XBOX 360 Market Research

[benl007]

Hello.
I am doing market reasearch into the Xbox 360 console and i need your help.
Could you please answer the following questions then put your age at the bottom.
Your help is greatly appreaciated as this reasearch will influence the console's future for years to come.
The questions are:

What games do you play the most? (any platform)
How many hours do you spend a week on gaming? (any platform)
What PC games do you play? And for how long each week?
What Online games do you play? and for how long each week?
How often do you use Xbox live? How much time do you spend on it? What are your general views on it?
Do you own a gamertag?
Do you play online games with friends or random people?
Do you prefer 3rd Person shooters or RPG's

Your help in this matter is greatly appreciated.

Ben

[TTR Dr Payne]

I somehow doubt this will influence the consoles future for years to come, but I'll answer your questions anyways...


I mostly play racing games, however I do also enjoy EA's Hockey series,FPS games and 3rd person shooters. I only play games on the XBOX 360. I love playing PC RTS games, but I havnt played one in years.

At the moment, with my current job, I am only spending about 5-8 hours perhaps per week, however, my preferred gaming hours are more in the 30ish hours per week range. Thats how much I used to play, and thats what I hope to get back to

I dont play any PC games right now, however, as mentioned above, I love PC RTS games. I played the Age of Mythology series to death, and I also played the Age of Empires series before that a lot. I have not played the latest AoE game(s) though.

I play too many to list..most of the racing games on the 360 I have, and play online, and I also play Rock Band, Halo 3, Gears of War, Army of Two plus more that I cant think of..If your really interested in knowing, then do a quick search of the forums for the thread where everybody has listed their games. I have a long list of games that I own listed in there. I play every one of them online. Almost all of the time I spend playing, is spent playing online.

I use XBOX Live everytime I'm on the 360. As already mentioned, almost all of my gaming time is spent online, and if I'm playing a game in single player, I am still signed into XBOX Live and often talking to a friend in Private Chat or something.
Overall I absolutely love XBOX Live.

I absolutely own a Gamertag.

I play online games with both random people and friends.

I prefer 3rd person shooters over RPGs.

[paintba||er]

1. Call of Duty 4, Grand Theft Auto 4, Halo 3, WarHawk, Resistance: Fall of Man, Guitar Hero 3.
   
2. It varies greatly....generally from 1-8 hours.
   
3. None. I hate PC gaming.
   
4. Call of Duty 4, Halo 3, WarHawk, Resistance: Fall of Man, Guitar Hero 3. Almost all of my gaming time is spent online. 1-8 hours.
   
5. I use Live every time I'm on my 360. Around 1-4 hours. I think it's good when it works, but that's a rarity, and considering it's low quality when compared to the PSN it should be free.
   
6. Obviously.
   
7. Both. Mostly random people though.
   
8. RPGs.

[IllBashU]

What games do you play the most? (any platform)
Halo 3
How many hours do you spend a week on gaming? (any platform)
1-10
What PC games do you play? And for how long each week?
none
What Online games do you play? and for how long each week?
Halo 3 1-10
How often do you use Xbox live? How much time do you spend on it? What are your general views on it?
time 1-10, everytime i am on, its pretty good, i wish they would lower the price and i wish we got more movies and tv shows here (canada)
Do you own a gamertag?
no duh...
Do you play online games with friends or random people?
both, mostly random
Do you prefer 3rd Person shooters or RPG's
RPGs...

[TTR Dr Payne]

Originally Posted by paintba||er

I think it's good when it works, but that's a rarity, and considering it's low quality when compared to the PSN it should be free.

PSN better then Live? Thats a ****ing laugh! The PSN is ****ing horrible!!! I've used the PSN a few times at a couple of my friends house, its absolute ****ing shit. and my friends always say that in comparison to Live, the PSN is awful. I was over at my friends house a few weeks ago playing GT5 Prolouge online. It was absolute shit. It took ****ing forever to do anything, and it kept kicking us offline for no reason. All my other experiences with the PSN arent much different.

[paintba||er]

Live goes down every time a popular game comes out, then it doesn't function properly for a month or two, and by that time another popular game is about to come out so you have to go through the cycle again. Then to make up for it they give you a horrible $5 game that nobody bothers to download because it sucks ass. PSN never goes down. The only time I've had problems is when the developers decided not to use Sony's servers.

