so why exactly is MS still charging us $50 a year for live? [enough arguing]

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wwe101

wwe101

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is it not enough that we already bought the game at $60. i am using my internet connection to get on live, so what are they charging us for? its not like the $50 is to provide an internet connection for live
 
Yeah really.

I mean I can send cross-game invites, stream Netflix, have cross-game parties and download demos for every single PSN title for free on the PS3...right?...RIGHT!?
 
I use to complain myself about the price, and thought I won't use it much or enough worth buying a year. I was wrong, and it is worth it. If you search around you can get it cheaper than 50. At one point it was 40 during some promotional thing. Even at 50 a year that isn't that pricey. It would be a little over 4 per month If you want to look at it that way.
 
[quote name='A Happy Panda']Yeah really.

I mean I can send cross-game invites, stream Netflix, have cross-game parties and download demos for every single PSN title for free on the PS3...right?...RIGHT!?[/QUOTE]



i dont care about all of that, i just want to be able to play a game online, and i dont want to be charged for using my internet connection which i already pay for.

ohh and you can download game demos and watch movies on ps3 to, and you have to pay extra for netflix, you dont get it free with xbox live
 
The Simple CAG Response:
If you're paying anywhere near $50 for each year of XBLive you're doing it wrong. Severely wrong. While there usually aren't amazing $25 deals for it every day you should be able to find it for $30 to $35 at least several times a year.

A More Complicated Response:
Beats me and beats almost everyone else as well. Infrastructure? Maintenance? The salaries of everyone working on the service? In order to maintain online service for the majority of the 360 and original XB catalog? Hard to gauge, really. MS knows and they don't feel like saying, really.

All I know is that it usually comes down to whatever value you place upon it. Since I'm still paying a little over a dollar a month for Live over the past four years, I'm pretty content.
 
What servers? 360 games do not get game servers, they are all peer 2 peer. PS3 games like Warhawk have dedicated servers running paid for by sony themselves. Live is an awesome service, but charging for it is pure garbage. You can defend it all you want, but it should be free. If they made playing online free and everything else paid for by gold (netflix, party chat, useless crap like that), i'd drop gold in a heartbeat and never look back.
 
[quote name='Purkeynator']because people pay it[/QUOTE]

Pretty much

[quote name='TheRock88']Do you have a PS3? Have you ever played a game online with it?[/QUOTE]

Oh! oh! I have! =D
 
[quote name='TheRock88']Do you have a PS3? Have you ever played a game online with it?[/QUOTE]


no i have a 360 and my live ran out, but i am considering getting a ps3 for MW2 for the free online instead of dropping another $50 on live. is there anything i should know about the about playing online with the ps3? i really dont care about invites and chat parties, as long as i can play a a match of call of duty online with no lag, i will be fine
 
[quote name='wwe101']i dont care about all of that, i just want to be able to play a game online, and i dont want to be charged for using my internet connection which i already pay for.

ohh and you can download game demos and watch movies on ps3 to, and you have to pay extra for netflix, you dont get it free with xbox live[/QUOTE]

Demos are not available for every single PSN title.

I didn't say Netflix was free, but since the 360 is now the exclusive game console with Netflix streaming, it's not even an option on the Ps3 anymore.

If you don't care about all of the things people have listed...get a PS3 already. No one is stopping you but yourself.

And like others have said, if you're dropping $50 on year-long XBL cards...you're doing it wrong.
 
[quote name='blitz6speed']What servers? 360 games do not get game servers, they are all peer 2 peer. PS3 games like Warhawk have dedicated servers running paid for by sony themselves. Live is an awesome service, but charging for it is pure garbage. You can defend it all you want, but it should be free. If they made playing online free and everything else paid for by gold (netflix, party chat, useless crap like that), i'd drop gold in a heartbeat and never look back.[/QUOTE]

Seriously?!?!!? Live is PEER TO PEER?!?!? My gawd, if that is true then MS has found another way to screw its customers. Thats what they excel at so why am I surprised. I guess that I wouldn't have thought they could trick people into paying for something that is already theirs. WOW!

Can anyone else comfirm that 360 games run p2p?
 
[quote name='wwe101']no i have a 360 and my live ran out, but i am considering getting a ps3 for MW2 for the free online instead of dropping another $50 on live. is there anything i should know about the about playing online with the ps3? i really dont care about invites and chat parties, as long as i can play a a match of call of duty online with no lag, i will be fine[/QUOTE]


Yeah, I have played a bunch of ps3 games online. Especially the popular ones with heavy traffic. No problems. I don't know why people dog PSN. They probably have never played it.
 
