Of course its more than that, but online gaming is the crux of Live Gold, if they made online gaming availible for Silver, you wouldn't even get 1 tenth of the Gold member they currently have.

Live is great and by far the best Online gaming expirience currently availible, saying that however PSN is also hardly a joke as you've stated. Sure its missing a few feature but it still a great alternative that doesn't cost me anything.

I wouldn't pay 60 Europes per year...maybe 60 Asias, or 45 Antarticas...

you guys sound like robots. you should "like" having to pay for online play. But that doesn't mean that you can't "put up with it" since you like the online so much.

seriously after playing the free month you get when you buy an xbox, I wasn't impress that much with xbl, I mean you get a lot of stuff that are not related to gaming and you still get lag, so what the point of paying when all you want is to play online with the less lag possible? The only thing that xbl is superior to PSN IMO is that the damn PSN wont accept my credit card

I agree with you that it is the best Online service at the moment and that we are forced to pay the price for it.

On the other hand, I'm still severly disppointed by PSN.

IMO, PSN is only a mix of copy/paste features while XBL is build around the NXE architecture, which allow direct/dynamic evolutions.

Thanks to NXE, the whole system "breath" when online.

Comparing the two systems via a list of features is the wrong approach...

you can find easily 13month Gold cards for less than 40euros.
besides you can either pay those 60euros to some charity for african kids or for 12months of online fun and we all know what is more fun.

I wouldn't since I consider I would be playing with the console over 5 years. So that would be around 300€ extra spent on the console. :/

With 60€ you could get a game or even 2 if you're a bargain hunter like me. :)

1 dinner out with my wife and 2 kids at a decent dining facility......or 1 years worth of the best online in console gaming. The choice is easy, XBox Live. I have a Gold membership, as well as my wife (after she got hooked on L4D she demanded her own account) so I guess make that 2 dinners.

I would gladly pay for PSN on my PS3 if it was comparable to Live......unfortunately with PSN, you get what you pay for.....literally. For a free service though, PSN is decent.......does lag a lot though....:(

Live is superior because its more intergrated, MS had a clear goal when the created the service and executed their plan with very little hiccup. The PSN by contrast is an ambitious but murky concept that was never fully fleshed out upon its inception and had to be proded by consumer demand and pressure from their competitor before it finally arrive at what it is today. For that I give Ms much kudo, much as I dislike their policy no one can deny that they brought about the 'online' revolution to this console generation.

I'm curious though, what exactly is your dissapointment with PSN? Is it purely base on the fact that it feels less intrinsic and intergrated when compare to Live? Or is their specific example you can quote? I'm not a very active Live/PSN member, I don't play online game very often and when I do, its usually with friend and on the PC, to me the most important feature of either service is the ability to play online.

The additional bells and whistle are nice, especially the downloadable games but I've yet to expirience a true dissapointment from either service, both give reliable online play, provide extended content both stand-alone & for my purchased games and neither has given me any major headaches, the only major flaw I will criticise PSN  for is the lack of cross-game voice chat function.

My expirience with gold membership is kinda lacking though, as I've only sample 1 month of it from a free coupon that came with my Lost Odyssey... Perhaps their is something I missed?

Yes. With Gold you can download demos one week earlier than Silver members.