It's a huge selling point and differentiates the XBox from its competition. Saying "it's not gonna happen" is baseless.

This has nothing to do with the Xbox. I'm talking about consoles in general. PCs have hard drives and internet connections and you can't download new levels or anything else that great. The best downloads are patches and user mods but I don't think you'll see those for console games.

I'd certainly hope we wouldn't see much in the way of patches. It would further promote sloppy development.

What are you confused about? Let me know, I'll talk you through it.

I don't think you'll see as many, simply because they'll likely be harder to do simply because it's probably harder to make a mod for an X-box game than a PC game.

But still you will see some. New levels are a possibility as well, especially for games like Tony Hawk that have level editors. Players can make them and then put them up for others to download, though I'm not sure how that will work with not being able to surf the net on X-box live. I assume there will be an area in the lobby or whatever for uploading and downloading stuff.

All this is a plus for the X-box.

Will it sell consoles, probably not as it will probably not be super wide spread, and it's relatively a PC phenomenon that PC gaming X-box owners will use, while console gaming only casual gamers don't bother with it.

Personally it doesn't interest me as a few new levels, characters, etc. isn't enough to rekindle my interest in a game I've gotten sick of. I'd rather just go on to something new.

But still, it's a great feature for those interested in it, and will definitely appeal to the PC gaming crowd and might sell a few consoles to them.

I still happily play Atari 2600. How funny would it be if sony bought 2% of RARE stock then Nintendo sold its 49% stake to Sony. That would give Sony total control.
I doubt Nintendo would ever give in to M$. Japanese companies hate American companies. Nintendo would rather team with Sony, but it wont happen. Nintendo is a well run, highly profitable company that makes money with consoles. They are not dumb enough to give that up. Console ownership = control.
RARE? RARE is a weak company. M$ will lose money on that deal....... Oh no, wait. We'll just pay $300 for "Windows 2005", and software companies will pay double the current royalty fee.

I dont know a lot about business. But even if Microsoft owned a majority of the company, so what? Does that mean they can do whatever they want with it and control everything they do? Also, why would the brothers sell the rest of the entire company off? Aside from becoming extremely rich bastards as opposed to regular rich bastards, what would be the purpose? I think it would be foolish of them to jump into the xbox exclusively without even knowing if the xbox audience will be receptive of their games. They know Nintendo owners will buy their games, especially when using Nintendo mascots. So.. what would be their motivation of jumping on board the xbox?

On an unrelated note. Yes Microsoft makes some good products(and some bad ones), and yes if Nintendo and Sony had the money MS has, they'd probably be trying to buy game companies left and right too. But that doesn't mean we have to like it I dislike Microsoft because they're too powerful, and they abuse the power as much as anyone with that kind of power would. Except Paul Newman. He'd dump the tech stuff, sell salad dressing and give the profits away. Good ol' Paul.

The majority owner can more or less do whatever they want as they have a controlling number of votes in teh board room.

Ehhhh??!?

In Soldier of Fortune 2 Raven released 3 completely new maps, 2 new weapons, and a completely new gametype as a 30 meg downloadable file.

I don't think the practice is unique to that game either.

Chris

I don't own SoF2. That is cool though. None of the many PC games I own have downloads like that. I really don't think more than a few games have new stuff you can download. There's 1000s of PC games too. I don't think it's reasonable to expect to be able to download more than an occasional goodie for a console game in the near future.

I think it is pretty normal for new maps and skins and things of that nature to be made available to PC gamers. Of course if they start doing that for console games you will need a HDD if you want to take advantage of this. It doesn't mean though that you have to have a HDD.

A lot of PC games do have great downloadable extras. Often times those are made by gamers though. I just don't see this happening for console games.

Xbox also has a hard drive and can be connected to the internet out of the box. The best downloads are mods. User mods aren't some crappy thing - these are talented individuals making the games they like to play. Some of the best gaming experiences I've ever had come from user mods. Counterstrike was a user mod... many game companies started out as a group of people making a user mod. There are tons of games for the PC that the publisher offers additional free downloadable content. Nearly all the FPS games with multiplayer content I've played offered free maps and to ensure that everyone got to have them, they would include them in the patch process. The Sims is probably the easiest example of downloadable content - there's literally an endless supply of game additions there. Frankly, you have no clue what you're talking about.

That's just a rude ass comment. Childish. There's just no call for talking to someone like that here.

You're just wrong. Why do you even post in Microsoft or Xbox threads since you don't own one and you could care less? You like to cause trouble?

I'm not going to get into the graphics argument because that's been beaten to death... The HDD is a definite advantage the Xbox has over the PS2. You don't have to buy memory cards and you can store a whole lot more on them than you can on a memory card. You can also add your own music to games so you aren't stuck listening to the crappy THPS3 soundtrack. Saves happen nearly instantly in just about every game instead of having to wait and wait with other consoles. Load times are minimal as well. Downloadable content is a fact - it will happen... The additional storylines and costumes for DOA3 are just the beginning. You can also use your Xbox as an 8GB jukebox MP3 player hooked up to your stereo via optical audio cable.

With MS you pay 50 bucks and get a headset, a game (maybe more than one), and a year's worth of service. With Sony you pay 40 bucks for an adapter and get a year's worth of service. That doesn't include a game though AFAIK and if it does, then both plans sound more or less even to me. Future costs are still an unknown, so it's not worth talking about. As for dialup - I'm glad the Xbox doesn't provide dial-up access... I'm pretty tired of the HPBs crying out LPB whenever they aren't playing well... this will level the playing field in that respect at least. Sure, some are alienated, but here's a tidbit to think about - MS is aiming now to make broadband affordable (read 25-30 bucks/mo) in the next few years. I think that's a good thing for sure.

