Should we have to pay for XBL?

Do you guys think Xbox Live should be free? Or is MS' service deserving of a fee?

For on year it is: AU$79.95 in Australia, 59.99 in Europe and $49.99 in the US. Is this a fair price for the service or is it about time that MS made it available for free?

The features of XBL are quite extensive but the competitors are now slowly catching up to XBL's services, while the PC has many of the features and apart from a few subscription based games, it is for free and it has done it for many years now.

Should we have to pay for XBL? Please vote in the poll so we can get a good representation of what the majority of SW thinks about this. Also comment as to why you have this opinion (and to keep the thread alive for more votes).

What do you guys think?

Yes, it's fine/ It allows for many things.

Unified Service

Well maintained

Open source for devs

Actually no, we shouldn't. The PS3 gets dedicated servers, why don't the 360 users? PSN IS FREE M$ FREE!

I am sick of getting crappy lag and host advantage. Seriously, it's time MS start buying Dedicated Servers. It's not like they're poor.

no

14 cents a day seems fine to me, it's too small an amount ot really give a damn about. I more than likely walk by more than that amount every day just laying around on the floor.-RPGamer-

$80 (AU) is the price for XBL here for a whole year. If MS made that free, that 80 bucks would buy a game (Halo 3 is priced at $79 over here) so I personally would like to see MS get rid of the XBL fee.

[QUOTE="trinawoods"]I simply don't understand why they are charging for Peer 2 Peer online play... farrell2k

Can you provide proof that it is nothing but P2P? Did that come from MS, or some 3rd party web site or individual NOT involved with the maintanance and or creation of live? Live was born from SegaNet (MS bought it from sega), wihich was server based.

you can tell the games run on P2P...there wouldnt be a host advantage with dedicaded servers.....

also if the game shuts down, or has a long "switch of control" when the admin leavs...thats a pretty obvious indictator.

You don't have to pay MS, they just want more of your money.X_CAPCOM_X

They ALL do... and you're a fool if you believe otherwise...

No, which is why I don't pay.

I just made a new gamertag to play Halo 3 online with the free 1 month. Once it expires i'm not paying for it again until Saints Row 2 is released. (Me and my friend are going to co-op the campaign) so i'll only pay $8.

When I first got my Xbox 360, I paid for it. But now its not even worth it, why? Everyone quits, nobody can take a loss, bad record or just can't accept the fact that people are better than them. In Gears of War, everyone started quitting in my games until the point where it came down to a 2 v 1 most of the time. In Madden, ha. I've never made it past the third quarter cause everyone starts crying about how the game is bulls*** cause I got 9 interceptions and im beating them by like 4 TDs.

I've encountered quitters in every game, and for that reason its not worth paying for. If people learned to accept the fact that they are not a gaming god and that every now and then they're going to enounter someone better than them, then sure i'll pay for it. Until then, im just fine playing against the CPU because they'll never quit on me.

14 cents a day seems fine to me, it's too small an amount ot really give a damn about. I more than likely walk by more than that amount every day just laying around on the floor.-RPGamer-

I think about it the opposite way.

$50 per year over the course of 4 or 5 years, the span of a normal generation, amounts to $200-$250.

For many people, XBL is worth the price, but I simply can't justify paying for that when I don't have a lot of time to play during the school year and I've been used to playing online PC games for free for so long.

Oh, and why are people adding XBL to the cost of the 360?

You might aswell add the games and in the end, $200 isn't really much compared to what we spend in a gen. When you spend anywhere from $1000-$10,000 on gaming the price of XBL is really insignificant IMO.

I'm not saying that charging for it is ok, but do not add it the console price and try to make it seem like the Xbox 360 is more expensive than the PS3.

This thread is full of some really, really dumb responses.musicalmac

This thread is full of some really, really dumb responses.musicalmac

HAI THERE WELCOM TO SYSTEM WARZ

Oh, and why are people adding XBL to the cost of the 360?

You might aswell add the games and in the end, $200 isn't really much compared to what we spend in a gen. When you spend anywhere from $1000-$10,000 on gaming the price of XBL is really insignificant IMO.

I'm not saying that charging for it is ok, but do not add it the console price and try to make it seem like the Xbox 360 is more expensive than the PS3.

-ReD45

It's what the fanboys do... Funny thing is they don't seem to mind spending extra $$$$ on wii accesories or PS3 bluray moives ect.. :|

Oh, and why are people adding XBL to the cost of the 360?

You might aswell add the games and in the end, $200 isn't really much compared to what we spend in a gen. When you spend anywhere from $1000-$10,000 on gaming the price of XBL is really insignificant IMO.

I'm not saying that charging for it is ok, but do not add it the console price and try to make it seem like the Xbox 360 is more expensive than the PS3.

-ReD45

Well, it's not part of the console itself, but it is part of the console experience.

