Davedough of Just Press Start writes:
"There was once a time when I would argue until I was blue in the face over the merits of an Xbox LIVE Gold Subscription. It was a service that offered community type services and multiplayer protocols that were, for the most part, rock solid and gave the subscriber a real feeling of worth. What with voice chat, drop in-drop out gaming with friends, achievements, a thriving marketplace for demos and small downloadable games and a real sense of community, Xbox LIVE (XBL) seemed like a matter of pride. Plunking down your yearly fee seemed trifle in comparison to all that it had offered; but that was only because no one else was doing it quite as well."
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i think people pay for it out of habit so they dont mind
Or that little box in the corner of the screen that sometimes displays something else other than what is actually 360 related?
Did you just read what everyone else has psoted and decided to join in?
You so cwazy!
So basically this is a guy who let his Live account expire in April and now plays on Steam & his PS3. So now he's like I did it so you should do it..LMAO
Own em'all console wise and IMO Live experience is the best hands down this gen.
Hardcore 360 gamers arent giving up Live just because others have different preferences and want them too.
Why would you give up your playlist of friends, family, coworkers, and gamers you have gamed with for years just because someone tells you they have it free on a sysytem you may or may not own.
Why would millions 360 hardcore gamers give up play Reach, Mass Effect 3, Ghost Recon, Minecraft, Call of Duty, Battlefield, Gears of War 3, etc. some who play with premium subcription just stop because a fan blogger or some troll on the internet screamed bu-bubut they got an advertisment in an option box flashing on the screen..no fair'
I have true hardcore gaming friends all over the world and the Live experience is talked about all the time. Playing without Xbox Live party system on multiplayer is like going backwards IMO.
People knock Party chat until youve played for years and you can't anymore. People knock the apps on Xbox Live but I'll take app like ESPN. MSNBC etc over not having them anyday.
Regardless of what happens next gen and whether the price point for Live changes or not..I guarantee you Xbox Live is a HUGE factor as to why millions of games adopt 720.
Again, this is MY opinion. And I still say game on what you want to game..but that is YOUR choice..and your alone.
Evil
To be fair, complaints about non-gaming related ads is not like a new bandwagon people are jumping on. It's been a complaint since 360 launched. I don't have a 360 anymore, but I had one from launch (well the Feb after launch, but I had it pre-ordered), until September 2007, and I was lamenting about nearly half my screen being filled with "The King" from burger king's face on gaming forums back then. I can't comment on how much screen real estate is taken up by these kinds of ads these days, but it sure was an issue when I owned a 360.
@EvilDead
You're right. I don't think articles like this would ever sway the established, hardcore 360 base. For them, it's worth it, they love it, and they're likely to never NOT subscribe to Live. And really, there is no reason for them to change, at least not until it's time to make a new hardware choice in a couple years. EVen if they get a PS3, they won't have to pay any extra to play it online, so why drop Live if they're still loving their 360?
So in that way, the debate is invalid. But where the debate, or at least the information comparing the services is still VERY important, is for the still MILLIONS of gamers around the world finally catch up with the rest of us and move into this hardware generation. You'd be shocked I think if your realized how many gamers are still rocking PS2's and Xboxes. Based on hardware sales last gen, there are probably close to 40 million unaccounted for, mostly in poorer countries obviously.
Regardless of how much you've grown to like Live, would you suggest it to a new gamer just getting into this hardware over PSN and Plus if they asked which will get the most out of their money? There's alot to consider, so in that way, the debate is important to always be in the spotlight so people can get the info easily to make an informed choice.
Why would you give up your playlist of friends, family, coworkers, and gamers you have gamed with for years just because someone tells you they have it free on a sysytem you may or may not own.
funny thing is that you are paying for a list of friends inmagine if the whole internet does that good luck whit your pay list of dear friends
So funny.
But still, how many games do you get to play for free on XBL? And these aren't some half baked bottom of the barrel games, these are top quality titles.
