Xbox LIVE and Marketplace
Xbox LIVE
With more and more people having access to, and making use of, Broadband, the Xbox LIVE experience is an integral part of the Xbox 360 software. As mentioned earlier, your Player Profile is a persistent logging system, active in both on and offline play of the same game.
This ties in with LIVE in helping matchmaking multiplayer games. With the Achievement system being a measure of how far you’ve progressed in a particular game, it’ll help ensure you can easily find players of a similar skill level to play against. The Achievements won’t just be a number of stars or reward points either, as they’ll actually represent different areas of the game in question.
For example, you could earn 10 Achievement points just on the first four levels by finding all the hidden areas or collecting all the items… but another player might have 10 achievements points just for playing through to level 10… so the game might be mismatched with the latter player being a better fighter but just not interested in exploring as much as you… LIVE will match up players with similar Achievements rewarded for similar playing styles as it will recognise what the Achievements were awarded for, not just how many you have.
Another key to an enjoyable multiplayer experience is the Feedback system, which will work in a similar way to the Ebay feedback system. After each gaming session players will be invited to give feedback on other players in the game, and so you build a reputation up which others will be able to see in your online profile. While MS admit that this system is open to abuse, it will be moderated and therefore players will be able to appeal against bad feedback should they feel they need to.
The feedback system aims to help you choose who to play with, so teamkillers and game spoilers will either have to play fair or face getting negative feedback, which will make choosing a decent game a lot easier to do. In addition to this there will be four Zones to play in, each aimed at a slightly different type of gamer. The Family Zone is exactly what is says, an area for casual play, safe for kids to use and generally happy and smiley. The Casual Zone is a little more serious, aimed at the older player who just fancies a bit of online fun but doesn’t devote hours and hours to the game. The Pro Zone is for the serious player, those who start to live the game and are looking for others like-minded players keen on the full use of tactics or who know what suspension settings to use for a particular track. And finally there’s the Underground Zone. This is a more anarchic area where pretty much anything goes… and we’ll leave it at that, just like Microsoft did.
As mentioned earlier, the Xbox 360 ‘Deluxe’ pack, the £279.99 version, will come with a 30 day trial Gold LIVE account, but existing users of Xbox LIVE will be able to transfer their accounts over to Xbox 360.
Marketplace will be a one-stop portal for all downloadable content and, when viewed from the LIVE blade, will show all downloadable content. Marketplace will also be accessible from within a game though, but when viewed from within a game, it will only show content relative to the game you’re in.