You can get it in the UK for £25 a year easily. I have had 5 years worth of subs for nothing buying controller and game packs with 3 - 12 month subs entering all the codes selling the games and controllers for pretty much what I paid for them on ebay.

So if you have half a brain it costs little or nothing.

Anyway I digress. WOuld I pay £50 ayear ? Yes Would I pay £100 . Yes. WOuld I move to PSN or p.c gamming etc ? No. Why ? All my friends are on live and at the end of the day you pay for whay you get. You cant get a p.c rig that does games anything like a 360 for £200 in fact you struggle to get a decent graphics card for that.

As for PSN it might be free but its also rubbish. No proper party system or unified comms. 8 player party chat. Lobby systems cross game messaging and voice comms..

Etc etc etc.

In any event they wont put the price up why would they it makes so much money for MS already they wont spoil the best and most successful subscription based console gamming platform will they.

$50 a week

The price is fine the way it is. I don't think they should raise it, let alone consider raising it to $100/year (which will not happen). Xbox Live multiplayer is the lifeblood of the 360. Tons of North Americans chose the 360 because they want to play with their buddies (who on average are more likely to own a 360. Which can be attributed to the 1 year head start + much better third-party support from last gen + successful first-party marketing campaigns). But if MS is going to make playing with your buddies more of a pain in the ***, by charging double, you're pretty much going to kill the 360. The consumer perception is that paying $4-5/month is worth it to play with their friends. But will they think it's worth it when it's $8/month? I don't think so. They'd feel really pissed off that MS jacked up the price like that.

I personally think that $50 a year is a tad high but XBL is worth it. If they raise it at all then I might say goodbye.

I would think anything more than $50 to $60 a month was too much. Heck...XBL is like a game, so I don't want to buy mroe than one game a month...that's only $500-700 a year...cheap! YOU NEED XBL...

I disagree with you on a couple of things.

I wouldn't go as far as to call PSN rubbish.  To play a game with your friends, it's usually just a matter of getting into the game and inviting them in.  The voice chat part takes care of itself.  I do agree with you that the communication system on PSN needs to be more robust--it can be a little confusing at times.  Cross game chat is probably coming soon, which may solve a lot of those problems--they will be forced to add in some kind of pop up party invite or chat invite screen if they do end up adding this as the rumors suggest.

PC gaming?  There are several options--Skype, Teamspeak, etc.  When I was PC gaming full time, it was no problem at all to start up a round of BF2 or CoD and be talking to all my friends at the same time.  All it took was a headset and a mic.  Games like BF2 have built in VOiP or you can use the other options.  Of all the gaming platforms, the PC is the most versatile for communications (just maybe not the most practical or cost effective.)

But when comparing the two consoles, their online services are now virtually identical:

PlayStation 3                         Xbox 360

XMB                                       NXE

PlayStation Store                  Marketplace

Home                                    Avatars

Trophies                                Achievements

Friends list                            Friends list

When comparing the the things they do differently, one sort of cancels out the other.  SO.....as PSN catches up more and more, it's going to be harder for people to justify the $50, $60, $70 etc. subscription price of Xbox Live.  The two services really aren't so different anymore.  The 360 has the slight edge because it's put together a little better, but it's not $50 better.  I still pay it because I have a group of people I like to play on Live with, but not really for any of its other features.

i'm a xbox Arcade owner, never went online and would never pay for online games.

so for me. $0.01.

Anything over $60 per year.

Not one cent more.

I actually thought the price would go down. But if it goes up, I don't want to pay more than $60.