Steam vs Xbox Live

In this round, I will state my arguments. ===================================================================================== Let’s get one thing down first. Steam is a FREE service. Xbox Live is PAID service. Here we see that there is already a big difference between the two. Now, since Xbox Live is the paid service, we would assume it to be better. But that is far from being the truth. -Steam’s catalogue of games Steam has over 6,200 games. Combining how many titles the Xbox 360 and Xbox One use (not all of these games will use Xbox Live, but I’ll count them all in. ), there is a total of 1,454 games. So the first thing is that Steam has a wider variety of game selection. Steam > Xbox Live. -Servers and Matchmaking This is the reason why Microsoft charges money for Xbox Live (or at least, the most probable reason). It’s because of the servers and matchmaking. It’s a little bit unclear on what exactly the type of server Xbox Live uses is, but according to their website, I’m pretty sure they use a Cloud Hosted Server. Steam uses dedicated servers, or perhaps I should be a little bit clearer. You see, Steam itself doesn’t use dedicated servers, but it gives its developers the ability to host dedicated servers. Thus, each individual developer on Steam hosts their own dedicated server. Both Dedicated Servers and Cloud Hosted Servers run exceptionally well, and are both very reliable. However, the problem here is obvious. Using Steam is free, and you still get the same server experience (as in little to no lag, smooth gameplay, etc. ), whereas for Xbox Live you have to actually pay money. Of course, it makes sense why Microsoft does this. Microsoft has to run all of their Cloud Server on their own, which is a lot money for one company. That’s why they charge money. Valve, however, doesn’t do it all on their own. They have each individual company do it themselves, thus Valve doesn’t lose much money at all, and thus they don’t charge money to their users. But overall, if you’re getting the same performance, free > paid; Steam > Xbox Live. -Sales and Price of games Not sure if my opponent can really argue with me on this one. Honestly, the Sales on Steam are RIDICULOUS. Thousands of games go on sale, and it’s insane. Xbox Live sales have nowhere near the caliber of a Steam Summer or Winter Sale. And despite the fact that there are always at least 40 games that are on sale on Steam at any given time of year, even the regular prices of games are cheaper, after a certain amount of time. Anyways, I doubt my opponent will argue with me on this one. Steam > Xbox Live. -Community So, let’s talk about the stuff you can do in the community. I’m not going to make some stupid arguments like, “there are so many 7-year olds on Xbox Live. ” But, I am going to discuss some major things that players can do to contribute to their community. Let’s start off with some simple stuff. Both services offer a friends system. You can friend anyone else (assuming they accept your request), and youcan play games with your friends (Assuming both of you have the game). Both have achievement systems. Xbox Live does have the ability to record yourself while gaming, while Steam does not (although you can still record using other software, I won’t bring that up). You also can’t directly stream to twitch from Steam (though once again, there are other ways to do it), though Steam does have a broadcasting system, where you can watch live streams through the community hub. Furthermore, they both have voice chat and text chat (though obviously steam’s text chat is better because it’s on a PC). However, Steam has a Work Shop in which you can post community made mods, has a place to post discussions, screenshots, artwork, and guides. It also has a place where you can see any news and announcements from the publisher, you can see reviews for the game, and has its own marketplace for trading steam items. Does Xbox Live have any of that? Nope. Steam > Xbox LiveAs far as the other stuff is concerned I guess it's somewhat subjective. Stuff like UI. But I think both of the services have a sleekdesign. Over to Con. =)