microsoft would have to figure out another way to get almost a billion dollars in yearly revenue.

It would be the same experience as PSN.

It would be great, but it won't happen. If they made Silver include online play, then things might be different

Yeah, because that extra $50 for a YEAR (which you can usually get online at Amazon or other sites cheaper) is a real deal breaker, but paying an extra $100-$200 for a system with "free" online is fine right?

If you take the difference between the 360 Arcade and the recently reduced PS3 160 GB bundle, that's enough to cover 5 years of XBL at full price of membership.

And even if you don't wish to pay for Gold... you still have access to all of the movies, arcade games, and other DLC that's available on XBL, you just can't play online multiplayer.

@ nightdragon, firstly, you are comparing the most expensive PS3 with the cheapest Xbox, and then you would have to add some extra HDD space to get all that DLC. You also have to wait an extra week for DLC and you can't send messages over live from your computer

If the online was free I don't exactly think I'd be playing psn.

Why not compare the two.

PS fans always compare the cheapest Xbox to the most expensive PS3.

well, if live was free i wouldn't have unplugged my 360 in favor of a ps3. i had a 360, wanted to play online, did the math and figured i could either pay for live or get a ps3. since it was almost the same cost (over my expected lifespan of the consoles; 7 years = $350, i bought my ps3 at $323) i bought a ps3 and for all intents and purposes threw my out my 360.

It was a deal breaker for me. It wasn't the cost, it was that, at the time of me choosing a console, I didn't have a steady income, the initial console purchase and the proceeding year or so, I was tight on money, and so every game I chose had to have lots of replayability - making me pay for an online service would mean either having to buy fewer games (as I could only really afford 3/4 games in that year), or buying an extra game, and having cut back replayability on all my games.

Having a larger initial cost isn't as bad for people in my situation, as I would have burned through the money anyway, but the odds were that I probably wouldn't have the money around the time of requiring a subscription renewal.

So, yeah, it has effected sales... if only by one.

Because are you also going to buy Uncharted, a 160GB HDD and wi-fi to make them comparable? It is just stupid, and having to pay for Xbox Live is an annoyance. In the UK, if you got an arcade now, and then you paid for 3 1/2 years of live, you would basically have to pay the same price for the console as to play online.

My funadamental problem with it is that I have a PS3 and a 360, and say I am buying Modern Warfare 2. I pay £55 for both copies, but on the 360, that price does not really include the multiplayer, I have to pay an extra charge, and given that I only play on my Xbox online sporadically, the months that I have paid for Xbox live have cost me £5, so Gears of War 2 has cost me an extra £15 the very least to play online for a little while. It is just plain annoying that my money for buying a game is going into paying for the development of multiplayer, but I have to pay an extra charge to access that content

I know it is more fair with Netflix in the US, but we don't get that in the UK