I pay Xbox Live for Gears of War 3, merely. I don't need Internet Explorer, nor Netflix nor everything they have there for Gold users. So yeah, it's justified. They could just simply put it free and offer me more gaming-related content for Gold (I would pay for it then). Not that dumb "play this demo before anyone", because Silver end up playing the demo too.

yeah i thought so, so thought i should point it out. it really doesnt make sense for them to add 6 million in a quarter that sold just 1.3 million. but to answer question in the OP, we all know that xbox lives numbers are so high because it forces people to pay to play online, and thats the main and by far the biggest reason why people pay the fee's, while PS+ doesnt. so you cant really compare the numbers to say that xbox live is justified because it has a higher number os subscribers. 

is the logical criticism towards justified? certainly. people have a right to voice their opinions, while some might say the fee is very much worth it, other like myself say it isnt. i wont get into the details why but i do have a reasonable point of view

but is the stupid hate or bashing justified? when people say "xbox live sucks!" or "fuck xbox live" just out of the blew, it certainly isnt justified, also xbox live certainly doesnt suck, the issue is some people dont think that what it offers is worth the money

Prolly 17.8% of 39.5m. All rounded up of course.

Anyways Xbox live added around 6m while the number of consoles has increased around 9m. Nothing really wrong with that I would say half of 9m signed up ish then 1.5m from previous years.

Xbox Live Gold is a great service, really. It offers plenty enough to justify the cost.

Where the "hate" comes from, is simply with the online gaming. In my opinion, online gaming simply shouldnt be part of the subscription. While the consumer keeps bending over and accepting it though, then really, Microsoft would be incredibly stupid to change it.

The competitions fans poke fun at Gold because the competition is "better" for letting you have a free online service. They're "higher up" because they get something very similar for free.

Xbox fans really dont give a shit, because they very likely get the moneys worth out of the Yearly subscription. It just gets annoying with the constant "rip off" chants.

The thing is though is people are clearly satisfied with Live

The way people in the forums talk about it you would think people would be jumping ship for PSN and PS Plus but this clearly isnt happening. In fact MS is adding LIVE users to the ecosystem at a huge rate

most of the xbox users seem to be. 

thats the thing, forums are never a good indicator of what is really going on in the gaming market. we are just a VERY small slice of the market, we also know the technicial aspects of games and the game indusrty. things like frames per seconds, game engines, developers, publishers. we are interested in it and we follow the news almost always and talk about them almost always. and thats the thing, very little people are like that. also honestly, forums are a bit weird, we want to argue about which game sold more when we have nothing to do with the game, we base our opinion on somebody whether we like them or not based on if they play on the same console as we do. we are willing to ignore opinions of others if they have an avatar of a game we dont play. we ignore games we might actually enjoy because its not on our favorite console. what ever goes around on these forums be sure that it really isnt the real way the market acts

This whole poll is useless, because it lets those who don't even have an XBox 360 to vote.

I just have one thing to say and that is that if PSN is just as good as Xbox live next gen and has all the features it has(or most) for free plus on top of that ps+ is a great deal then MS will need to come up with something more to justify the cost.  People can pay for whatever they want and I'm fine with that plus most users won't even care if Sony has free online that is just as good.  Doesn't make much of a difference now, but it could potentially hurt MS(maybe).

I don't see much value in it.. basic features like online chat and online multiplayer should be free tbh. If Skype, Steam, PSN, Nintendo, Live etc all offer it, why can't MS do the same thing for Xbox. Just the thought of going back to a paywall service to access important features of my Xbox rubs me off the wrong way.

Don't get me wrong, I have no problem with people paying for it.. I just wish people opened their eyes and looked before parting ways with their cash.

People pay to play online with friends. Thats it.

If my friends get Xbox because they prefer Xbox, then Ill get Xbox to play with them. To play against them on FIFA, Halo, CoD. GTA, whatever.

The Xbox brand is growing. The consoles popularity with people is growing and consumers have invested a whole lot into Xbox Live. From Gamerscore to XBLA Library. Its a loyal fanbase and a whole bunch of them will remain loyal into the next gen. Microsoft have been adding more to the service to justify it all generation. Its worked.