ummm.. what? You can't be serious can you?

...

Wait. You are. Nevermind.

Prediction: M$'s big E3 announcement will be that Live will no linger have a fee. 

Since all of you apparently want to bicker over $4/month, I'll put in some real requests:
1. Cross-game Clans
2. Dedicated host servers alongside peer servers, allowing games to go for the "epic battle" on XBL, like PSN does with Warhawk, Resistance, etc.
3. More media content... Get more movies and shows up there, MS.
4. A better player review system. The current one doesn't work.

Well, assuming your Xbox lasts 6 years it costs you $288 to have online service. Maybe they should just add that cost to "gold Live" 360s up front.

Xbox Live! is not innovative. It's just a subset of PC functionality put on a console. It's an inevitability. And in many ways its better on the PS3 (central servers instead of a peer server negate the 'host advantage' found in some games and make the experience better in general, etc).

But, hey, making a peer the server saves MS money. If they don't want to spend as much money on online as Sony does, that's fine. I've played GTA 4 games where the person hosting didn't have a fast enough connection.  IT sucks.

$288 over 6 years? OH NOES!!!!

Seriously, I agree that the service needs upgrading but losing a $4/month fee (which can be purchased on eBay for less than $3/month) is not the most important part of it.

dude...please read the following line...

YOU CAN HAVE FREE XBOX LIVE GOLD!

Create a different username every month. It asks you "do you want silver or gold"...you chose silver...it asks you again "Are you sure?"...say yes. then it tells you..."We are pleased to offer you 30 days of Xbox Live Gold".

Once that expires, do it again in 30 days...takes 3 minutes. You will have to migrate your freinds and lose gamescore points(Which wii doesnt have anyways) but its free...

If 4 bucks a month is too much to someone, this should keep those people happy.

But it is the easiest to fix and it would increase their userbase.

I'm not going to change my Xbox Live handle every month to save $4. It's not that big of a deal to me -- as Rocket says, it's only $288 for the life of the console. But, of course, you'll often be paying for service you don't use as my 360 gets a tiny fraction of the usage my Wii does, and only a subset of *that* is online play. Whereas my Wii gets quite a bit of online play: Smash with friends (which is a freakin' blast) and Mario Kart world wide (also a blast).

It's the hassle of having another monthly fee.  Seriously, most of us are probably paying about 2 grand per month for a mortgage, so $4 clearly pales in comparison.  But why the hassle of another monthly fee?   

The next thing to fix would be for MS to put a little money down and actually have dedicated central servers. If they want their online functionality to be a first class service, they need to offer dedicated central servers rather than simply allowing people to be the server for a game.

I agree 100% on the dedicated servers. They don't even need that many of them for each game because there are plenty of people who want to play with friends in small groups.

@TheBigFatJ

The wii is your prefference then. When I go on my wii I get a lot of silence as none of my freinds own it. Besides what % of wii games are online. Mario Strikers, Medal of Honor 2, Smash Bros, Mario Kart...any others?

The problem with your statement is that no one is arguing over paying 50/year for the extra services that XBL gold offers over their CONSOLE competition , the problem is that you PAY to play online (without changing your name every month and losing your achievements every time), which is the most basic aspect of online gaming. No one else does this except for Microsoft, for people like me (long time PC user) free online play is basic and always has been. I own all three consoles and split time pretty evenly for everyone (INCLUDING PC) do you think I want to spend extra $$$ just to have a chance to play online with a friend for just ONE of my consoles for select games?? I'm completly happy with the extra features that silver offers, but having to pay for playing with a friend is de-evolution of online gaming. There realy is no argument to be made here, silver should atleast include online gaming, gold can keep the demos, store content and exclusive betas.

I'm not sure -- I have tons of Wii games (over 20), so I'd have to look through the collection. Off of the top of my head, there is that list and also you'd add Guitar Hero 3 to it. Mario Strikers online is fun, but these days people are amazing at the game so competition is at a very, very high level.

But most console time I spend playing games online is clearly with the Wii, as I find its games simply more fun than the 360 games online. GTA 4 was okay, but the overall quality of the online service was very low, and it was much more fun with friends than with strangers. With Mario Kart, this isn't the case as two of us can play online together with 12 people from around the world and it's always a blast. I never notice any game issues due to latency, like I did with GTA 4 on the 360, and we never have a hard time finding a full game and playing 30 seconds after we decide to do so.

GTA 4 was much more difficult, as you'd finally lock down a crowd and start playing, then people would leave, then you'd end up with a dead server and no one else would join. It was pretty time consuming to get good games going with strangers.

Some game experiences you don't get on the Wii, which is why I have the 360. As much as I don't care about shooters on consoles, Rainbow Six Vegas 2 is still a fun game for the 360, and it's fun to play with friends. But my overall point is that you can do online as good or better, and you can do it without charging a nusiance of a fee.

It just feels like MS is trying to nickel and dime its users for a service that should either be a hell of a lot better, or it should be free.  And the very fact that MS points don't translate directly to dollars is intended to confuse the weak among us into thinking that they're spending less than they are.