Microsoft is taking steps to elevate the reputation of its popular but notorious online service, Xbox Live, for its third console, the Xbox One. If they pull this off, the more positive gamers of the world might enjoy their online gaming sessions a little more.
A chief change involves a new, improved reputation system that will influence who plays together on the Xbox One’s online service. “There is a new system in what we call Live 3.0 internally that totally remaps the matchmaking, and there is a reputational element to it as well,” Phil Harrison, one of Microsoft’s corporate vice president for games, told Kotaku at yesterday’s big Xbox One event in Redmond, Washington.
“We want the best gaming citizens of Xbox Live to be mapped together and joined together and I think that’s a really positive movement for the community,” Harrison said.
The reputation system would presumably involve some sort of scoring of Xbox Live users, possibly by each other, though it is not clear how this would work, how visible it would be, nor how significantly it would differ from rep systems attempted on the current Xbox Live.
Harrison promised more details will come later.
The Xbox One will also increase the number of friends an Xbox Live user can have to 1,000. Some gamers (including the person typing these words) can’t remember who their Xbox Live friends all are. The Gamertags they use obscure their identities. Just who is ClownCarXX85 again? Asked whether users would be able to identify their friends with their real names, Harrison said, “I think you will see a general movement toward more real identity on Xbox One and on Live in general.” Real identity is another way of saying “real names.”
Xbox Live is available to all users of the Xbox 360, but to play multiplayer games and use special apps, users have to pay a subscription that costs $60 a year. While Microsoft heavily touted features like Skype for Xbox One yesterday, they did not say whether they would require a paid Live account or if such a distinction is even relevant. A live-action Halo TV show was described as “premium”.
Harrison didn’t divulge any pricing details for the new Xbox Live, but did say that Xbox Live subscribers on Xbox 360 could use their subs for Xbox One.
And what of online multiplayer, which has always required a paid Xbox Live subscription on Xbox 360 even though online multiplayer is free on rival Sony and Nintendo platforms? “We will announce exactly all the features of Xbox Live at a later date,” Harrison said.
Comments
18 responses to “Microsoft Plotting A New, Friendlier Xbox Live For Xbox One”
I hope they redo the store front. The current Xbox store is an utter mess!
Not exactly in love with the idea of real names, it’d be far better if you could edit your friends lists to display an alias of your own choosing akin to what you can do on steam.
If they want to really please me specifically with changes to xbox live gold, they could split it up into 3, ‘gold gaming’, ‘gold media’ & ‘gold complete’. There’s no way I’m going to use the overwhelming majority of the video & social media stuff the presentation described. Its a pretty hard sell to get me to subscribe to gold as it is since I might play multiplayer once a month at most, assuming they hike the price with the next gen it’ll almost certainly be enough to stop me getting gold at all.
Give me the option to get JUST MP gaming at say $50 a year and I’ll get it with barely a second thought. I dare say people who aren’t likely to game online much but would like the media features would feel the same about a media sub at that price. Give people the option of everything at $80 a year and they can get everything & feel like they’re getting a bargain
Where are you buying XBL Gold from?
I already buy mine for less than $50 a year from Ozgameshop or EBay.
Then you’ll be happy and have access to everything…
How about “free access to my own internet connection for MP, considering I already pay for it through ads” rather than $50?
Well yes that would be ideal but I was being slightly realistic, giving them the option to rip us off but not quite as much
So buy a PS4; that unrealistic feature is standard ^^
Unfortunately, the PS3 online experience wasn’t anywhere near as good as the Xbox360 one. Paying for it sucked, but you got a much better time out of it.
That and there’s also a paid tier for the PS3, so don’t expect the PS4 to have a free option until they actually say it. They’ve seen the kind of money Microsoft made with the Live subscriptions.
PS Plus is primarily for the giving of games. I pay $70 a year and get several hundred worth of games in return.
Nothing to do with multiplayer.
Fair enough. But it doesn’t change the fact that the far more integrated paid system for Xbox Live is a hell of a lot nicer to use.
I get that paying extra for multi is kind of bullshit, but when the only free competition is comparitively pretty barren, it makes it seem like there’s something behind the power you should be getting out of a paid service.
You can already get XBL Gold for less than $50 – Less than $5 a month – access to all features and one less thing to be upset about 🙂
True enough, I think ozgameshop has it for $45 or so but I was referring to RRP, I should have mentioned that.
I really hope MS move multiplayer to silver, and remove ads from the console… Or at least if they’re going to have ads, have it only be for the services available via the console.
Hahaha, good one. Seriously, expect more ads than 360. It’s all about the money, and advertising is the most profitable thing about XBL. Consider the 360 today versus the 360 at launch, and then apply that change but start from where we are today.
(I’m asusming teh home screen is the boot screen) Is it just me or is this “home screen” filled with more adds and rubbish than the current one with games taking a back seat once again?
silly kotaku and your posting
Games is the fourth tab on their home screen and there is only ONE game mentioned on that home screen
Please, let that be a fake or a bullshot
Surely.. game machine, right?
Why not have free mp but have more Xbox oriented adds? Wouldn’t that make up for the high price? And also I would like to be able to earn Microsoft points through the games I play(if that isn’t a feature already that I am just overlooking).
I mentioned it on twitter, but what if Kinect recorded how you behaved during multiplayer games, and that determines who you get matched against.