Oppositely XBL cannot be ignored. If you want to play a multiplayer gamer in an era where most games have a multiplayer component, you have to get XBL. Anything added to it is just padding meant to justify it to the general market, with added features often coming with added costs and subscriptions.
All that said I'm not too happy with the idea of PS+ becoming more of a game leasing service than the discount one it began as if only because it makes the DL only titles popular.
KingME they want that part to go away, they don't like when you remind them they are paying for rentals.
It's just the way they work, it looks like this to me. "I hate Xbox Live because you have to pay for it, now excuse me while I pay for my PSN+ subscription"
Even better yet, people are paying to talk to people that are not playing the same game.
Sense. It makes none.
Sony mainly offers SINGLE PLAYER GAMES to Plus members. How long dos it take to beat a game? A week? Maybe that and then some if you're not hooked. By the time the year is over you would have finished all the games (not all of them you'd like anyway, so it's not like you're gonna be overloaded with shit to play before the subscription runs out) and what use are they to you anymore?
I bought Infamous 2 for $60 played it twice and used the UGC for like a week and haven't touched it since. PS + members get it for $50 along with LBP2 etc for an entire year.
Yup PS+ doesn't offer any real value /s
This service is optional and if you do quit the service then you are more than likely going to be done with the games. If not then the £5 a month you pay is still worth it to play those games for a month and still get the discounts.
If you don't think it's a good deal then you move on
Xbox Live= Rental
So there.
on xbox I don't get that option and thats the point.
if i play infamous 2, or little big planet 2 or w/e. beat it, put in over 50 hours and its included with my discounts aand everything else, i think i made out pretty damn good.
on my xbox i pay to play online and thats it, nothing else, no games discounts or anything. so i dont wanna hear "Technically its not free" Technically I can play and beat 20 games for the included price of psn+ and when i cancel my sub i would have beaten those games anyway, by then i would have traded it towards another one of those free games but instead would have had to pay.
see where its goin? ur failing, FUUU my friends, I can invite them over or go hang with them in RL if i wanna talk to them
For this gen anyway.
Sony may have cross chat and a couple other things PSN doesent have right now, but that may change.....as it should!
Happy Gaming everyone :)
This compared to the 180 I would have spent buying hard copies and the maybe 60 bucks I would have received when I sold them on Craigslist.
Spend 15 now or 120. Easy choice
LOL... You're saying things the opposite of the truth and this article, which is probably why this article exists(damage control of the truth as we know it as of today/holiday/near future.)
Did something happen in the last day or two when I've been gone evolved with politics? PS3 fanboys seem on edge trolling hard. PS3 fanboys getting more agrees than disagrees in 360 articles.
Fanboys will continue to downplay XBL gold's worth regardless of how much more it offers as long as Sony fans think they have something over the xbox
You're paying for the premium and evolution of XBL insuring the company is providing the service that pushes the limit of quality without bleeding the company to death. Mostly servers and server farms need the cutting edge tech and attention for all of It's unified features and services.
XBL has more in common with companies like Version and Comcast than run of the mill game servers in a warehouse.
So, if we pay for the service, why get rid of one of the more entertaining parts of it?
Inside Xbox isn't even CLOSE to a reason the 360 has evolved or even a reason why gamers love Xbox Live as a whole.
'So, if we pay for the service, why get rid of one of the more entertaining parts of it?'
Do you even have as Live account, because if your talking about the ancient 'Inside Xbox' as the MAJOR entertainment on Live you NEED an update. There is a ridiculous amount of entertainment on it.
Evil
1) There should be a free entry level multiplayer that doesn't require to pay again for games you've already bought. The value of games ends there. PC gamers can tell you that; they've been fighting off Microsoft's standards and their supreme desire for profit for years.
What is proposed, and it isn't ridiculous, is that Microsoft is more reasonable and give you more choice for once and have the advanced features of XBL as a premium array on top of what Silver members should get.
