booo!

i have espn on my tv! i can acess face book and twitter using my laptop. the only thing xbl has is cross game chat and a better friend syste, that isnt even worth 15$!

Yup.  I don't get the UK rise, though, looking at it more closely.  Why just raise the monthly fee?  The only reason I can imagine is if in the UK more people buy monthly vs longer subscriptions than MS would like and they're trying to nudge people towards the longer commitment.

Strange one, though.  Unless it turns out UK is a rise across the board and it just hasn't been released right.

If you don't like it, don't pay it.  I mean its pretty simple.  I've been gold since original X-box so obviously I think its worth it.  Everyone I know that has it uses and enjoys it.  It doesn't really limit the system outside of online play if you don't have it.  I think people have misconceptions that you aren't allowed to do anything with Silver which really isn't true.

Odd about inflation though, if a new video game has only gone up from about $50 to $60 since the mid-eighties, that's not bad in general for video game inflation.  New consoles cost about the same generation to generation.

Unofficially the prices for Gold will still be cheaper than the current ones :)

"can M$ be more greedy?"

This statement by people always makes me laugh. They are a company, and there job is to be greedy and make as much money as they can.

"I don't understand how some X360 fans can defend Micro$oft kn this one"

Doesn't matter if people defend it or not, it's not going to matter. If you use live you are going to pay it.   Same people who bitched about $15 MW2 packs, and then bought all of them anyway.

Nothing really to defend but the two execuses I can see are inflation and ESPN. The price hasn't changed in seven years so it was either gonna go up or down sooner or later (obviously up now) and inflation has increased a bit since then. Do grocery prices ever stay the same? When they go up do you get more content? Not normally.

This will also help if Kinect bombs and/or they are losing money on Kinect they can use their subscribers to subsidize the cost (along with all the stuff they download, MS gets 30% cut on everything right?)

Lastly anyone who visits cheapassgamer or any deal website knows they could of had XBL year cards for $30 or less. Unless your a teen who depends on your parents to buy you Live, chances are you have a credit card and a brain to find deals out there. Playstation users will continue to laugh at this of course.

50 quid a year just to play a game online no thanks.

but i predict many will still pay the charge

Seece, you have to understand, people are in hard times and we're not getting a pay increase, so its taking more out of our pockets.

IMO there is no way to justify this action.

Meh.. better this than that they hike up the prices for games.. if they were get an adjustment for inflation we would be screwed...