Why is Xbox Live STILL $50?

Because people will pay the price to play Halo and Modern Warfare 2 online. If all it did was play those two games people would probably pay it.

Over here in Norway, XBL is twice that amount. And it's still worth it. $50 a year isn't a lot of money. 
  
Of course, you can argue that playing online should be free since you already bought the game and console. Though you'd have to build a time machine and go back to '05 for people to actually care. 

" @Fallen189 said:

" Because idiots pay it. "

Dude really ???   kind of seems like a pretty stupid thing to say  "

I am not really sure but I know that they offer a more robust and quality experience than the PSN.  But then again, I love PSN as well - so yeah I'm not sure why.

Microsoft is evil.
Haven't you figured that out yet?

I buy a 3 month pass whenever I buy a game with good multiplayer, like MW2. I would never pay 50 bucks for a whole year, but renewing it sometimes is not a problem for me. It's worth the money because Xbox Live is really good.

" I'll make these points again,

1. I'm not a cheap bastard, So $5 a month is not the outrageous price your making it out to be
2. Your argument is along the same lines as someone saying  " Well I paid $200 for my phone, Why the fuck should I have to keep paying every month to use it????   I bought it already the service should be free!!!!! "
   

"

1. I agree $5 is nothing. But other places do it free and some do it better free [PC]
2. This would be a great comparison if there were a phone company that had a free service. Then you would be asking yourself why am I paying this when I get that free.
   
3. Microsoft OVER charges for everything. There is no way in hell that they are going to make LiVE free.
   

You pay for the awesome. I can turn on my xbox, see who's online, put in halo if  i've got friends to play with. See who my friends are playing with, what my friends are playing, how much time is left until they're done, and what the score is. And i can decide to bother waiting for them or not, or whether i want to join at all if they're playing with unpleasant tryhards, or a gametypes i don't like. I can send my friend a chat invite, he can accept it with a push of the button, we can have a chat, disucss what gametypes we feel like playing, have a look to see who else we can invite to the party, see who the people we're looking to invite are playing with and how long they've got to finish, and put together a party of 8 to go play social big team without a hitch and in seconds. 
 
That is why you pay for xbox live. /thread

I personally find Party Chat really useful. My friends and I use it as soon as we sign in. 

Well it's cheap, you can play online, and you get party chat. That's worth about 50-60 bucks a year for me.  
 
I don't quite like the PSN, nothing is unified, other than the friends lists, servers may go down at publisher's whims, and the actual playing bit is pretty shoddy I find. I traded my PS3 copy of MWII for the 360 copy, because I was waiting 5-10 minutes between each match. 

" @Coombs said:

" I'll make these points again,

1. I'm not a cheap bastard, So $5 a month is not the outrageous price your making it out to be
2. Your argument is along the same lines as someone saying  " Well I paid $200 for my phone, Why the fuck should I have to keep paying every month to use it????   I bought it already the service should be free!!!!! "
   

"

1. I agree $5 is nothing. But other places do it free and some do it better free [PC]
2. This would be a great comparison if there were a phone company that had a free service. Then you would be asking yourself why am I paying this when I get that free.
   
3. Microsoft OVER charges for everything. There is no way in hell that they are going to make LiVE free.
   

And to you OP. Xbox LiVE is not really worth it IMO. The only thing that makes it worth it for me is because all my friends play on the xbox. "

I'd be more worried about how it will inevitably become more expensive.

"Let's break down some of those Xbox Live benefits: 
 

• Deal of the Week (or, day? I forget)
• Private Chat (even though this can be used on a silver account)
• Demos (something that doesn't cost a penny on PSN)
• Party Chat (is this free on silver?)
• Netflix (never use)
• Social Networking (never use)
• Playing games online (this has always been ridiculous to me, especially when Uncharted 2, Rock Band 2,  Metal Gear Online, Street Fighter IV, Resident Evil 5 and LittleBigPlanet are free of charge to play on my PS3)

 I'm not flat out saying Xbox Live is not worth the money. I just want to know how it is worth the price of admission. Why should I let Microsoft constrict me like a hungry snake? Why would anybody be charging crazy prices in this bad time? With Live and all this add-on content -- I feel overwhelmed by DLC on just ONE platform alone. I don't want to hear about how the quality and variety of Xbox Live totally dominates PSN because nobody uses 80% of what Xbox Live offers. It just seems like all those different features are there to negate people complaining about the cost of Xbox Live. "