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. 

I saw some value in it when Halo 3 was still good times for me, but all good things come to an end as I get bored of things (Gravity Hammer still wins to this day though,) and I'm able to play multiplat online games for nothing on PS3 so the only good thing I missed so far is Alan Wake, which is not enough for me to buy the 360 again unfortunately. I have like 6 computers in my house hold though, so I see no value in Live at all when any 5 year old PC can do better for free when you are talking about those features, and I had Netflix years ago for my PC but eventually I stopped seeing value in that too since all I used it for was ripping anime and releasing them which I evetually didn't have time for anymore, though I did watch a ton of Discovery or National Geography stream stuff.

The difference I guess is that PS3 is not as much a closed platform (still closed as hell but not 360 or Wii level) when it comes to some standard features on Live so it varies per game (VoIP options that is) depending on the devs.

Also, 360 and PS3 both suck when it comes to actual online multimedia features, 360's therelackof flexibility or PS3's crappy web broswer, so you are right, I'd never consider them to be more than gaming machines, they are just bad bad bad. =_=;

The truth is I didn't even know that O_O; well, I certainly don't miss it lol.

Is Xbox Live worth it?  Is a gold nugget worth it?  If you were on an island and all you had was a gold bar, what would it be worth?  A cheeseburger?  If you had an original copy of Amazing Fantasy #15 (first Appearance of Spider-Man) and it was valued at $500,000 but you could only sell it for $3,000 then what is it worth?  It's worth what people are willing to pay for it.  Millions of people (myself included) are willing to pay $40-$60 a month for Live so apparently, we think it's worth it.  I've already given more than one features list in this thread.  If those don't do it for you, then there are other, cheaper, options.

Now somebody said that charging a users for Xbox Live isn't very customer friendly.  My mind exploded.  What!?  This isn't a charity.  It's a business.  Do you think that the PSN is free because Sony loves each and every one of you?  The PSN is free because that was a feature that Sony could boast over the 360.  It does what it needs to do and people appreciate it.  So I have phone lines that run to my house.  I have to "pay to unlock phone service".  Does the phone company say "Oh, the phone lines are there.  We should let d21lewis use the phone for free!"  No.  There job is to provide a service that makes them money.  Somebody has to maintain those lines.  Somebody has to make the service work.  That costs money.  Now I definitely have other options.  Cell phones, pay phones (if I could find one), smoke signals, etc.  but I have to pay for a house phone.  That's the way it works.

Go back to the days of the Xbox.  I didn't buy an Xbox.  The games didn't appeal to me.  The controller didn't feel right in my hand.  You had to buy a remote for it to even play DVDs.  The thing looked horrible.  Microsoft sold that console at a loss (about $100 a system if memory serves).  Were they being kind to gamers then?  And in those days, Xbox Live cost about $50 a year.  Look at the transition from those days to now.  The service has grown and grown to encompass more and more and the cost (until earlier this year) stayed the same despite tons and tons of improvements.  I'm still not sure if MS is making a profit on games.  The BILLION dollars spent trying to fix the RRoD and the costs of R&D, maintaining and improving the service, and other variables must cost a ton.  Xbox Live is a service that is generally accepted as the best and the consumers apparently don't mind paying for such a service.  What makes it better?  Like I said, I've already posted two lists.  Why do some of you not want Microsoft to make money?  Because Sony tried (and regrets, I'm sure) providing it for free?  Because the infrastructure of PC gaming is different?

At the end of the day, it's business.  It's $60 a year.  It's $5 a month.  After I finish this post, I'm about to go spend that much money for dinner.  One meal that will probably last about 45 minutes.  It's not that big a deal.  Depending on what you want out of it, Xbox Live is either a little better or a LOT better than its direct competition's online.  And that's all I have.  Later, dudes.

"the question of the OP is Xbox Live worth it.  I would say the discounts we get alone make it worth it, but then again, I play online a lot, and I as showed earlier, online gaming isn't as important to the PS3 consumer.  Plus x-gaming chat, party chat, Netflix search options (thank god for that), ESPN, Games on Demand (I haven't bought a game from Gamestop that wasn't less than a year old, cause now I can actually pay the creator directly for cheap, and not have disc),  almost all games have trial or demo to them, Indie games are soooooooooo cheap, and we get amazing discounts like buy $30 of MS points get $10 free(it might be different, but anyone that knows what I'm talking about understands)?

I just made that list and easily think that $60 a year is fine, though I won't be paying that ever cause of the new family pack for $25 a person!!

seriously guys, put that all together, and your mind will explode."

stated in earlier post also that the 360 consumer plays more online gaming than the PC user.

PSN has all those gaming features too for nothing though o_O; discounts, demos, yaddy yada, and indie games too, shit they actually have castle crashers now O_O;;;;; I loved that game on 360 lol, it was Halo3 and that for me tbh. People tend to spend more time when paying to get their money's worth btw, so the stats didn't surprise me.

"Question for the general populace:  Does have dedicated servers effect the sales of games?

I personally don't think it does.  So why do you ask corporations to invest their money into something that won't make them any money?

I understand it would be nice as a customer to be given servers, but I really feel like it's something that companies that need to make money (or have had it as a standard) use to entice consumers.  I don't feel like the do it "out of the goodness of their heart" I think they do it so that you argue here and now about them having it.  So that you buy it, cause that's the way they know they can get your money.  Just like the PS3.  They don't charge for online gameplay, but I bet you every year they look at PROFIT (not revenue) for Microsoft and go "if we hadn't charged $599.99 for the original PS3... we would have totally done that!"

"

Also stated this earlier in reaction to this specific post.

Castle Crashers isn't an indie game . . .

If you click to page before this, we were arguing about what I'm talking about.  Please don't drop in on things that you don't understand.  Everything I have said is true.  Look it up.  We are on the site to do so, so don't play ignorant.

i read the page before. but you made a whole new post, you didnt quote someone. next time do that, it will decrease confusion.

where am i playing ignorant? im not the one who calls valve steam, i dont even argue with your arguements, im just saying you are going off topic.