvements, please. I'm a graphic designer by trade. I look at graphics all day, every day. All I see is a change in gamma. I even corrected the gamma on the 360 screenshots, just to even the playing field. In nearly every case, the textures are identical in detail and sharpness. But then I wonder why we're all even having this conversation. Dragon Age is not a particularly good looking game. It is average in presentation. If the difference is imperceptible in most cases to me and many others who are actively looking for these differences, then it truly will be imperceptible to most people playing the game. In the end, I suspect many of those who are seeing vast differences between the 360 and PS3 versions are merely "seeing" things as a proxy for their fanboyish attitudes toward their chosen console. As I've said: I own the PS3 version of the game. I'm not a fanboy. I own both consoles. I don't care which one looks better (I received Dragon Age as a gift, even). To my eye, any high-resolution textures the developers included in the PS3 version do little or (I believe) nothing to improve the visuals.
Gamespot ... you need glasses. The only really noticeable difference between the 360 and PS3 here is lighting values. The PS3 images are darker than those of the 360, but that's all. The only image where there is significant difference is the second one, where the floor textures on the 360 look wrong ... but they're not wrong in the picture immediately above that. As for those saying that the PS3 hasn't yet been tapped, but the 360 has ... come on. Really. It's baloney. Both consoles are almost precisely equal in performance. What this comes down to is how much effort the developers put into things. For all the supposed superiority of the PS3, I've yet to see any games that really outpace the 360 in visuals. And I've got both consoles. I borrowed my friend's 360 version of Dragon Age to check it out on my setup (I've got the PS3 version of the game), and looked real close. There's no appreciable difference. The fact that Gamespot docked the 360 version for visuals is ... idiotic. But, then, since they revealed their true colors back with Gerstmann, I've not trusted their reviews at all.
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