LOS ANGELES – Users of Microsoft Corp.’s Xbox Live online gaming network can already talk to each other remotely while logged in – but soon they’ll be able to see their fellow players’ faces and “tickle” each other, too.
The announcement comes at the start of the Electronic Entertainment Expo – known by the nickname E3 – which annually draws thousands of game developers to Los Angeles from around the world to showcase the latest in video game technology.
Other announcements included a new partnership with Electronic Arts Inc., which previously kept its hit sports games off the Xbox Live service, and a nostalgia service that would provide gamers with 1980s arcade titles.
Xbox’s video-chat service will be launched this year exclusively in Japan and eventually will make its way to the North American network, Peter Moore, an Xbox marketing executive, said Monday.
“We particularly like the ability to launch in Japan because of the superior infrastructure for broadband. It’s a great petri dish, if you will, for what will be the future,” Moore said. “You will not only be able to play against your friends, or talk to your friends – now you can actually see your friends.”
Microsoft has not determined how much extra it will charge to download and operate software for the video-chat option. Regular Xbox Live subscriptions cost about $50 a year. Video chat also would require users to have a USB camera attached to their Xbox console, Moore said.
In addition, the host of the chat session will be able to select background music that all participants can hear through their microphone headsets – which are already available for players to communicate during a game.
Then there is “tickling.”
“You can send a vibration to one of the participants in the chat session, which vibrates the controller they’re holding,” Moore said.
Xbox Live’s new partnership with Electronic Arts, the developer of such blockbuster sports titles as “Madden NFL,” ends a long-running feud.
Electronic Arts has snubbed Xbox Live since its launch two years ago. Electronic Arts executives said Microsoft was demanding too much control over Electronic Arts games and wasn’t willing to pay for their use.
Most of those games were available for online network play through Xbox’s top rival, Sony’s PlayStation 2, which is the industry’s best-selling console.
Sony says it has shipped more than 70 million PlayStation 2 game consoles worldwide. That compares with 13.7 million Xbox consoles shipped as of the end of 2003. Microsoft’s other main rival, Nintendo Co., said it had shipped 14 million units of its GameCube as of the end of 2003.
Neither Microsoft nor Electronic Arts would say how the two companies resolved their dispute.
Talk to us
> Give us your news tips.
> Send us a letter to the editor.
> More Herald contact information.
