makingmusic476 said:
I see a few people mentioning features here and there, but ultimately you're not paying for features. You get almost all the features of Live with a Silver account.
Ultimately, you're paying for online play.
I have two problems with this concept:
1. It's unfair to consumers.
The majority of 360 games with online multiplayer use a P2P model, in which whoever hosts the game sets up their 360 as a temporary server, and all data for the game is sent back and forth between his and the other players' 360s. To play a game you've already paid for online, you are using hardware that you've already paid for as a host and bandwidth that you've already been charged for to send and recieve data. Even for games that use dedicated servers, server-related costs are handled by EA or whomever, not Microsoft.
2. It's unfair to developers.
Imagine you're a developer, and you just finished working on a game with a lengthy singleplayer and robust multiplayer modes. Anybody who buys your game on PS3 or Steam can access all of the content from that game immediately. As it should be, since they paid for it. Paid you for it. On 360, however, they would only be able to access a part of that game unless they're paying for Gold. Microsoft is holding parts of other companies' products hostage to get people to pay for Live.
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Now one could argue that it costs Microsoft money to organize and track a peron's achivements and friends lists, as well as facilitate communication between said friends, and thus they have a right to charge to cover these costs. I would agree in theory, but this is not what you're actually paying for. These features are available to all for free through Silver. You are paying for the "right" to play online.
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