infexxionMicrosoft's Live on PC: An Identity Crisis
As previously reported (but not confirmed), Microsoft's Gold Live service on PC will cost
$49.95 per year, and, as it is on Xbox 360, the Silver service will be free. However, unlike the Silver level on Xbox 360, the PC Silver feature set includes free online play.
Yet, in Halo 2 Vista, which ships May 8, players can only unlock multiplayer achievements with a Gold subscription. The reason behind this? It involves being consistent across PC and Xbox 360 platforms. On Xbox 360, players can only unlock multiplayer achievements if they can play with them -- and therefore have a Gold subscription -- so, in an effort to be consistent, Microsoft mandates that MP achievements (like those in Halo 2 Vista) be enabled by Gold accounts.
Additionally, achievements will be unified across the two platforms. If a player completes an achievement in the PC version of Shadowrun, that same achievement will be unlocked in the Xbox 360 version -- and appear on the achievement lists accessible via Xbox.com.
Players using Xbox Live Silver on the PC, though, will not have the ability to make friends-only invites to their games. What does that mean for custom gametypes? Will this render Halo 2 Vista's custom gametypes completely impotent, then?
The inability to arrange games with your friends seems like a tremendous inconsistency introduced by Microsoft. They've conceded that Live Silver should let gamers play with their friends on the PC, but at the same time, it would seem that they've gimped functionality in order to drive Gold subscriber numbers on the PC (keep in mind, if you have a Gold subscription on your Xbox 360, the two are one in the same, you have a Gold subscription on PC, as well).
Further, in an effort to create a unified platform for gaming -- one friend's list, one set of achievements, et cetera -- Microsoft has splintered the feature sets across two different platforms. Simply put, players can play for free (albeit gimped) on PC but they must pay to play on Xbox Live via Gold subscription.
Microsoft's attempts at offering a unifying product with Live on PC and Live on Xbox 360 have run the company into a rough spot. The vast differences between the platforms and user expectation (PC users expect to game for free, console gamers expect to pay) make it almost impossible to come up with a single strategy that doesn't involve taking a major revenue hit. With six million Live subscribers on Xbox Live (assuming a best case scenario of 100% of them being Gold accounts [which they are not]), Microsoft would be leaving $300M on the table each year. That's not revenue Microsoft Game Studios can afford to let go (the division has still only posted one profitable quarter). However, with mixed messaging in the feature set being offered to consumers, Microsoft needs to find some solution for the identity crisis facing their users -- alienating the 200M people playing games on PC certainly won't help further their Games for Windows branding nor will different platform-specific functionality grow the userbase on the Xbox 360.