2) The fact that you are charged for definitively free applications each and every year on Xbox 360, and that it is accepted is a consumer standard that Microsoft has yet again trampled over without concern. Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and even subscriptions within a subscription, such as Netflix. I don't see how anyone pro-consumer can justify action like that. Apple and Google certainly don't think that's good practice and for good reason. Nor do the BBC who told Microsoft no, so they had no choice but to allow free access to that already free app. Why? Because they are only reasonable when their hand is forced.
Listen, it wouldn't be unreasonable if they charged you $3.99 per app that was on your account regardless of whether you had a Gold subscription or not. But they have it so you pay for universally free content. Insulting, however you look at it.
These are the only 2 things that REALLY bother me as a consumer, and they are reasonable and justified complaints that get swept under the carpet. Microsoft doesn't even need your billion dollars each year to maintain the truly advanced features of Xbox Live, and they certainly won't "go out of business" without it. So that argument in particular, is a ludicrously illogical and clingy one, that proves a fanboyish tendency.
Related video
Xbox live does have free games and downloads are faster, plus you don't have to install like you have to do on PSN. So it goes like this;
PSN = better price
Xbox Live = better service
And yes the gold subscriptions are well worth it.
Now bring on the disagrees.
I have downloaded two free games on my 360, one was Crash Course and the other was a racing combat game, can't think of the name.
I love crash course, great party game.
Why do people keep talking about $60? Does anyone actually buy Xbox Live Gold at that price? Here in South Africa you can get a 12 + 2 month Gold sub for R299 or $35.
"its not even worth a peso!"
But people loyal to other console just don't understand what they are missing because they never had it.
Because I still have my second 360 and I stopped paying for Live nearly a year ago.
Actually, I think most gamers have at some point played online on their PCs, which in its own right has the best online service and community over all other platforms.
Then you've got Playstation Plus, which is an incredible value for your money, considering you get 2 full AAA titles per month for free, with a total of 12 available at any given point in time.
The Wii is really more of an offline platform, where you can have great fun with friends and family alike playing silly games like Sports and Mario Party.
And then you've got Xbox Live.. Ads pushed in your face (even though it's already a premium service), have to pay to play online, and you don't really get many extras..
I think people are perfectly aware of what they're missing, and most are probably happy that they're missing it.
BTW, glad to hear you're skipping the next XBOX, please keep your promise.
Satellite radio is the same: you don't get all that programming elsewhere for free.
Microsoft is charging you for the EXACT same content and services you get everywhere else at no charge. Namely: online service. You've been getting charged for that since Day 1, before Cross game chat was even available.
Nobody would care if you were getting charged for whatever bonuses you get, but there's no way in hell you can justify paying to play online. And no matter how you wanna spin it, you ARE doing just that.
I do agree that the basic principals of being able to play online should be free, but that really isn't how XBOX Live works. It's an integrated service that manages everything from game to game. Whether it be Achievement tracking, having the history of who you muted to make sure that gamer does indeed stay muted, to much better match tracking than its competitors. They also offer a lot of tools at members disposal on feedback, both positive and negative.
You cannot compare system A to system B and say they are the same when it comes to online experiences, they are not. There's a lot that goes on behind the scenes that just makes things work cohesively. They are also pushing Kinect into it's apps like Netflix and the upcoming Bing to make searching easier and hopefully quicker.
They've spent a lot of time and money creating XBOX Live and the software end of it shows. However like most things it's up to the consumer to decide if these services warrent an additional fee.
The easy UI, the features and all around great times I have had with it made this 360 all so worth it.
Edit:
*looks at comments*
Uh oh...FLAME ON!
you're not Johnny Storm...you're the Thing.