Live - $50/yr (6 months that are playable)
PSN - Free (always playable)

Then there's the MarketPlace. MS used to be better here, but Sony has made that up. MS still has the downloadable movies, (if you use them...I don't) but besides that Sony has beaten them. Look at the downloadable games for example. On the Xbox they're all old shitty games that you can buy for 10¢ at a videogame store or just emulate them on your computer, or they're cheap crappy new games that feel more like a internet Flash game. But Sony has a bunch of games that are actually worth buying, and they're not just shitty arcade games. (WarHawk for example) Then downloads are much faster. Also, the PSN marketplace interface is much better.

The only thing that MS has over Sony is the videos in the MarketPlace and that they have a global friends list. On the Playstation the friends list has to be implemented in each game, but most developers make it so it will automatically import your friends list from the XMB so you won't even notice it.

Then the only thing Sony has over MS is reliability, and price, and all of that other non-important things.

[TTR Dr Payne]

Originally Posted by paintba||er

Live goes down every time a popular game comes out, then it doesn't function properly for a month or two, and by that time another popular game is about to come out so you have to go through the cycle again. Then to make up for it they give you a horrible $5 game that nobody bothers to download because it sucks ass. PSN never goes down. The only time I've had problems is when the developers decided not to use Sony's servers.

Correction, Live USED to go down everytime a popular game came out. They have upgraded the servers so it doesnt now. The service did not have ANY issues at all when GTA IV came out.

Originally Posted by paintba||er

Live - $50/yr (6 months that are playable)
PSN - Free (always playable)

Live - $50/yr (11.5 months that are playable )
PSN - Free (have yet to see it in a playable state) No unified Friends list.

Originally Posted by paintba||er

Then there's the MarketPlace. MS used to be better here, but Sony has made that up. MS still has the downloadable movies, (if you use them...I don't) but besides that Sony has beaten them. Look at the downloadable games for example. On the Xbox they're all old shitty games that you can buy for 10¢ at a videogame store or just emulate them on your computer, or they're cheap crappy new games that feel more like a internet Flash game. But Sony has a bunch of games that are actually worth buying, and they're not just shitty arcade games. (WarHawk for example) Then downloads are much faster. Also, the PSN marketplace interface is much better.

I have no experience with the PSN Marketplace, so I cannot really comment, but I can however comment about the Arcade games on the 360. Theres a lot of quality games(this is however a matter of opinion..) A lot of people, like myself, wouldnt want to emulate these old games on the PC, because its no fun playing them on the PC. You have even said yourself that PC gaming sucks. I would much rather play these old games on the 360, and on Live with my friends then on some crappy emulator on the PC by myself.

[paintba||er]

Originally Posted by TTR Dr Payne

Correction, Live USED to go down everytime a popular game came out. They have upgraded the servers so it doesnt now. The service did not have ANY issues at all when GTA IV came out.

Wow, it stayed up through one release. Probably because the online is not vital and very poor in GTA. And haven't they stated that they've fixed the issue and it won't happen again the last thirteen times it's went down?

Originally Posted by TTR Dr Payne

Live - $50/yr (11.5 months that are playable )
PSN - Free (have yet to see it in a playable state) No unified Friends list.

Bullshit. Live wasn't playable for at least a month after Halo, and at least a month after CoD4. Then it wasn't playable for a week when the CoD4 map pack came out. So Live was probably up for 5 of last eight months.

Is the reason that you haven't seen the PSN in a playable state because you haven't used it at all? Because I've never seen it in a non-playable state excluding when stupid developers used somebody else's servers. And I mentioned the friends list myself and explained why it isn't a big problem.

Originally Posted by TTR Dr Payne

I have no experience with the PSN Marketplace, so I cannot really comment, but I can however comment about the Arcade games on the 360. Theres a lot of quality games(this is however a matter of opinion..) A lot of people, like myself, wouldnt want to emulate these old games on the PC, because its no fun playing them on the PC. You have even said yourself that PC gaming sucks. I would much rather play these old games on the 360, and on Live with my friends then on some crappy emulator on the PC by myself.