The fact of the matter is that the Xbox 360 experience--complete with online--costs more than the PS3, but the online aspect of the Xbox 360 experience is superior to that of the Playstation 3.

In other words, you get what you pay for. I personally don't pay for it, but I recognize that lots of people think it's worth it, and that's what's keeping XBL going.

However, I do believe that at some point in the future, competition from PSN will force Microsoft to at least lower the price of XBL.

[QUOTE="-RPGamer-"]14 cents a day seems fine to me, it's too small an amount ot really give a damn about. I more than likely walk by more than that amount every day just laying around on the floor.fuzzysquash

I think about it the opposite way.

$50 per year over the course of 4 or 5 years, the span of a normal generation, amounts to $200-$250.

For many people, XBL is worth the price, but I simply can't justify paying for that when I don't have a lot of time to play during the school year and I've been used to playing online PC games for free for so long.

$200-250 is nothing over the span of 4-5 years. Hell I blow more than that in gas intwo weeks going to work. That's not even a quarter of my house payment a month.

Seriously it's such a small amount that I don't care.

You don't have to pay MS, they just want more of your money.X_CAPCOM_X

[QUOTE="fuzzysquash"]

[QUOTE="-RPGamer-"]14 cents a day seems fine to me, it's too small an amount ot really give a damn about. I more than likely walk by more than that amount every day just laying around on the floor.-RPGamer-

I think about it the opposite way.

$50 per year over the course of 4 or 5 years, the span of a normal generation, amounts to $200-$250.

For many people, XBL is worth the price, but I simply can't justify paying for that when I don't have a lot of time to play during the school year and I've been used to playing online PC games for free for so long.

$200-250 is nothing over the span of 4-5 years. Hell I blow more than that in gas intwo weeks going to work. That's not even a quarter of my house payment a month.

Seriously it's such a small amount that I don't care.

Be that as it may,

Xbox Live is the only Online service that's being charged for

besides MMORPG's unlike PC,Wii, or PS3.

Well, if you can think of some other unannoying way to pay for the servers, then no we shouldn't.Vax45

don't you get it?

There are no servers...:|

If there were servers then yes 50$ a year is a Bargin.

It's all P2P.

what does microsoft use the money for??

certainly not dedicated servers..

[QUOTE="Vax45"]Well, if you can think of some other unannoying way to pay for the servers, then no we shouldn't.trinawoods

don't you get it?

There are no servers...:|

If there were servers then yes 50$ a year is a Bargin.

It's all P2P.

Then how the hell are you able to download arcade games?

EDIT: Oh, and how the hell do people get connected to each other? By going through each and every individual 360 out there?

[QUOTE="fuzzysquash"]

[QUOTE="-RPGamer-"]14 cents a day seems fine to me, it's too small an amount ot really give a damn about. I more than likely walk by more than that amount every day just laying around on the floor.-RPGamer-

I think about it the opposite way.

$50 per year over the course of 4 or 5 years, the span of a normal generation, amounts to $200-$250.

For many people, XBL is worth the price, but I simply can't justify paying for that when I don't have a lot of time to play during the school year and I've been used to playing online PC games for free for so long.

$200-250 is nothing over the span of 4-5 years. Hell I blow more than that in gas intwo weeks going to work. That's not even a quarter of my house payment a month.

Seriously it's such a small amount that I don't care.

That's fine, I'm not suggesting my choice applies for everyone. But as a poor college student, I don't have a lot of money to spend on games, nor time to enjoy that many.

So as a personal matter, $250 for a generation's worth of online enjoyment is not worth it to me (who knows? maybe when I'm working full-time I'll change my mind).

It's all a matter of perceived value. So at least for the foreseeable future, I will be getting multiplat, online oriented games for my (soon-to-be-owned) PS3 rather than my 360, because the PS3 offers a free (albeit inferior) online experience as opposed to the 360's.

Before I supported the idea, but realistically, there is no reason they should make us pay. With no dedicated online servers, only p2p it should defiantly be free, no excuses about that. bri360

There is one very good reason. They want to make money and people are willing to pay. If you don't think it's a good deal don't pay, just like every other product or service that costs money.

[QUOTE="trinawoods"]

[QUOTE="Vax45"]Well, if you can think of some other unannoying way to pay for the servers, then no we shouldn't.Vax45

don't you get it?

There are no servers...:|

If there were servers then yes 50$ a year is a Bargin.

It's all P2P.

Then how the hell are you able to download arcade games?

There is several games that have Dedicated Servers for xbox live.

[QUOTE="bri360"]Before I supported the idea, but realistically, there is no reason they should make us pay. With no dedicated online servers, only p2p it should defiantly be free, no excuses about that. JimmyT2

There is one very good reason. They want to make money and people are willing to pay. If you don't think it's a good deal don't pay, just like every other product or service that costs money.

Exactly, they dont need the money for their online. I dont usually renew my subscription every year, just when I want to play something online like Halo 3.