You say most people don't need this or that and then say that you're in the minority... make up your mind. I play 3 or 4 player games all the time with my xbox and it's damn fun... not every game is a split screen either. Sony simply made a mistake not including 4 ports. They did it for compatability with the PS1 (I asked a Sony employee) and the next gen will indeed have 4 ports. Sony's hard drive addon is a joke and most games won't make use of it beyond a way to save games... Most people won't buy it either, so why should developers add features for it?

How do you figure Japanese companies hate US companies? Is that why they kiss our asses all the time? Is that why they come to US trade shows and actively seek out our love and approval? That's just rediculous.

As for Sony and Nintendo teaming up - that's about as likely as Michael Jackson turning black again. Don't you even know why Sony made the Playstation in the first place? Nintendo contracted Sony to make a CD expansion for their SNES to compete with Sega's and then Nintendo tried to bully them in the deal and steal their pants... Sony said - "screw u" and put out their own console which in turn kicked Nintendo's ass up and down the block. There's too much bad blood between these fierce competitiors and natural enemies for anything like that to happen. The rest of your comments make equally little sense.

They are and they do - you're fooling yourself it you see MS as the huge powerful evil corporation and Sony and Nintendo as the little guys. When Nintendo was at their peak, they were the most evil corporation there ever was. Sony is globally enormous as well. You think Sony nabbed exclusive rights to GTA games because they are nice guys? You think Nintendo got the rights to Resident Evil because of sweet talk?

That may very well be the most ill informed post I have ever seen. Counter Strike is a MOD. Its one of the most influential games ever. Ever. I can name dozens of mods for Quake alone that rate a great game in and of itself.

How can you pick just one? There's so many ill informed posts here to choose from - I can't even make up my mind.

Dude he actually said you cant really DL anything that great for the PC. In my gamergeek mind thats like denying the holocaust.

I didn't say they were. I just don't think you're going to see many for console games in the near future.

I'm a huge Sims fan but most of the downloads aren't a big deal. I don't think there's going to be many games like this on consoles anyway (yes I know The Sims is coming to PS2).

Often times new maps come on expansion packs. Check out the back of boxes of expansion packs -- it always says "new multiplayer maps." Expansion packs are big money makers. I play a lot of PC FPS but I can't remember the last time I downloaded a new map. That being said I'm sure a few games will offer new multiplayer maps to download.

I hate when people put that stupid question mark face. If you've got a problem with something I said, say so.

I like Rare and I like video games in general. This thread interested me so I posted in it. Deal with it.

Sony didn't buy Rockstar and Nintendo didn't buy Capcom.

I have to admit that those are 2 games I don't play. That doesn't really matter though. Some games will have worthwhile things you can download, sure, but I get the feeling everyone thinks this is going to be widespread. It's not. Most games won't have single thing for download.

Maybe I misspoke. There's 1000s and 1000s of games for the PC. Very few of them have good things available for download. Lots of those things are user created anyway.

Kellehair, what kind of games do you play? For FPS, you can download mods and maps. For RPG, you can download new storyline side extensions. For Sports, you can download updated rosters so you don't have to buy a new game every year. I'm not saying every game does it right, but those that do are rewarded with huge sales (see halflife, starcraft, morrowind, etc). And, the xbox is the only console that realistically can make this happen.

I don't realistically see PS2 developers making extensive use of the PS2 hard drive when only 0.01% of users have it. And I'm not saying that the xbox is the greatest console ever. All I'm saying is that the hard drive feature isn't a piece of crap .

Most of that stuff is user created. I don't think we're gonna see many user created mods for console games in the near future.

I play all sorts of games and do you know what I download most? Patches. Hopefully those won't make the transition from PC to console.

This is something they'll definitely try to restrict. EA, SEGA, MS, and others want you to buy their sports games every year so I doubt it'll be easy to do this.

Does the user development spark the huge sales or is it vice versa? I think you need a huge community of players before you see extensive modding.

I agree. Every time I play NCAA Football 2003 I wish I had a hard drive in my Gamecube. I just think people are getting carried away with their visions of what they'll be able to download.

Okay - this discussion is about Microsoft possibly purchasing Rare. It's not about PC game downloads or the online plans of the consoles or user mods or any of that. Either steer this back on topic or start your own thread... I only got up in the debate cuz most of the comments were so rediculous... It's obvious though that some people are just going to remain too stubborn about their preconceived notions to make this digression even worth discussing.

So Microsoft buys Rare - big whoop - Microsoft is a huge corporation that buys everything and they make a crappy console that puts out crappy games and their controller is too huge and it weighs about a million pounds and it breaks all the time. Rare never makes any games anyway and they should stay on Nintendo because they make the best consoles with the most up-to-date features and their games are 100 times better than anything else on the planet. Sony's been out the longest and has the most games and they should team up with Nintendo since they are both the underdogs and they should force Bill Gates to give all his money to the poor because capitalism sucks... then Rare will stay with Sintendony and everyone who was stupid enough to buy an xbox will suffer for all eternity. Oh yeah - and PC games are stupid and all you do is patch them because they never work and there's nothing worth downloading because it's all made by 12 year olds who pick their butts and who wants to sit in front of a computer all hunched over when you can sit in your living room with your friends and play games on a big TV? There... did I cover everything?

Rare + Microsoft... discuss...

Who are you talking to? I didn't start the discussion about game downloads and such.

I'm talking to everyone who is talking about something other than Microsoft purchasing Rare. So I guess you're included in that group.

You two are so hot for each other. Its like Mulder and Scully. Exact opposites but always making googly eyes at each other.

Well, you know - it's a big turn-on for me when someone talks about PC user mods...

I get to be Mulder.