Xbox Live has recently celebrated its 10th birthday, and there is no doubt that the service has come a long way since it was unleashed on the gaming masses in more primitive times. The ground-breaking service offered console owners an opportunity to live the worldwide multiplayer dream, but at the cost of the infamous annual subscription that seemed like a fair trade-off at the time.
The world has rapidly moved on and changed since 2002, and customers are a much more sophisticated/savvy bunch where they are used to paying a fee to avoid advertising. To charge people a fee for a premium service only to then offer nothing but advertisement is considered bad form for even the most laid-back gamer.
The Xbox 360 launched in North America 18 years ago, and is now officially old enough to buy you a drink in Europe.
Great platform, and many of its games (not bc) still hold up well to this day. Like the PS3, I keep a 360 hooked up for those games you can't play any other way.
The last gasp of greatness from XBox, you are missed, except the RROD that was lame, but amazing exclusives until the Kinect dropped.
I really enjoyed my X360, some great exclusives on it. Used to play the shit out ot Blue Dragon and Lost Odyssey, two masterpieces
It's been 20 years to the day since Xbox Live brought online play to consoles.
I remember when Live turned five and they had special edition controllers made and everything. Kind of wished they would do that again for the 20th.
Happy Birthday. OG XBL (and later 360 XBL) really revolutionized online gaming on console.
Never understood the obsession with live...but I was gaming online on PC so not sure too much of what live did that the PlayStation didn't.
Today would of been the perfect day to drop halo 2 the original bc version free on gwg.... If only
Xbox Live 1.0, the first instance of online servers for the original Xbox, is set to return via Insignia, a free third-party service that's currently compatible with 20 titles, such as Call of Duty: Finest Hour and Counter-Strike.
Yes, it should. It should also mean more stable dedicated servers for games (which is not always the case) and the occasional freebie.
But there are people who will defend Xbox Live to the bitter end no matter what.
Whatever. I've had better things to spend my money on for quite a long while.
Absolutely. The money MS makes from ads are far more than enough to pay for XBL but they still charge people additional money anyway. That's just plain greed. When you download a free app on your phone you get ads but when you pay for that app it gets rid of the ads. That's how that is supposed to work.
Tv is not a fair comparison, cause all television providers have commercials. The fact that I can use steam and psn for free, without them trying to shove a ford focus and old spice down my throat like Xbox live, is what makes live seem like a joke.
Yeah because promoting your products and one unnoticeable unrelated ad is a sin! Sony should do it too, go to the PS Store it's FILLED with adverts everywhere.....how dare they try and run a business, the gaming industry is a charity!
People pay for tv channels, there is commersial there. So why not on XBL?