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Ok so I see a lot of people on the forums don't understand why XBOX Live has a fee, Hopefully here I can explain it a little to you and then you can re assess your thoughts about paying or not.

Xbox Live and what your paying for - Basically MS provide every developer no matter how big or small a chance to take there game on line with minimal fuss as it provides them with the tools and service to get there game LIVE.

Now what this means is that even the smaller developers who make titles for the XBLA for example can easily offer players multiplayer modes because they don't have to foot the bill. the reason for this is because with Live Microsoft built themselves a system - This system takes care of things like Achievements, Chat Functions, Messaging Functions, Cross game invites and lastly the online functions. For developers they simply have to plug in there features with the Microsoft system and there game instantly supports all of features Live has to offer.

On PSN its the opposite - If a game wants to have multiplayer or chat the developer has to foot the bill and build there own system An example is COD4 - For COD4 Infinity ward has servers maintained and run solely for the purpose of the PS3 version of COD4. Whilst on 360 MS does it for them, This is why you see things like different friends lists for different games and different TOS for each title as its all not linked together.

This is the reason you see almost every release on XBLA offer multiplayer even from the smaller developers and the games on PSN tend not too unless there from a big developer or receive some kind of patch down the line.

Why do you think MS can offer private chat functionality across different games because every game is running off there service. This system is why Microsoft can implement new features easily on have every game instantly support them, even older titles as every game is all linked into the same system. For example the upcoming 8 player party system can be used with every game without any additional or individual tweaks as its all integrated and linked.

Now you can form your own views if you think this is worth a subscription fee but no matter what your opinion is this is why you pay for Xbox Live.

Thanks for Reading.


"I envy you. You North Americans are very lucky. You are fighting the most important fight of all- you live in the heart of the beast." 

Ernesto "Che" Guevara.