Man I love Dreamcast. Good times. SegaNet was great.

Anyway, do you understand that free Killzone 3 online doesn't replace tiny fee Halo 4 online? If it was all free I'd be happy. If it all required a fee to play I'd pay the entry fee, but I know others would bitch and moan as if a few bucks a month breaks their bank.

Should it be free? I don't think the constitution says anything about some fundamental right we have to play online for free. That would be great though.

You are ignoring one fundamental difference here:

When people pay a fee to play World of WarCraft, they play on Blizzard servers.

Now, let's say you buy an Xbox only for third-party games. If you want to play online, you need to pay Microsoft 60 bucks per year, so they allow you to use third-party servers and nothing else.

Sounds like a rip-off to me...

It might be justified if the monthly fees helps maintain dedicated servers such as those found in MMOs. 15 bucks a month for 1 game is still too expensive for that. But if you're talking about a live membership where people connect to a host player in online games where everyone disconnects if he/she leaves, then it's unjustifiable. Heck, games like Heroes of Newerth, and Guild Wars 2 have dedicated servers for their games and it's free. That's why people complain, because it's a cash grab for essentially nothing.

MMOs are a poor comparison. First of all, failing to pay for an MMO will not lock out multiple important features on your console, you just lose access to one game. Also, when you pay for an MMO, you pay for access to their servers. When you pay for XBL, you pay for access to other gamer's consoles and other companies' servers and content that would otherwise be offered for free. The fee for XBL isn't necessary, it isn't a service that costs MS a fortune to provide, they're just siphoning money by locking out 3rd party content which is completely immoral.

My XBL Gold ran out a month ago, I haven't renewed it since. It's annoying not being able to play COD4 online, but I'm not going to pay £40 a year to do so. Luckily I only play certain Xbox games online in short bursts, so I can pay monthly when I feel like it, when I get a new game or when there is a good deal going. I've considered selling my Xbox so many times because of this, because I'm sick of having my hands tied.

In many many cases MS doesn't have anything to do with the multiplayer mode of games. Afaik every bigger publisher organizes the online part for games themselves, so why is it OK for MS to collect a fee from you for accessing that part of these games ?

edit:

if you'd only have to pay this fee for MS published games and to be able to use cross-game-voice chat (which probably uses MS servers)/whatever other MS online services there are, then that would be fair, but to extend it to so much other stuff just makes it look like a ransom to me

MMOs run servers with 2000+ people on it and most subscription-based MMOs don't require you to buy a box(WoW is an exception). Online console games do not.

Why is it so hard for people to spell "ridiculous"?

I don't like online gaming, so it doesn't really affect me, but I'm already paying for my internet once, paying for it twice seems unacceptable.

Darn. Didn't think so many other people would be in the same boat as me. I was dumb and ended up buildiing a huge library of online multiplat games over the last couple of years on 360. Now it's a hassle to sell all of them and rebuy the for PS3. So I'll have to wait for next gen to switch.

Yeah, you know, with PS+, you're also payin 4 $ a month to play such a collection. The difference is, you don't have to buy those damn games, you just get them for free. :P

It's just kinda hard for me to justify the price for Xbox Live. In comparison with PS+ or even PSN free it just looks real bad. I mean, if there were some fast food store which gave me a big mac for free, I sure as hell wouldn't pay 5 € a Mc Donald's for the same shit. It's really a no brainer for everyone with both plattforms. Just play Multiplayer games on the PS3 an that's that. If you only have a 360, I guess there's no way around Live. But you just can't justify the additional cost. It may be only a little fee, but overtime, it sums up. If you were payin' for Gold since 2005 straight, you would have spent 400 $ by now even with eBay Discounts. That's the price of the friggin' console at launch! 

You know, if you don't have a problem with payin' for live that's totally cool. But I just don't see the point in it. I'm not gonna whine about it. I'm just not payin' and rather stick to PSN. That's all. 

Sorry for da bad engrish!Greetingz from Germany, lulz. I tried real hard. :P

I am one of those that plays WOW (I quad and ten box on it) as well. Yes, I refuse to pay xbox live is why I sold that shit long ago.

*Steam is free. Keyboard and mouse superiority especially shooters. -----> FREE
*Alt + tab for any "social" application ----------------------->FREE
*WOW? Cannot really compare since most of us "hard wow players" put more hours on pvp and raids than almost any other game. Don't even dare compare Guild Wars with WOW content.