Xbox live Why does it cost money.

[Apackof12Ninjas]

I said to never mind what I just said. I knew my argument was invalid shortly after I wrote it, hence why I put a strike through it.

Well, I can't blame you for trying.

When will people not get it through their thick skulls that XBL servers cost money to maintain.

WTF! There are no dedicated servers for XBL, only a few (literally a couple hundred) listen-only servers which just pass on the heavy lifting to the consoles in peoples homes where the games are hosted.

Who paid for the "servers"? You did, when you bought your Xbox 360!

Those "couple of Hundred" (would like to know where you got these "exact" numbers) still cost money. Also, PSN still costs money and Sony isnt making it up with just publishers. The pipers a coming and its time to pay up. Say hello to "PSN premium"

 

[Treblaine]

I said to never mind what I just said. I knew my argument was invalid shortly after I wrote it, hence why I put a strike through it.

Well, I can't blame you for trying.

When will people not get it through their thick skulls that XBL servers cost money to maintain.

WTF! There are no dedicated servers for XBL, only a few (literally a couple hundred) listen-only servers which just pass on the heavy lifting to the consoles in peoples homes where the games are hosted.

Who paid for the "servers"? You did, when you bought your Xbox 360!

Those "couple of Hundred" (would like to know where you got these "exact" numbers) still cost money. Also, PSN still costs money and Sony isnt making it up through publishers and users. The pipers a coming and its time to pay up. Say hello to "PSN premium"

Don't be DELIBERATELY ignorant. Those Listen-only servers do not cost even close to $60 per-user per-year, the running cost is so low if you buy just a single game in the entire lifetime of your xbox, then the licence fee for that will more than cover it. In fact the running cost is likely comparable to the servers for this very website considering the cost in in processing power not connections. So, how do you feel like being charged $60 per-annum for access to The Escapist?

News flash: Dedicated servers are not THAT expensive. publishers are more than happy to invest in dedicated servers so that they can boost sales by advertising such great features like "64 player online". It is the model that has been used by PC gaming for almost 2 decades now, it also gives MUCH more power to the publisher. XBL is completely dominated and oppressively controlled by Microsoft.

You keep on acting like PSN is an exception to the rule for not charging and that it can't go on (though it has been offering free online for almost as long as Xbox) - when it is Really the other way around, MICROSOFT is the exception! No one else in the history of online gaming has charged for online multiplayer and gotten away with it, PC has never had to charge for something a simple as an online deathmatch and that platform never had the benefit of a single corporation acting with oversight, it just happened spontaneously.

It's probably true that PSN is working on a premium service... but it is not for online multiplayer access. It actually aspires to truly honest capitalistic principals that if you expect people to pay more, you must OFFER MORE. Kaz Hiri has been explicit and TV adverts have made it doubly clear, free access to online multiplayer on PS3 is a HUGE selling point of the console that will not be sacrificed.

Any premium account seems to be for new media content like streaming movies or a game rental system.

Plus it would be false advertising, Sony legally can't suddenly put all online multiplayer behind a pay barrier because they advertised the console as that it would be free.

 

[akmarksman]

As I said above, it's not a clever or particularly brilliant system, it's functional but I can't see how an IT professional would be impressed with the setup, it's primitive and basic.

If you go to work and all you do all day is tech support(hardware and software) and you come home,fire up the 360 and take a minute to look things over..you might appreciate how it's laid out and implemented.

Take for instance,the Colt 1911 .45ACP,it's been officially killing people for almost a century.The US Military still uses it.It's design is considered "basic and primitive" but you still wouldn't want to get shot with it.

If you get tired of dealing with ID10T errors when people call up support,and you want something that just works..then the 360 system and LIVE is plenty good in my opinion

 

[Angerwing]

And yet people (including myself) do with no issue.

Maybe you shouldn't have a 360, you knew you'd have to pay for Live.

I personally couldn't afford anything else. In fact I bought the 360 Arcade, which comes with a 256mb memory card, with no hard drive because it was just cheap enough. At that time PS3s were running at almost double the price, so yeah...

 

[Caprice0083]

First off I only own a 360, but am trying to save the money to buy a PS3 by the end of 2010.

Ok, here is something for the PS3 fan-boys (I refuse to state gender beyond it, if your female and a fan-boy, your a fan-boy) first.

BOTH X box 360 and PlayStation 3 consoles LOSE money for the company. (Not sure on the exact amount lost, Google it if your interested.) The companies have to recoup those losses. A company is out to make money. Microsoft has done this by selling Xbox Live Gold Subscriptions, which is pure profit to them, along with Microsoft points.

PlayStation 3 has the "Point" system but without charging for a service they are still losing money. They can conceivably be getting their money from their movie company, TVs or any number of other ways. The real thing you should be asking yourself is "How long until Sony decides to start charging so they can break even?"

Now, for you PC fan-boys.

Let me put this is a simple sentence "How much money does it take for you to keep a computer UP TO DATE to play the newest games?" Computer technology moves way too fast on the whole for it to be a fair bit. Most people who use consoles (Myself included, though I do game on my PC a lot) would rather put their money to games/accessories instead of upgrading parts that go obsolete in a month.

A fairly good graphics card alone will run you from 100-300 dollars American, plus RAM, Hard Drives if yours is running out, a new processor and a better Motherboard. Plus a Windows system. (Sorry, Linux does NOT have the full capabilities for gaming that Windows has, or the game library available.) Your now looking at between 400-800 dollars, hm.... at about $50 a game your talking at between 8-16 console games.

I own both an X-box 360, a PS2, a SNES, a Sega Genesis,an N64, a PC and an old Mac. So my opinions are not changed by only the console I am currently on but the simple idea that I want to play a fun game. If you don't like the price of XBL, don't pay for it, no one is threatening you or anything you own to have it. So quit bitching about it.

Preach!!!

This just proves my point that there isn't anything free!

 

[Dys]

As I said above, it's not a clever or particularly brilliant system, it's functional but I can't see how an IT professional would be impressed with the setup, it's primitive and basic.

If you go to work and all you do all day is tech support(hardware and software) and you come home,fire up the 360 and take a minute to look things over..you might appreciate how it's laid out and implemented.

Take for instance,the Colt 1911 .45ACP,it's been officially killing people for almost a century.The US Military still uses it.It's design is considered "basic and primitive" but you still wouldn't want to get shot with it.

If you get tired of dealing with ID10T errors when people call up support,and you want something that just works..then the 360 system and LIVE is plenty good in my opinion

That's fine, but when they're giving out brand new assault rifles for free across the road it seems absurd to choose to buy the colt for anything other than historic appreciation (which is incomparable to the xbox live system as it has no historic appreciation).

Note: Sorry about the late reply, I've been out of the country for the past few weeks.