How Xbox Live is blatantly better than PSN

[Mr Puggsly]

Chark said:

To be fair about this, no $60 is not much money at all. It's small in comparison to what MMOs usually charge but then again that is for that game specifically whereas they update it heavily and run servers. As for XBL there is a shroud over the actual cost of them running their service, is it really justified? It'd be nice to know.

The real issue is that XBL could be free and you could still play Halo, Gears, and all that. Elmininating the fee won't cause it to come crashing down. Competitor services are operating just fine under a free model and there has been discussion among companies that free models should be the established model. If a game needs to charge a service fee to operate then by all means charge a service fee, but to charge a fee regardless of use and regardless of which companies utlize it, doesn't bode well with me. Are third parties even part of this fee? Do they receive any of that money? Do they use Microsoft's servers? If they don't then there is defentily something wrong with this model. I wouldn't be opposed to Microsoft charging a fee to play 1st party games online since those are their servers and such. If third parties are brought into the mix then I guess it is alright but they seem to operate just fine without a fee in the past and on other platforms, that goes for 1st party games too. This also is aside from the fact Mircosoft doesn't allow access to paid services without an XBL subscription. Do you think Netflix isn't using their own servers? Why should you have to pay twice? Access to those services should be free but instead Microsoft needs to gather some money from their consumers, because if they are just using their Xbox to watch movies they probably aren't buying many games. This just screams unethical.

Enjoy what Xbox offers and XBL but you should really know that your participation in their service fee isn't because of any added value or guarentee of your entertainment, you have no other choice if you want access to those games. It is exploitation and in line with Microsoft's monopolistic past. Don't view this as an attack. If I was really into those games, and I was really into Halo 2 back when, I would be paying the fee aswell but only because I didn't have a choice. Really what should come out of this is a more active attempt by Xbox consumers to change the industry model, at least be met half way by freeing up services like Netflix and the upcoming IE9.

So I have to ask you the question. If XBL went free tomorrow, how would you feel?

I think Xbox Live is a lot more complex than you imagine. MS operates all the servers except EA servers. Most games are P2P, but there are still servers for matchmaking. Furthermore, you have to take into consideration the massive amount of bandwidth that's used by a service like Xbox Live. Sony passes bandwidth fees to publishers, but MS does not.

As I mentioned before, Sony said PSN was in the red for years. So cost are definitely justified because its not free to offer these services. LIve is very profitable for MS, but so what? This is a business and making money is a pretty important goal.

I thought you were going to have a reasonable argument, but it seems you're using commie logic as well.

If XBL went free that would be great. If Taco Bell gave me food for free that would be great as well. But XBL isn't free and I enjoy using exclusive content on it so I'll continue paying.