I can point you more in the right direction than I can give you all of
the answers myself.
You will probably have better luck with 3rd party companies instead of
going directly with Sony or Microsoft. there are smaller companies
that have XLink Kai (PS2, XBOX, Gamecube, PSP, DS, online gameplay),
XBoxconnect, and I think Gamespy has an online service. Kai I am not
sure if they are open source, but definetly do alot of recent coding
and development should be able to provide you with all the technical
information for IP tunnelling.
Business model, hmm quick rundown. Think of another form of instant
messaging where you are geared and focused towards only gamers.
Communicate directly and email wise with people who have your same
console, similar interest and play the same games as you. Cost of
service can be free to attract a wide range of users, low fee scale to
provide proprietary services, higher fee schedule for high quality
proprietery services and services with little to no lag. Features for
clans to join and compete, and a safe haven for people from cheaters.
Some places charge a 1 time fee for the software with unlimited
upgrades, others are annually. You should figure that XBOX Live is
currently $50/yr with over 2 million subscribers if I recall
correctly. Those people renewing subscriptions every year is roughly
$100,000,000. In just subscriptions. Smaller services have about
300,000 users base with a $15/yr subscription totalling $4,500,000
roughly. None of these are guaranteed revenues.
And as for percentege of ps2/xbox owners registered, very hard to come
by as you will have people and companies with multiple profiles for
online services. For XBOX Live, I personally have 8 accounts I am
paying for annually. I also have an account on XBConnect and an
account on XLink Kai. As for PS2, I have never had to pay to play
online. BTW - XLink is for PS2 as well as XBOX, which I noted in the
beginning. With XLink which is free, i can play online on any system
with 1 account, so it is hard to provide a very detailed breakdown.
Sales/Revenue forcast? These are all ballooned figures from anywhere.
They can only go on projected sales of their console, then they have
to determine the number of people currently or in their area with high
speed internet, and a small room for growth for a decent projected
revenue. These figures are available, but with alot of research in
general.
Any small company, even individual should be able to start their own
Online gaming service, and within 2-3 years have $1mil in profits. You
will need to greatly weigh this against the cost of development, and
the cost of hardware, testing and so forth. |
