As long as the service is better than Nintendo and Sony's online offering, they can charge for it. Sony has always thought they could charge more for the PS3 because it's a "more quality product," right? Well, Xbox live is a more quality product than what its competition offers.

lol, best answer :)

for ever.... and whocares... you don't want it don't pay it..... like akuma587 said until people stop paying... i'm ready to pay.... other are too... why should they stop then... when I feel it's not worth which most likely will never happen as it can't lose in quality.... or 4 bucks a month becomes too much for me, which will probably never happen either.... so MS is pretty safe keeping it that way for a long long long while and who cares really ??? 4 bucks a month ??? come on people.... a tramp in the middle of the desert asking for money while cleaning your windshield can make that much a month....

Just Live? How about charging $80 for a rechargable rumble controller.
Or $120 for a mere 20GB HDD
or $120 for WiFi when PS3 and Wii have it for free.

Bad analogy lol PS3 is more expensive because it has WiFi, Bluray, comes with a recharable controller is a tried again and again brand, and doesn't break down as much.  Something that will double the cost of a 360.

PSN has like %85 of the features Live has; pales in comparision to the extras a PS3 comes with over a 360.

My cousin has it.  Live hardly has any features over PSN.  It's like being offered a car with no a/c and fabric seats for free and saying "nah, I'd rather pay full price $25,000 for the same car but get it with a/c and leather".

Live is not that much better, that is justyfies $70.

As a PC gamer, I never really understood the reason they wanted to charge with Games for Windows Live. I mean, nearly everything that other services did for free, I'd have to pay for or be gimped otherwise (not to mention be forced to use it with GFW games).

As for Xbox Live, I still don't see a reason to shell out for it. Sure, it has those features that people love to brag about, but the way I see it, they're charging me to play Halo 3 (for example) online. Even if the PS3 doesn't have all the things Xbox Live has, I can still play games online.

^^^That's actually a good analogy, Edguila. The funny thing is, a Silver Xbox Live user gets EVERYTHING a Gold user gets except online play. As a whole, I say XBOX Live is worth $50 dollars. It's much better than the PSN. Still, if all they're charging for is online play, I say MAKE THE WHOLE THING FREE.

(I've had a change of heart in the last week)

xb live destroys psn, in content. psn has alot of catching up to do yet, and their downloads take way too long compared to xbl. also xbl costs $50 for a year and for everything u get it is well worth the price. psn has about 50% of xbl features so far, psn wont be a decent rival to xbl for at least another year and by then the improvements to xbl this fall and what comes out next year, will put xbl still far ahead of psn.

I have no problem paying for live.
I seldom play online so have no need to pay.
Bottom line live is brilliant and worth the small monthly fee.

I'm fairly certain that you also don't get demos until a week or two after Gold members (I can't say for sure since it's been quite a while since I tried to DL a 360 demo).