I Do own both and I love Live and its worth every penny as its easy to use and so fast compared to psn which has slow slow installs that take twice as long because you still have to download it seperate where live installs and downloads at the same time. Then on ps3 there are the partial mandatory installs that are offered on Live as optional complete full game installs on every game and psn cant say that. Cloud storage on silver and gold accounts. These are a few of my reasons why live is my platform of choice. I personally dont like the xmb having features buried in sub menus. I know thats not a huge deal but its just not appealing to others in my house that easily turn on the xbox360 after buying a game and instantly play it without all the installs and hoops the ps3 makes you go through. I believe when i played metalgear4 i had to install every chapter which took like 5 minutes while snake smoked and i had to do it on every play through.
Only fanboys troll about a service they don't use or no nothing about.
Is what I'm saying. Jeez freakin fanboys man.
He likes it because it's his preferences. I disagree with the ads part since you pay for the service (same reason I stopped using Hulu Plus) But he likes it because he does, plain and simple.
No need to "justify" it to anyone like the majority of people here seem to do whether they like it or not.
XLIVE worth every penny, Navigating the dashboard and enjoying controller-free entertainment features on Xbox LIVE, such as Zune and Video Kinect, is a truly unique and individual experience
they were thinking they could bring to market a better product than the ipod. for the most part....they did.
The hardware was better and surprisingly more open than the ipod. Meaning you could plug the zune into any pc and copy songs to it unlike the ipod.
The whole sync thing for itunes and the lockout of being able to plug the ipod into another pc (legitimately I might add) only to be told that if you do you will lose everything was a pain in the ass. YES there are ways around that but you have to go looking for them and with the zune you didnt.
ipod wasnt the best mp3 player on the market anyway. the selling point was the itunes store and cheap pricing on songs. the centralized hub created a continuity that no other player offered. Sony, jvc, archos, creative labs all had better physical players but they lacked a centralized environment like itunes.
So in some respects, xblive is like the itunes for consoles. Meaning that before live there wasnt much in the way of a dedicated online environment. Since live, others like steam and to some extent PSN are becoming more like live.
People can hate MS and/or live all they want but MS did bring about a new way for console gamers to join up in this live community.
who cares!??!
ps3 end third this gen.....sold less than every other console..vita is failing....and sony corporation have financial problems...continuing to close studios..and and the most hyped games for the console from the start (last guardian agent ) being deleted delayed..or whatever...
whiel ms live happy with money and their base happy
gg
"
this would be a xbox fanboy
Paying to play games I can play on PS3 for free. ( that's excluding exclusives )
I picked up Alan Wake " American Nightmare " and so far it's horrible which is lame considering i liked the first. Dead light is okay but it's like I Am Alive but a side scroller with zombies.
In the end. This old Xbox will be a DVD player in my bedroom after 3 months is over.
I own both consoles and people can hoot and holler all they want about the benefits of each but in then end. You're not paying my bills or playing my games or making the decision of the system I prefer, which is in all honesty the PlayStation 3.
Why should I spend $59.99 on the new Halo just to game with my friend when we both have PS+ and have a games available that we can play for free?
While I agree with what you say..
The comments I post are the situations I've been in and how I feel towards gaming these days. I've said this a couple of times before but I'm 42 years old and while I agree with some things that people post or the articles that are written, 90% is just pure garbage and people talking out their a..:.
I could easily play ZORK than COD but that's just the era I grew up in. I don't need online MP to feel a sense of community when that community has been there long before the Internet and sure theres people my age who have kids that post on here but are completely caught up in this " console " war.
Now Microsoft has added to the experience with so many other features that you really never need to turn off your Xbox 360. For me, its the little things that add up, and they are starting up free to play games, so that should shut the idiots up about no games with the service.
I enjoy XBL, a lot of people do. Let people spend their own money on whatever they want. Who are any of us to judge another on what they pay for? I seriously doubt $4 a month is killing anyone, its realistically one of the cheapest premium services around.
