@Stage

The new store is really good though. The aesthetics are nice but it is more organized than the previous store thanks to the menu list on the left. It looks very similar to Metro except not as restrained to tiles or as blocky looking. The list on the left makes it much better than sorting through tiles on metro as well.

The old store was only organized during a few points of its life. Last year was probably the best for it, since they messed stuff up more after the Instant Game Collection and their attempts to make PS Plus stick out more. What that did was jumble everything around. On the new store the text on the left makes it more navigable and while the right can have flashy banner style tiles you can choose to ignore them and select what you want from the list on the left and go into a list format that displays different titles in rows of three similar to the old store (if you set it to that view).

I'm amazed you've managed to keep this up. You must feel like you've been slamming your head against a brick wall for hours, lol.

Some people will simply defend their purchasing decisions regardless of logical arguments. For what it's worth, I think you're right. MS haven't done anything special in terms of users' playing multiplayer and the fact that they can charge for something that was (for many years) and is cuurently free everywhere else is bizzare.

Like I've said previously though, I doubt MS will be able to keep it up next gen when the rest of the world seems to be heading towards free-2-play even in MMOs.

It doesn't matter how you want to twist the word extortion, you're not right either way. You still can't grasp the simple fact that extortion in the sense you're applying it, is entirely subjective and based on one's personal opinion. How on Earth can you sit and try to say it is absolute fact that XBL is extortion? That is stupid. Your opinion is it is extortion. Or highway robbery. Or fleecing. Both of those last 2 terms fit infinitely better with what you're trying to say than extortion. That's probably why when you were in this thread first spreading this extortion crap, you were actually using the definition of fleecing and passing it off as the definition of extortion. But you're no more factually correct when you say it is extortion than I am when I say it's the best service and well worth a few bucks a month. It's called opinions. Maybe you should research what they are.

Regarding networking, unless the developer specifically runs their own servers like EA does, MS handles all the matchmaking in the games via Live. And they're damn good at it. That's why so many games I have played run smoother and connect to games faster for me on Live. I don't need to find any "definitive" evidence, I can simply go buy my own personal experience. Something you lack as someone who does not use the service. Which makes you preaching your opinion around as fact all the more amusing. Since that is my experience, it makes Live all the more appealing. I hope you are still following, this is easy stuff.

I can't speak a thing about paying a company to use Internet through the TV because I have never done that and unlike some in this thread, I prefer to have at least some sort of legitimate experience. Same with Steam, I use Steam, but only to buy PC games I play single player as I am not one who plays MP games on PC much and when I do they generally have their own system in place.

It's clear you can't grasp the notion of opinion versus fact and there's no point wasting any more time bickering back and forth about this. You've been negative and condenscending since the first post you made in the thread and nothing I say is going to change your tune just as your opinions won't turn into fact for me no matter how violently you try to shove them down our throats :)

This is the entirety of your post that was relevant to mine.

Extortion is subjective, no doubt. You're still focused on Live, I'm focused on MS effectively locking half your game content. Address this, it's rather simple.

You have no evidence on Live. Don't pull that nonsense. Do you have the same game on each platform that you've tested latency? Please elaborate on such things such as facts, and not more opinions.

No response on Steam, and no response on TV. As I suspected. Can't give any straight answers just "Live is the best around" it's like having a discussion with a religious nutcase "Jesus did this and that. Jesus saved us all" rhetoric. 

Finally you understand. I am so glad to have helped you out with that. Please come back if you are ever confused again.

I never argued the opposite. That was some other guy. You seem to be easily confused.

Deal of the week has been a bit of a joke lately.

I think it's been pretty meh for awhile personally. I think Major Nelson did an article or something about it recently.