It has nothing to do with Sony. Live isn't horrible in its entirety. It's only "paying for playing online" that is horrible. This has nothing to do with people being Sony loyalists or anything stupid like this. People see what is available out there, Steam, PSN, Miiverse, and they realise that MS is the only one charging for online gaming. It doesn't take more than that to call it a rip-off. MS is charging people for what is readily available for free everywhere else.

Now, you have people like you who can't accept that people won't find value in Gold [because the same is available everywhere else for free with similar quality] who come up with all kinds of apologetics to justify their investment in the service. 

Paying for Live is just sending the message to the industry that you're fine paying for online play for any games you purchase. As if we didn't already have to pay enough to get complete games in the first place, with on disc DLCs, ending chapters, etc... MS is basically locking multi-player for most games, and we should be ok with this and be all sunshine and rainbows? You really can't understand how people may have actual legitimate reason not to support that kind of practice? All of this must fall on fanboyism or pure blind hate? 

Do you own a mobile phone, Hynad?

Infact. Everyone. Im asking everyone here. 

Does anyone here own a mobile?

It has nothing to do with Sony. Live isn't horrible in its entirety. It's only "paying for playing online" that is horrible. This has nothing to do with people being Sony loyalists or anything stupid like this. People see what is available out there, Steam, PSN, Miiverse, and they realise that MS is the only one charging for online gaming. It doesn't take more than that to call it a rip-off. MS is charging people for what is readily available for free everywhere else.

Now, you have people like you who can't accept that people won't find value in Gold [because the same is available everywhere else for free with similar quality] who come up with all kinds of apologetics to justify their investment in the service. 

Paying for Live is just sending the message to the industry that you're fine paying for online play for any games you purchase. As if we didn't already have to pay enough to get complete games in the first place, with on disc DLCs, ending chapters, etc... MS is basically locking multi-player out for most games, and we should be ok with this and be all sunshine and rainbows? You really can't understand how people may have actual legitimate reasons not to support that kind of practice? All of this must fall on fanboyism or pure blind hate? 

^^^^ The apologetics I mentioned. Here they come.

To answer your question, yes, I have a mobile phone. I pay to have access to the phone network. As phones always worked. There's nowhere I can go to phone without charge. Gaming? I pay my internet to get bandwidth. This allows me to play games online, among plenty other things. No services charge me for playing multi-player online, unless it's an MMO or XBox Live.

I guess the part that said "everywhere else" didn't register...

Oh, so you bought your phone. Yet you have to pay more to use services your phone offers. Right.

Youre paying to talk to someone, rather than going to see them. Youre paying a premium to write messages to someone, instead of telling them in person or taking the time to actually send them a letter/postcard/whatever. I mean, talking to people has always been free. Why should I have to pay a premium to talk to someone? Why should I pay per minute to talk to my friend who lives 5 minutes away?

You choose to buy a phone and you choose to pay for the extra services. Why? Because its convenient. Your friends have phones and it generally makes things quicker and easier. I think this is very similar to Live. You buy into the console knowing that if you want to use other features you have to pay extra. There are cheaper alternatives that are arguably better or worse. You go where you feel comfortable. You go where your friends are. You go where you think the services will be better.

When Millions upon Millions of people are happy paying for the service, why should they change it? You pay premium prices for premium services. Thats pretty much it. Thats life. If you dont like it or cant afford it then that cheaper option is open to you. Microsoft dont force you to buy an Xbox. You do that out of your own free will. If paying to use the online really, really bothered the consumer that much... Then the consumer would go to the competition instead.

Do you not like it when people refute your biased, factually incorrect posts? Then don't make them.

If I trolled into a PS+ thread and said "LOL ur ps+ games only work online and if u change consoles then guess what gotta pay again LOL", I would expect a number of people replying correcting me. And I wouldn't be surprised if people who actually use PS+ replied laughing at the idea that I can read stuff on the Internet and get the same level of expertise as someone who actually uses the service.

Doesn't apply to me though, since I love my PS3 and use PS+.

The 360 sells "bad" in Spain because it is a Sony dominated market. Its loyal. Sony put a fairly big focus on Spain, Portugal and in general anywhere that speaks Portugese and Spanish. The Kinect impact also wasnt felt as strong in many countries at the time of release. It only supported 3 languages - "English, Japanese and Mexican". Yes. Mexican, not Spanish. I shit you not. The lack of French and German support also really hindered the launch of Kinect in Europe, and as we know Kinect has been key to the 360's success from 2010 onwards.

Oh, so you bought your phone. Yet you have to pay more to use services your phone offers. Right.

Youre paying to talk to someone, rather than going to see them. Youre paying a premium to write messages to someone, instead of telling them in person or taking the time to actually send them a letter/postcard/whatever. I mean, talking to people has always been free. Why should I have to pay a premium to talk to someone? Why should I pay per minute to talk to my friend who lives 5 minutes away?

You choose to buy a phone and you choose to pay for the extra services. Why? Because its convenient. Your friends have phones and it generally makes things quicker and easier. I think this is very similar to Live. You buy into the console knowing that if you want to use other features you have to pay extra. There are cheaper alternatives that are arguably better or worse. You go where you feel comfortable. You go where your friends are. You go where you think the services will be better.

When Millions upon Millions of people are happy paying for the service, why should they change it? You pay premium prices for premium services. Thats pretty much it. Thats life. If you dont like it or cant afford it then that cheaper option is open to you. Microsoft dont force you to buy an Xbox. You do that out of your own free will. If paying to use the online really, really bothered the consumer that much... Then the consumer would go to the competition instead.