Mass Effect 3 Demo Shows the Absurdity of Xbox Live Gold - 1UP

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TheKoreanGuy said:

Your argument is flawed. Then why does no one else on this entire planet charge to use their online services? Neither Sony, Nintendo, nor Steam follow this even though Xbox has been charging for their service from the beginning. Sure, maybe if you want extra features, charge them for that. Microsoft doesn't NEED to charge for ONLINE to make that profit. If I took FaceBook or Google for example, they make a profit without charging for any of it. Imagine the outrage that would occur if we suddenly had to pay for it. It's these double standards that irk me.  Microsoft even puts ads on your dashboard like wtf. Microsoft is the one scrambling for money and succeeding at it too. This becomes more evident with Kinect and how they are putting all their effort into taking some of Wii's market share away from them when they PROMISED they would provide core gaming experiences on Kinect.

I don't want the best online experience possible for free. It would obviously be nice but if it truly is the best service available then it deserves to make a profit. What I want for Microsoft to do is to offer at the very least DECENT ONLINE for silver members. Microsoft could then offer a vastly superior online through gold membership. Is it that hard to allow this? Are they going to lose SO much money from this? Surely they probably considered it before, but realized they want money and a lot of people would stop paying for Live. But if consumers are not willing to upgrade to Gold when they are offered online for free, then that is not the consumer's fault; it is Microsoft's fault for not making their service more appealing. If they need to have online capabilities for only Gold members in order to make it appealing, then Live really is worthless. They are doing a disservice to their customers by not allowing them to play their games without FIRST paying microsoft. You keep saying businesses are in this to make a profit but why do you consider it "childish" to think about the interests of yourself? Truth is Sony have done a great job in bringing PSN on par with Live, but Xbox gamers are too stubborn to admit it since they are paying for theirs.

You are absolutely, positively, incredibly wrong and naive.

1.  First of all, facebook and Google are completely different business models, and they are the ONE giant successful example of each element in their respective fields.  FB and google have ads EVERYWHERE, for example. Unless you are suggesting that MS force commercial breaks and ads in ALL your content while you're playing, that argument is completely, utterly silly.  (And we ARE in fact paying for google and facebook, whether we use them or not, though the added costs built into virtually every product and service we buy, by the way.  Nothing is "free".) 

2. What part of SONY IS LOSING BILLIONS OF DOLLARS do you not understand?  Part of why they are losing so much money is they are having trouble paying for the research, development, support and infrastructure of PSN without consumer dollars.  

3.  Are you really suggesting that Nintendo's online service is anything like PSN, let alone Live? That's just mind-blowing.  Talk about not having an online strategy.  Plus, Nintendo makes money on their hardware, while Sony and MS generally don't until perhaps late in the cycles.  It's a different price model.  (And I'd argue Nintendo's downloads are relatively high priced for the file size, in general.  Paying $5 or $8 for old NES games that are like 20MB each versus millions of multi-gig free demos and the like on Live)  

4.  Steam is a store and a store only.  The price for their bandwidth is included in the pricing of their games.  Simiar to Live, their social features, like friends and acheievements, are set up only so that you feel almost obligated to use their retail portal so that they can be a dominant retailer of digital downloads.  You are paying per download in the price of each game versus a subscription fee.  

Paying for Live is okay, but paying for Facebook would be stupid? If you want to say paying Microsoft for their service is justified, then you also better be prepared to argue for paying for EVERY service you use.

I have no issue paying for the services I use.  I pay for PSN +, I pay for Live, I pay for Netflix streaming, I pay for Hulu+, I pay for WoW, I pay for satellite TV, I pay for internet access, I pay for data plans on my phone, I pay for lots of things.  Because I find value in the service.

I bought the TV, why should I pay for cable or satellite?  I bought the phone, why should I pay for calling/texting/data?  The argument is silly.  

Microsoft is the one scrambling for money and succeeding at it too.

THIS IS THE WHOLE REASON MICROSOFT AND SONY AND NINTENDO EXIST!!!!!  I don't get how you don't understand this.