XBox 360 doesn't like your real life friends

If you don't like multiplayer-only games, don't buy them. It's not an XBox-only "issue," as well. And, here's a question, if you want to play against RL friends, why are you concerned about multiplayer abilities? That doesn't really seem to make sense to me.

"If you don't like multiplayer-only games, don't buy them"

Classic. Such a simple rebuttle to any complaint ever put forward. Doesn't really address the issue at all, it's simply telling me not to share my opinion which, of course, differs from yours.

"if you want to play against RL friends, why are you concerned about multiplayer abilities? That doesn't really seem to make sense to me.”

That doesn't make sense to you, and this doesn't make sense to me. I don't know if you misread or misunderstood but my point is that if developers are going to put in online multiplayer, why not include offline as well? In fact, offline multiplayer should be the primary focus with online coming secondary. The majority of gamers don't play online after all....

I just started playing Quantum of Solace--I'm curious what you mean by being able to play offline multiplayer: do you mean with multiple TVs and Xboxes via a LAN, or with split-screen?

@onemorehour - Offline as in no network required. QoS was a pretty fun game but once I beat it, I put it away never to play it again.

@SINZAR Yeah... I just beat the single player campaign and I'm not sure if I'm going to go back and do it again. The achievements were pretty easy to pick up, and it doesn't feel like there's much left to do...

It is interesting that lots of console games have stopped implementing split-screen in this generation. Now that consoles are networked, I think that there's an expectation to implement online multiplayer first and foremost. It may be simply a matter of diminishing returns--these particular types of games try to push the console to its limits to provide the best possible graphics for a target resolution. I'm sure this makes it technically difficult to implement a good split-screen multiplayer experience, and developers may simply think it costs more than the value it would bring.

I agree, though, that it's a shame. I have many fond memories of 4-player goldeneye (even though I'm sure I would shudder if I tried playing it now--each player got 160x120 resolution!).

Well, as a counter example there's Left 4 Dead, which lets you play online splitsreen (so, it's 2 player, not 4 player), and Halo 3. Actually, most games I own let you play with a friend on the console.