[quote name='joeboosauce']Can anyone else comfirm that 360 games run p2p?[/QUOTE]

There's no dedicated servers man, would be a bad idea anyway because eventually you would no longer be able to play the game. Not even with a friend online. :cry: However there's some companies that offer the option for both, can't think of one for the 360 at the moment.
 
PSN was laggy for me when I had DSL....now that i got 20MB fiber, I dont notice the difference between XBL and PSN.

Lesson of the day: get a decent connection :D
 
No.

Lesson of the day: Set your shit up right and both will not only be equal, but work better.

Also, Windows Live is better than Xbox Live, I win!
I'm just being an ass now, lol.
 
In short - people are stupid and easily part with their money. I've played on consoles and PC for years. Everything has been FREE. Never a problem outside of occasional (and expected) lag if you connect to a long-distance game. There is nothing that Live provides that can't be had better on a free service. Wii, PS3, PC, DS, PSP, you name it.

I just wish M$ customers weren't so stupid to accept this without asking questions, but I guess that's typical M$ policy. Hook the kiddies and rip them off at every opportunity.
 
[quote name='DPsx7']In short - people are stupid and easily part with their money. I've played on consoles and PC for years. Everything has been FREE. Never a problem outside of occasional (and expected) lag if you connect to a long-distance game. There is nothing that Live provides that can't be had better on a free service. Wii, PS3, PC, DS, PSP, you name it.

I just wish M$ customers weren't so stupid to accept this without asking questions, but I guess that's typical M$ policy. Hook the kiddies and rip them off at every opportunity.[/QUOTE]

Nothing you say?

Hmm...
 
[quote name='DPsx7']In short - people are stupid and easily part with their money. I've played on consoles and PC for years. Everything has been FREE. Never a problem outside of occasional (and expected) lag if you connect to a long-distance game. There is nothing that Live provides that can't be had better on a free service. Wii, PS3, PC, DS, PSP, you name it.

I just wish M$ customers weren't so stupid to accept this without asking questions, but I guess that's typical M$ policy. Hook the kiddies and rip them off at every opportunity.[/QUOTE]

Geez, now you're here on CAG too? Go back to A@H with your lame gimmick.
 
[quote name='DPsx7']In short - people are stupid and easily part with their money. I've played on consoles and PC for years. Everything has been FREE. Never a problem outside of occasional (and expected) lag if you connect to a long-distance game. There is nothing that Live provides that can't be had better on a free service. Wii, PS3, PC, DS, PSP, you name it.

I just wish M$ customers weren't so stupid to accept this without asking questions, but I guess that's typical M$ policy. Hook the kiddies and rip them off at every opportunity.[/QUOTE]

Yeah, because every other company is looking to NOT make money. I don't know why this keeps coming up over and over again. If you don't want to pay for Live, by all means get a Wii, PS3, or pc, no one is forcing you to do anything.
 
[quote name='distgfx']Topic Title: so why exactly is MS still charging us $50 a year for live?

Entire Thread: PSN suuuucks![/QUOTE]

We need some racial slurs, some 12 year old boys calling us names, and of course phrostbyte to tell us how superior 360 is to ps3 in everyway, and we'll have the essence of Xbox Live here on CAG!
 
[quote name='refusedchaos']PSN was laggy for me when I had DSL....now that i got 20MB fiber, I dont notice the difference between XBL and PSN.

Lesson of the day: get a decent connection :D[/QUOTE]


will psn run fine on 1.21 mbps dsl? i know my live did
 
[quote name='docvinh']Yeah, because every other company is looking to NOT make money. I don't know why this keeps coming up over and over again. If you don't want to pay for Live, by all means get a Wii, PS3, or pc, no one is forcing you to do anything.[/QUOTE]
End of thread
 
I use both PSN and Steam.

PSN needs a few improvements but is actually a pretty solid service. I can send messages to freinds while I am playing games, send them a invite on certain games like Rock Band 2, and WipEout HD. Leader boards are available for most games, and PSN has many great downloadable games. Most of the time PSN runs fine for me. Also I have a mic. The problem is that I use a Rock Band USB mic. :lol:

Steam I think is the best since I can invite friends or view the games they are playing. I can also see which server they are on and just click JOIN which starts up the game on my PC and connects straight to the server they are on. I can also chat with any of my friends with voice or text while playing games by pressing the HOME key and bringing up the Steam menu during game play (kinda like pressing the 360 button and bringing up the small dashboard). Steam has many great games for download including many that are available on PS3 and Xbox 360 for cheap including GREAT weekend deals like the Orange Box for 9.99.

Both of these services are free with almost no ADs present while Xbox Live is 30 - 50 dollars for 12 - 13 a month with ADs in certain parts of the dashboard. Now if Xbox Live was free it would beat up both PSN and Steam, but until then. I recommend these two services over Xbox Live.
 
