Microsoft names the day for Xbox online

By David Becker

Microsoft will launch its Xbox Live online game-playing service on 15 November, a year after the video game console entered the market, the company plans to announce later today.

Microsoft will sell an Xbox Live starter kit that includes a headset microphone, a one-year subscription to the service, and software that allows the Xbox to tap into an existing broadband Internet connection. It will cost $50 in the US.

Microsoft is betting heavily on online gaming as one of the features that will distinguish the Xbox from Sony's PlayStation 2 and Nintendo's GameCube. The software giant has said it will spend $2bn over the next few years to build out the Xbox Live network and develop the next generation of its game console.

The 15 November launch date for Xbox gives a two-month head start to Sony, which will begin selling a network adapter on 27 August. The adapter will let the PS2 tap into a broadband or dial-up Internet connection for online game play.

Besides Sony's support for dial-up connections, the main difference between the two companies' approaches is that Xbox Live will be a closed network, with Xbox gamers able to connect to each other only through the Microsoft-maintained Xbox Live system. The system will include games from Microsoft and third-party publishers.

Sony will leave it to game publishers to do the back-end work of maintaining servers and other infrastructure, with the PS2 maker providing the software to make it work.

Analysts and game publishers have modest expectations for both approaches, with few expecting online gaming via consoles to draw a significant audience until a new generation of Internet-ready game boxes enters the market in a few years.

Xbox Live will play six games at launch: Sega's NFL2K3 and NBA2K3 sports titles; Infograme's Unreal Tournament and UbiSoft's Ghost Recon shooting games; Microsoft's NFL Fever football title; and jump-and-run game Whacked.

David Becker writes for News.com