Thoughts on Windows LIVE

Windows LIVE is coming out in both silver edition which is free to all and the gold edition which is about $50 a year to those who don't already have Gold XBL. Silver include basically:

A gamer card, Single Player achievements, chat/voice, PC to PC game matchmaking

 For charging $50 a year, MS adds only the following for Gold:

Cross platform gaming, MP achievements and a different matchmaking.

Would you be willing to subscribe to such a service on top of your ISP bill when you've been able to use the internet and matchmaking your whole life (likely depending on average GS age)?! It seems like this would only appeal to either the very conceited and talented who make MP achievements look outstanding instead of just like all the other XBL kiddies or those who aren't very good at PC games so want to be matched with the disadvantaged controller users. I find the whole situation ridiculous on MS' part and I hope and somewhat expect this to blow up in their faces. PC gamers have always enjoyed free play and internet use, I don't think we're about to start paying another $50 subscription for a little bit more.

What are your thoughts? (Btw, I know WLA has been in topics recently, but they were more like one word answers and none asked my questions) 

OH yeah, and only 3 games have even been announced so far:

Halo 2, Uno (WOO HOO!!!), and Shadowrun. 

I don't get why everyone is complaining. Nobody is forcing you to get the gold membership. The free silver account will do just as much as you usually do but with most of the Xbox Live features like friends list, achievements, gamercard, messaging...

Personally, I think it's a great idea. I can't wait until it is released. Does anybody know if Microsoft is going to have a separate program available for it tomorrow? 

I did nto know Pc gamers were this cheap but they are willign to spend $1000+ on new PC parts. It's a good thing I already have Live so this is a nice extra benefit. I just hope more games will use it.

We can do all that Live does on PC already, and in time things like widescreen support and matchmaking will become the (a free)standard even without Live if that's what people really want. Also both gamers and even devs are worried that MS will want to charge for extra content, such as new multiplayer maps.

For those thinking that at least the Silver is still free. Well to my knowledge(could be wrong), devs can't offer the services that Live offers for free even if they wanted to, so if a dev wants to implement an in-game matchmaking system in the game, they cannot do that, the player has to pay for it via Live account, it will not be possible for the dev to offer that service free even if they wanted to. This might make Silver pretty useless, you will have to pay for Gold eventually. It also imo shifts developing mp elements to MS instead of game devs.

We already pay good amount of money for both the hardware and Vista, then extra for the internet connection and the game....and now they want to add one more cost for something they pulled out of tehir arses, plus possible costs for extra content. No way.

People say that uniting the services that used to be fragmented over xfire, ts etc. is a good thing. Personally I feel it makes PC more like a console, user has less and less control, and developing these things is more and more on the responsibility of one money hunger company. 

Also, MS has done a great job confusing people with this Vista/Live/cross-platform etc. crap. Lot of people seem to imagine that Halo2 has both DX10 and cross platform support, they seem to imagine MS is doing something new and saving PC gaming out of their good will by bringing achievements to PC, oh praise the lord! :roll: They've also been reluctant to give straight answers and there's little info around on anything regarding Live expect that stupid list of Silver and Gold "benefits" that keeps popping up everywhere.

No way in bloody hell. I'm not paying a fee to play online unless it's an mmo.BounceDK

Ditto, and as far as the silver membership goes, I have a 360, biggest waste of money I have ever made, and consequently I have a silver live account. It is a joke, and for PC is totally worthless. All it does is let me get patches and demo's and look at what is already on live, which I can get and see much easier at other places online with my PC. For the console market live is o.k. because it's consoles, but for PC it's the worst idea imaginable. The only way to really get anything out of LIVE is to have a gold membership, which is stupid for people on the PC, because you are paying for something that is horribly limiting and less than what you can and were getting for free. Not to mention the micro payment BS, which has you paying a fee in order to pay another fee.

My take on it is that the price is not an issue as I already sub XLG but I wouldn't bother if I didn't have the 360.

I can't imagine that the games can only be played via XLG - if so then that's way too restrictive for the PC environment and MS need to rethink their plans.

Ade.

I can only say one thing on this ...THEY CAN GO TOO HELL MICROSOFT IS ALREADY TAKING ALL MY FKING MONEY OUT JUSTE IN PC UPGRADES PLUS MY XLIVE ACCOUNT WITCH I CANCELED LIKE LAST YEAR I WILL NOT BE PAYING 50$ AYEAR TOO HAVE SOMETHING I ALREADY HAVE .