Microsoft has announced, coming sometime this spring (I figure really summer), they will have an online live version of the game show 1 vs 100.  It will consist of live events hosted by a live commentator and the game will be for Microsoft points and merchandise.  It will be the first time a “game” allows for thousands of people to participate in a game show.  If you haven’t seen the show, this is how it works.  There is 1 contestant, the One, that squares off against 100 other contestants called the Mob.  Both the One and the Mob answer the same multiple choice question.  If the One gets it right then he takes the prize level he is at and all of the Mob that got the answer wrong are eliminated.  The One has a chance to take the prize and go home or go on and face the next question increasing the prize money but risking everything he or she has won.  If the One gets an answer wrong, he is eliminated and the prize goes to who is left of the Mob.  In the xbox live version spectators will also be able to answer questions and possibly win prizes.  It will be free for xbox subscribers, but only gold members can win prizes.  There will be advertisements throughout the program to support the “Show”.

I am pretty psyched to try this.  It sounds like it has the possibility to be a lot of fun, especially because there are real prizes to be won, even if it isn’t a million dollars like on the tv show.  Heck, I have enjoyed a few rounds of Jeopardy playing against artificial players and this has to be more fun than that.  Microsoft is definitely using this to test the waters for even more massive live events, especially other game shows.  They even refer to the first run of this as the pilot season.  If this does well, we may see a lot more of this kind of game in the future.  This could have a very broad appeal.  I could easily see my mom who is in retirement age playing this and that says a lot.  I will report back after this starts up and give my opinion on whether this really is as fun as it sounds.