Gaming Trends 03.21.07: Online Gaming for Consoles
Posted by Vincent Chiucchi on 03.21.2007
10 years ago, online gaming on a console was a joke. Now it's one of the most serious aspects in video games. See how far it's come in this week's column.
Online gaming. Just about everybody wants to do multiplayer this way. And why not? Why be restricted to playing against people in your neighborhood when you take on gamers from Europe and Japan? While PC's have been doing this for a while without any problem, it was a harder road for consoles. The only thing really stopping online gaming was the technology, as consoles before the Dreamcast did try to go online, but with little to no success. This week in Gaming Trends, we take a look at far online gaming for consoles has come.
The early days: Sega tries...and tries...and tries again.
Believe it or not, online gaming didn't start with the Dreamcast. It was just the first console to start doing it right. But there wasn't much back then for online gaming though. Just about all the consoles either failed miserably or succeeded in only certain areas.
Sega actually has a history of trying to constantly go online with their consoles. Sega's first attempt was in 1991 with the Mega Drive (Genesis), using a service called "Sega MegaNet". The service was quickly discontinued and never came out in America. There was also the "Sega Channel", but that involved cable boxes rather then online modems. Sega then attempted to go online again with the Sega Saturn, where they would use a new service called "Sega NetLink" in 1996. Only a handful of games supported it and by this time, Saturn was almost dead before it got started thanks to Playstation. Besides Sega, Atari tried the "JagLink" with Jaguar, but of course it went nowhere.
While Sega and Atari were attempting online, Nintendo released the Satellaview (aka BS-X) for the Super Famicom (SNES), a satellite modem add-on that allowed users to download games ranging from Famicom (NES) remakes to replicated SNES games and even exclusive games. Despite some flaws such as only allowing downloads for certain times of the day (from 4PM to 7PM? Lame!), the service lasted from April 1995 to June 2000.
Basically, online gaming was a niche service with very little success, either because the companies running them were clueless or that internet technology was not advanced enough. But as the new millennium was approaching, online gaming was going to get a major boost of popularity.
Dreamcast: Sega finally gets the ball rolling...
By 1999, after many failed attempts, Sega was finally going to get online gaming right, even it wouldn't last for very long. They would release the Dreamcast, and when it came out, it had what other consoles before it didn't: a built-in 56K modem, hence no additional adapters were necessary (unless you wanted broadband). This allowed the system to connect to the Internet using a custom, fully-functional web browser and e-mail client. Online gaming was officially born.
Sega would be using the SegaNet service. SegaNet originally offered a $200 rebate with a two-year contract, to encourage sales of the Dreamcast. Some of the most popular games played online for the Dreamcast were Phantasy Star Online and the Sega Sports games. Unfortunately, while the service was good, the problem was Sega itself. Sega was really struggling with it's reputation after the failure of Sega Saturn and all the other hardware consoles they were making. When Sega eventually stopped making hardware all together, SegaNet went down with it. When that happened, games were either quickly losing their online support or charging players to play online. The service quickly fell apart and discontinued by the end of 2002.
I noticed a lot of people say SegaNet failed because of the slow 56K speeds. As someone who was stuck with 56K until 2005, I don't blame SegaNet for catering to 56K users. Though when PSO ver.2 came out and it required gamers to have a credit card to play, that pretty much pissed me off. Even though Sega overall failed, they started a revolution that was going to be taken to a new level by Microsoft. Online gaming was going to be alive...Xbox Live.
Xbox Live: ...and Microsoft takes it and runs all the way.
In the 6th gen (aka "128-bit") era, Microsoft made their debut in console gaming with the Xbox. Many wondered if Microsoft was going to survive against the almighty Sony and Nintendo, especially when besides Halo, nothing else seemed promising on the system. But Microsoft had another ace up it's sleeve that would trump both Sony and Nintendo and become the system's biggest feature: Xbox Live.
In November 2002, on the one-year anniversary of Xbox, Microsoft launched Xbox Live. Just like the Dreamcast, the Xbox would have a built-in broadband modem and also a hard drive for storing data. Though it wasn't as simplified as SegaNet first was (you needed a starter kit and a broadband connection), it was a much better service in that it was truly becoming exactly like online gaming on the PC. At first, XBL was for playing a few games online while others would only have downloadable content, but that would quickly change overtime. Meanwhile, Nintendo was getting nowhere near online gaming as the only Gamecube online games was PSO (unless you used the Warp-Pipe Project hack). Sony was also going online with the PS2, but they went with a game by game basis rather then the community style of XBL. By the end of the 6th generation, Xbox was the #2 selling console and XBL would evolve with Xbox 360.
In July 2004, Xbox Live would get it's one millionth subscriber. That number would quickly rise when Halo 2 was released, quickly becoming the #1 game played on the service and staying there until Gears of Wars would take it's place. Both games aided greatly in having XBL recently reach six million users.
Online Gaming Today And Near-Future: Plans from the big three
As we are in the 7th generation, Xbox Live is still very dominant as it continues to grow beyond an online gaming service. With the Xbox 360, XBL included new features including Gamerscores, and a marketplace/arcade for gamers to buy games and movies. Also, with the home development kit XNA released, XBL could see a slew of new original games coming soon. Microsoft is very likely to continue keeping a strong position in online gaming.
As for Sony, they recently revealed "Home" from the GDC, which to put it in very simple terms, is basically Xbox Live + Second Life. The previews have been positive so far, and could truly be the best reason to buy a Playstation 3.
Nintendo is still pretty iffy about going online. The first Wii game going online will be Pokemon Battle Revolution in June, and just like the DS, Nintendo will be using the heavily criticized "friend codes" system, though this time you might only need one code for all games. There's also the constant rumors that Nintendo isn't being very convenient to third-party companies and that there could be no online games from third parties until 2008. Besides games, They've also created a marketplace like XBL and various channels including news, weather, and web surfing.
It's amazing how online gaming quickly evolved from being a dial-up joke to a serious aspect in video games. And it's only going to get bigger from here.