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[quote name='TheRock88']Compared to PSN and Wii, I'll gladly pay for XBL.[/QUOTE]


This. And if you pay more than $40 for Live you're either lazy or stupid.
 
Because:

1) Microsoft likes to make money
2) People are buying it

Just think that the money you are paying for XBL is going into buying exclusives for the console, exclusive content, and towards making the Xbox 360 experience better.
 
charging 50$ for online alone would be a large rip-off. listen to the many people that enjoy paying and they'll probably be able to tell you why you should feel honored for ms to take your money with all the neat stuff it can do and whatever.

personally, i just want to play games online with friends so all those other features are worthless to me. its fun to have, but if i had the option of paying for the features + online gaming vs. just being able to join a game and play online with other people, i'd take the online gaming only option, which ms does not provide.

as a pc gamer, we use a wide variety of software to meet our gaming needs such as skype or ventrillo for voice chat, xfire to see what games your friends are playing, etc. some games have that built in but usually it is of poor quality. steam is probably the closest thing we have to the xbox live experience on the pc (though it is free). the games themselves have the features that xbox live likes to promote, such as inviting your friends into your games, so the games devs take care of these things (or rather have to take care of these things) rather than letting xbox live handle it.

however, since ms is able to control their console as they wish, of course they wouldn't open it up to free alternatives like the pc has. instead, they can "conveniently" bundle all that software into the "xbox live experience" and charge for the convenience while their pr dept is busy convincing you that its worth it. as a little side bonus you get to play games online too.

i personally do not care for xbox live, but if i want to play games online on my 360 with friends, what choice do I have? and that is one of the biggest weaknesses of the 360 is the lack of choices. you either get online gaming + whole bunch of other stuff, or no online gaming. there is no happy medium.
 
I don't have a problem with it--especially since it's easy to get 1 year cards for $35 or so online regularly.

The matchmaking, cross game invites etc. are great. And I'd pay that much just for the Netflix streaming alone.
 
Maintenance.

They can have my money, gladly, so that if it starts sucking like PSN can, I can yell at them for the service I'm PAYING for.

Shutup or don't pay for Gold.
 
If XBox Live silver accounts had the exact same feature set of PSN, only in the 360 environment, how many would be so willing to pay the 30 bucks a year for the extra features for Gold?
 
Again, I'd pay that much extra just for the Netflix streaming. I haven't played a game online in probably 6 months anyway.

I'll probably get back into it with Modern Warfare 2 though.
 
[quote name='Maklershed']This. And if you pay more than $40 for Live you're either lazy or stupid.[/QUOTE]
Mak prefers to use the free online service to send games invites to people that don't own the game he wants to play over and over again.
 
[quote name='Poor2More']PS3 online is a train wreck, Yes I own one, but I dont mess with it unless its an exclusive PS3 online game[/QUOTE]

I'm curious as to WHY you think its a train wreck. I get virtually NO lag. I have a good connection. Maybe that is why people gripe about it? Are you saying that only exclusives have a good online experience? I've played some mediocre games with not many players, but that would be the fault of the game being mediocre not the network. KZ2, R2, Motorstorm, LBP, etc all play great.
 
[quote name='wwe101']so why exactly is MS still charging us $50 a year for live?[/QUOTE]
I think the better question is "why is the Xbox 360 wifi USB dongle still $100?".
 
Anyone who truly thinks XBL connection quality is vastly superior to PSN is just a fanboy. I have both, and they both work equally fine and have their same share of connection issues once in awhile. MS should not be charging us to just play online, it's ludicrous at this point. If they want to charge us for all the extra crap we can do on there (parties, demos, netflix, etc) then whatever. Unfortunetely, since people still pay for it, it will never be free. Quite a shame, really.
 
[quote name='joeboosauce']I'm curious as to WHY you think its a train wreck. I get virtually NO lag. I have a good connection. Maybe that is why people gripe about it? Are you saying that only exclusives have a good online experience? I've played some mediocre games with not many players, but that would be the fault of the game being mediocre not the network. KZ2, R2, Motorstorm, LBP, etc all play great.[/QUOTE]

I just want to add in my 2 cents. I say PSN sucks cause of the download times of game updates and DLC from the store compared to XBL. For a game update, it takes like 10-30 minutes to download while it only takes about 5-6 seconds on the 360. System updates? Same thing.

For downloading demos and DLC, an avg 700 mb file takes about 30-35 minutes on the 360. On the PS3? About 50 minutes up to an hour.

As for playing games, I notice a bit of lag when playing COD4 when a lot of action is on the screen. Now I dont know if its cause the PS3 cant handle it or if its PSN, but I have no lag at all with the same situation when playing the 360 version.
 
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