I don't like PC gaming because there are very few exclusives, and they're almost all poor, and because hardware requirements and stuff are a pain in the ass. But since these are games from twenty years ago, I don't think you're going to have to upgrade anything, and the experience will be the same as on the 360 with the exception that you didn't waste $10. You either downloaded them illegally, or paid 10¢ if you wanted it to be legal.

[TTR Dr Payne]

Originally Posted by paintba||er

Bullshit. Live wasn't playable for at least a month after Halo, and at least a month after CoD4. Then it wasn't playable for a week when the CoD4 map pack came out. So Live was probably up for 5 of last eight months.

I only once experienced any issues with Live during all the times you just mentioned. Not saying what you said isnt true, just saying its not as bad as your making it out to be. Live was still very much playable during these times, and I know because I was playing Live during these times!

Originally Posted by paintba||er

Is the reason that you haven't seen the PSN in a playable state because you haven't used it at all? Because I've never seen it in a non-playable state excluding when stupid developers used somebody else's servers. And I mentioned the friends list myself and explained why it isn't a big problem.

No, I have used the PSN a few times. I attempted to use it once on the PS2, would not work at all. I've used it a few times on the PS3, and each time there was been big issues that have stopped us from being able to actually play online. The last time I used the PSN was a few weeks ago on GT5 Prolouge. I managed 1 race online before it disconnected us. We kept trying to reconnect, and a couple times at first we got back online, but within a minute or two we were disconnected again. Then after that we couldnt even connect. I know it was nothing to do with my friends internet or wireless either, because we had his 360 turned on and we were using the 360 at the exact same time and were logged onto XBOX Live at the same time the PSN kept dropping. We also had his laptop on and were on the internet using the same wireless connection without an issue.

Not having a Unified Friends list is a big problem. It means you have to rely on each game developer to make it themselves for each individual game. A game that has just come out, GRID, a popular racing game, has no friends list and you cannot invite friends to your session or anything. Completely ruining the Live experience. A Unified friends list is a MUST for a successful online service.

[paintba||er]

Originally Posted by TTR Dr Payne

I only once experienced any issues with Live during all the times you just mentioned. Not saying what you said isnt true, just saying its not as bad as your making it out to be. Live was still very much playable during these times, and I know because I was playing Live during these times!

It was pretty damn bad. Bad enough that it is completely unacceptable for a paid service.

Originally Posted by TTR Dr Payne

No, I have used the PSN a few times. I attempted to use it once on the PS2, would not work at all.

It was horrible on the PS2. But it's not like many games used it anyway.

Originally Posted by TTR Dr Payne

I've used it a few times on the PS3, and each time there was been big issues that have stopped us from being able to actually play online. The last time I used the PSN was a few weeks ago on GT5 Prolouge. I managed 1 race online before it disconnected us. We kept trying to reconnect, and a couple times at first we got back online, but within a minute or two we were disconnected again. Then after that we couldnt even connect. I know it was nothing to do with my friends internet or wireless either, because we had his 360 turned on and we were using the 360 at the exact same time and were logged onto XBOX Live at the same time the PSN kept dropping. We also had his laptop on and were on the internet using the same wireless connection without an issue.

It must've been a problem on his end. IGN didn't seem to have any problems with online on GT5.

Originally Posted by IGN

Aside from the long load times, we found our first few online races to be smooth, with no lag issues. Best of all, the game is super quick about getting you back into the online menu screen after a race so that you can select another event.

Load times don't get in the way of trying out the online time trial races, which appear to be just ranked versions of the time trial option available in the offline arcade mode, complete with restrictions to make sure everyone is competing on even ground. When attempting to beat your times, you can chose to load up ghost data from top-ranked players. Online ghost data is also now available for use in the offline time trial mode as well.

http://ps3.ign.com/articles/843/843148p1.html

Originally Posted by TTR Dr Payne

Not having a Unified Friends list is a big problem. It means you have to rely on each game developer to make it themselves for each individual game. A game that has just come out, GRID, a popular racing game, has no friends list and you cannot invite friends to your session or anything. Completely ruining the Live experience. A Unified friends list is a MUST for a successful online service.

Most developers implement it well though...and in GRID there is a friends list...you just can't invite people.



Edit: Is this helping your research?

[TTR Dr Payne]

Originally Posted by paintba||er