Shit, I'd rather have the choice to buy some virtual boots or furniture as "showoff items" to my friends than be forced to pay $50 to play with them.

What Sony says about XBL is strange but it's true. SF2 HD remix + WipeoutHD/burnout + PixelJunk monsters > paying to play online.

XBL is worth it in mine and many other peoples opinion if you dont think so then dont buy it end of story

I still can't believe people defend the fact that that Microsoft charges for xbox live.
How does sticking up for them really help you?? It doesn't, it puts in the same position before where you're forced to pay for the service to play online.

If all these features are so valuable, why can't they just not have cross game voice chat, (and all the other so-called superior features) with silver, but offer free online pay with Silver. People would surely pony up the money to pay for the wonderful features, wouldn't they?

This dude is funny.

  I also like beer!

The reason why you pay for xbox live-An attempted Explanation

Source: http://pa1nkill3r.gametrailers.com/gamepad/

Ok so I see a lot of people on the forums don't understand why XBOX Live has a fee, Hopefully here I can explain it a little to you and then you can re assess your thoughts about paying or not.

Xbox Live and what your paying for - Basically MS provide every developer no matter how big or small a chance to take there game on line with minimal fuss as it provides them with the tools and service to get there game LIVE.

Now what this means is that even the smaller developers who make titles for the XBLA for example can easily offer players multiplayer modes because they don't have to foot the bill. the reason for this is because with Live Microsoft built themselves a system - This system takes care of things like Achievements, Chat Functions, Messaging Functions, Cross game invites and lastly the online functions. For developers they simply have to plug in there features with the Microsoft system and there game instantly supports all of features Live has to offer.

On PSN its the opposite - If a game wants to have multiplayer or chat the developer has to foot the bill and build there own system An example is COD4 - For COD4 Infinity ward has servers maintained and run solely for the purpose of the PS3 version of COD4. Whilst on 360 MS does it for them, This is why you see things like different friends lists for different games and different TOS for each title as its all not linked together.

This is the reason you see almost every release on XBLA offer multiplayer even from the smaller developers and the games on PSN tend not too unless there from a big developer or receive some kind of patch down the line.

Why do you think MS can offer private chat functionality across different games because every game is running off there service. This system is why Microsoft can implement new features easily on have every game instantly support them, even older titles as every game is all linked into the same system. For example the upcoming 8 player party system can be used with every game without any additional or individual tweaks as its all integrated and linked.

 Now you can form your own views if you think this is worth a subscription fee but no matter what your opinion is this is why you pay for Xbox Live. Thanks for Reading.

Great response!  I agree and think Sony will have to reverse their current strategy and copy MS's.  It makes better biz sense all around.

I'd prefer they didn't charge, sure, but they do. Rather than QQ about ~$3/month (which doesn't seem to change anything, either, FYI), I've decided to just get on with life.

Not really sure how cross-game voice chat is a "so-called superior feature" to the alternative of... no cross-game chat. It is quite obviously superior. And for me, at least, it's also a huge feature which I use every day.

THEY MAKE A POINT.

There's one MASSIVE problem with that, Heroe. When using live the servers don't host the games, they just act like a matching service, so the bulk of the cost is not put on MS but your ISP. That PS3 CoD4 server barely costs a thing if it functions the same way as live does. Hell, battle.net proves it's pretty damn cheap to host the game on your own server, let alone putting up with this Live! bullshit where you have to host your own games.

Again, what justification is there for the cost of live? If you got everything Sony offers for free, would you really pay $50 a year for the handful of extra features? I doubt it.

As it is, I can't even imagine paying for the honor of hosting your own games (to the dismay of most everyone else who is playing) when better companies like Blizzard save you the trouble and (should you be charged for bandwidth usage) costs that MS won't take upon themselves.

Isn't this the same developer that said that people will work extra hours to buy a PS3? And that the PS3 could sell units without any games based on brand name alone?

Yeah Sony. You can keep your free, inferior, service. Even non-paying X360 owners that go online get more content than PS3 owners by a massive long shot.