it has been there from original xbox
this post was submitted on 30 Nov 2023
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It’s always been a walled garden. It’s not like you have a way to use a console outside of what they allow.
because microsoft aren't an ISP
and they would have ALL the share of the market
ALL OVER THE WORLD
which would be stupid
and "allow"?
There's a lot of comments around "Because if you wanted to pay online you had to pay" and... those answers are absolutely correct. But that's not to say that Microsoft weren't offering a useful service for your ten bucks.
Online gaming on PC was functional, but it also mostly sucked. if your lucky the game you were playing had its own server browser, and bigger multiplayer games let you manage friends lists, but otherwise you were using 3rd party apps like Gamespy to find games, and if you were trying to game with your friends it was an even bigger pain int he ass trying to get everyone together on the same server. If you wanted to use voice chat you were using another 3rd party service like Roger Wilco.
Services like Xbox Live just asked "What if he handled all this on the system level? Friends lists, notifications, group chat were all part of the OS, and worked seamlessly with any multiplayer game."
It was pretty revelatory at the time.
I was suprised to hear that as PC gamer, why would you have to pay fee for playing online
No one forced me to do anything. I chose to buy it.
They advertised a great service. A friend of mine bought it and told me how great and easy to use it is. So I bought it and was able to play Mechassault with him from the other side of the country and talk to him with a headset, as well as a bunch of other people.
It was great, so i kept paying for it.
Consoles are loss leaders to lock you into their gamestore and subscriptions. Just like with printers, most people don't think about the long term costs so are allured by their seemingly unbeatable price to performance. Then include ease of use and exclusives.
For better online play.
You think it was "allowed"? It was not. Consoles are not the same as PC. Consoles require gamers to connect to the web with their proprietary network, unlike PCs which let gamers get on the web with their own servers.