Ok, XBL has Happy Wars slated as their first free to play, even though Hybrid was supposed to be. PSN has DUST 514, that links into an MMORPG universe connecting two different genre of game together.
I love my Xbox, I really do, but I don't feel they are being innovative enough with the money that we pay into it. Sony, giving CCP (dev behind Dust 514) exclusivity... when I know Microsoft turned them down. CCP when to Microsoft first.
Show me a little risk, rather than shutting down services that I enjoyed, that being Inside Xbox.
I think its more then worth the price I pay, I enjoy playing maps first on COD, loved Skyrims DLC and I'll get to play RE5 and Tomb Raider DLC before anyone else.
As for core games, I've been getting to play my favorite franchises and those franchises are the reasons I bought an Xbox 360 in the first place, no way am I about to complain, Microsoft could have handled things like Nintendo and drop all support, but its been the best year ever on XBLA and we get what is looking like the best Halo game ever.
$35 a year to get all of that and have a one stop entertainment hub, hell yea.
*Edit*
@Weakman
As I said, getting content early and free games is always a plus, the ability to appear offline, block people via Gamertags, Party chat, Voice messaging, 1on1 chat, feedback and rating system, bio system ect... Its all well worth it and you cant get any of that on PSN.
Premium service? You call a collection of free services like access to Netflix, Twitter, Facebook, and Youtube a premium service. All of those features are free everywhere else so how is it a "premium service"?
- Top Franchises that must Die
- Top shooters that should die
- 360 vs PS3 comparisons
- Live vs PSN comparisons
- Live, is it worth it?
We are 7 freakin' years into the generation. Quit beating the dead horses... You can almost write the the articles before you read them...
Top death franchises: sonic, final fantasy, crash, but not ratchet and clank because it is a PS3 exclusive...
Top death shooters: halo, gears, call of duty, battlefield, duke, etc. but no killzone or resistance of course because they are PS3 exclusives.
PS3 vs Xbox Comparisons: PS3 has more retail exclusives and PSN is free therefore PS3 is always better but does not talk about the mountain of superior XBLA exclusives, the fact that XBL has not been hacked down for a month like PSN was, and Sony has done nothing to improve their dashboard since the gen started.
Live vs. PSN: Free is always better even though you cannot buy any games over the web, cannot do party chat, Kinect chat, and the avatars are lame on PSN...
Live worth... Go get steam because it is free and feature laden... Who cares if you can't play on a 60" TV in your living room...
People who pay for live have made their choice, people still buy shooters, people still buy franchises that others think should die, 360 and PS3 are almost in a dead heat for world wide sales, and Live has over 35,000,000 gold subscribers...
Really people just move on...
The Hacks didn't take PSN down. Sony themselves turned PSN OFF to fix the hacks. Big difference.
And secondly, when Microsoft DOES have those kind of issues ( like when people get their accounts hacked and points spent on them) Instead of fixing them, all they did was put up minor brute force protection and left Live on. Which tells you all about how they care about their customers.
Mind you, they said it wasn't even a problem to begin with until it go too big to ignore. THEN they put up that lame brute for protection. Just like with the RROD, deny until ya can deny no more because the situation gets too out of hand.
Try harder next time
If Microsoft bought out a new Xbox turd he'd be the first praising it to the heavens.
Some people just don't want to believe the truth.
Downloads are super fast (in my experience)updates do not take forever (looks at Sony)and new content is always being added.
Plus my PS3 is also fried yet again and I am tired of getting it repaired.
most of which are free on other platforms, and also many of the services also have their own sub as well.
you're paying to access another subscription service.
netflix, lovefilm, sky, nba, nfl, nhl other video services.
you have to pay to access the apps, then you have to pay for the service.
it's a cheek saying they're providing those services.
And Im still not gonna pay for it, next Gen included.
Of course, the defense is, "you get what you pay for," which is all well and good--until you consider the PC.
In the end, pick your poison I guess. They all have issues.