I have a Gold Account on Xbox live and I have a brother who I will often share the Xbox 360 with. Since we're approximately the same skill level in most games it works out pretty well playing online. We also work together to unlock achievements on a specific game. However the problem comes in when you consider the social ramifications.

My brother is 15 and he is one of the people that if you met them randomly you might think he's incredibly annoying. We share a friends list and for some reason the people on it can't seem to tell the difference between my wonderfully matured tenor voice and his screechy pubescent ramblings. It also makes for odd conversation between the few friends I have in real life when they are talking about how great that match was on Halo 3 last night and I have no idea what they're talking about. For the most part the people we know are aware of the situation, but sometimes it results in odd happenings. A couple nights ago, one of my brother's friends was trying to figure out who was using the Xbox. It was actually my wife who was using it as a Media Center Extender and she had no idea how to respond to his question. I am considering disabling auto log-on.

The best solution would be to get a second Xbox Live Gold account, but that costs money. I have money, but my 15 year old brother does not. That means of course, I would have to buy this for him so I would not be inconvenienced. I hate that. I would prefer that Microsoft allow purchasing Gold accounts on a per console basis, but this isn't going to happen. It is just a small complaint I have.