Naaaaaah reaaaalllly? 

Doesn't change the fact that it can still be done, at a loss and it's probably not a good way to go about doing business but i appreciate Sony doing that, again knowing they were shooting their own foot. Still, free online was a strong selling point for the PS3 and towards the end, they were able to at least make some money with playstation plus which turned out to be a great way to get lots of games (noticed i didn't say free cause they weren't free), exclusive perk, early betas, automatic upgrades, etc. The only point i was making is that microsoft could have gone free online but they didn't. They chose to charge, which is a wise business move on their part. They had brand loyalty and having come out first this gen got everybody on board with the idea that paying for online console play was the norm, which to me, TO, ME, is pretty shady.

If Nintendo and Sony pulled it off, so could have microsoft. That is all i am saying. 

online should be free! charging for it is being greedy!

Sure, find me a company that will keep updating and fixing those MMOs, or the customer support people that will handle your account info, or the bandwidth needed to run a server for free and you can have all that.

Or just STFU and stick to playing free open source games, cause if nobody wanted to pay that's what it's going to go down to.

People have the choice on whether to pay for online gaming or not... If you don't want to pay, buy a PS3... If you do buy a 360...

Something to think about...

Servers and online gaming networks cost money to run... You need high end hardware, high end networks, pay internet network provider costs, and smart people planning/running those infrastructures. These costs do not disappear after the game ships. So why is it unfair to charge for these?

Companies will retrieve the money they pay out in their online networks somewhere... Price of the console, price of games dropping slower, advertising, royalties on game sales, etc... Anyone who believes that any company is giving away their online gaming network for free is not in touch with business reality... It is only free if other things are paying for it.

As for Sony, the realties of network costs hit them, and now they have packaged a paid network that most PS gamers cannot refuse. PSN Plus funds their network expansion and growth. I now know very few PS gamers that don't subscribe. Why? because of the free games? How much does a free game Sony developed several months ago and shipped really cost Sony to provide for free? Almost nothing... Sony realized that they needed to start charging for the network so they put a model out there that cost them very little to deliver, but generates the revenue required for their network.

Charging directly for the online gaming network is not greed, it is putting the costs upfront to the consumer rather than hiding them somewhere else...

Because MMO's are insanely massive and complicated and have a dedicated staff year round of up to many dozen people, moderators, programers, constant bug fixing and responding to crashes, server maintenance, balancing issues, developing DLC constantly, expenses with supplying enough server capacity to fit the insane amount of traffic, public relations, account management, customer centers that dwarf anything else in gaming recieving complaints all the time, hardware maintenance on servers and programers machines etc.

There are a couple of reason in here you likely won't find for most, if not all, genres and games besides MMO's.

When I buy a game at full price on my hardware I bought for full price on my internet connection that costs money and all the gear uses power, I don't want to be charged again for simply being allowed to play the game online. Of course, since I play online games only on the PC and hate MMO's, I kind of don't have to worry about this at all...

Bottom line though; comparing huge MMO's to regular games with (often) shitty servers, support and few patches/fixes is silly and I'm pretty sure you're aware. Yeah, I know they make DLC and patches for a lot of games, its still nowhere near on the same scale and can't be compared.

Maybe a fee for a specific game is okay (I don't personally like it, but some games need it for certain reasons), but paying for online services for games you already put down a purchase price for is idiotic. Not just one game, but -all- games.

You aren't charged for online gaming on your PC, and that's a superior platform to the 360.

I act like this

In regards to this

Because this

Is free to play on this

And this

And this

-----------------------------------------------

I'm also this

About this

So your argument is invalid or something like that.

LOL, I'm not upset at Microsoft nor do I complain about about their paid service because I pay for PSN+ now. I started doing it last year in September. I do; however, don't understand why Microsoft would limit the access to the internet & applications. The internet should remain free in my opinion, and so should Netflix and other video sites if you are already paying for an account. It doesn't make sense for MS to charge, most of up-to-date technology doesn't charge you an extra fee. (granted that smartphones are a different animal, (if people have to have 4G, then that's their choice)

LOL

Nice one.

___

As far as OT goes, you pay for an absolute basket of nothing when you pay for "online gaming", but when you pay for WoW and other MMO's you are paying for servers and things like that. DUST is actually free to play, and includes microtransactions, same with Team Fortress 2.

Books are free at the library, but people still buy them. TV is "free" over air, but people pay for cable.