It won't happen anytime soon. XBL is where they get their money. If they get rid of that, they'll lose millions of dollars

Microsoft uses that $50 to keep the service running. Sony is losing a lot of money from hosting their online service for free. Also it is not $50 you can get the cards for $30 from newegg.

It's not that much of a big deal. You're paying for the cost of one game per year, and you're getting hundreds of hours of gameplay out of it. It's like an expansion pack that works on all of your games.

If you can't pay $50 a year, you're probably 12 and I don't want to see you on Xbox Live anyway. =)

I think making Live free would be a huge mistake on their part, they'd be out on a ton of money. There are millions of people on Xbox Live, and they all are paid members. So they're making a ton of money off of all the members. It's good business.

It should. but it won't.

I doubt it will go away anytime soon.

As long as they have millions of people paying, it will not be free.
The reason GFW Live became free is because no PC gamers cared about it because they have other options that are not only better, but free too.

It's only a dollar a week.

no. keeps XBL kick ass.

this is where they get a lot of their money, i don't see it stopping.

GOLD for PC is still not as good as GOLD is for 360.  Mainly because of the exclusive demos. But that is a bull shit answer. But if my $50 is pushing LIVE to what it will be this fall with the update I don't mind at all. PSN is nice but since Trophies are a joke at this point, and there still isn't a good invite system or voice messages, private chat across games, or universal in game music I can't really say that its superior.

What I think should happen is either
1. Drop price down to $25
2. Offer goodies for Gold but let silver have multiplayer
3. Give GOLD members something really exclusive each month like a free movie or something.

i would rathe pay $50 dollars for a year, it is cheap and has a really good service.

People dont realize how spoiled they are with xbox live. My answer to this topic is. 

"MS have billion apon BILLIONS APON BILLIONS OF DALLORS

They can afford to make XBL free.  Its Bullshit that we have to pay, and don't make it sound like your getting a great deal becuase your not, becuase MS can easily make it free."

So many people complain about the price of xbox live and I never understood why. It is $50 a year and the service is great so I would rather pay that small fee then have to deal with a free service like PSN.

No.

That $50/year goes toward all the trees they cut down, funerals for your Xbox 360.

"I wouldn't mind the $50 if only my 360 didn't break down 3 times, and another just about read to RROD on me. 

But hey, its only $100 for repair (sarcasm)

Oh I almost forgot to mention that the Wireless Adapter cost $100, thats alot of freakin money. 

Look folks, I own a Xbox 360, and not a PS3, but MS really fucked up on this one.  They need to start over and get it right, and make sure its right.
"

I doubt it will ever go away unless the numbers start dropping off...as long as people keep signing up...it will remain i think

No, and it shouldn't it's great value for money.

LOGuiltyspark said:

"MOLE said:

"MS have billion apon BILLIONS APON BILLIONS OF DALLORS

They can afford to make XBL free.  Its Bullshit that we have to pay, and don't make it sound like your getting a great deal becuase your not, becuase MS can easily make it free."

Actually they cant afford it.
Try putting yourself in the shoes of the head of xbox walking into the board room with the other MS executives and sitting down and saying
"ya , we just made XBL free , those tens of thousands of movies , and all that marketplace content that is available to multiple countries is now being hosted completely by our wallet , we are expected to take losses of hundreds of millions of dollars a year  just so retards on the internet can feel like they are getting fair treatment." 
"

I dont mind paying at all.

Have you tried the ps3 online its horrible.

Probably not.

This will not stop ocnsidering they started chargin for a service that was SO not worth 50 dollars, I see no reason for them to stop. Quite frankly better services are free on the PC and the PSN is a quite comparable system. Customers have grown too complacent and won't bitch about this so they don't care.

"Only if their competition's online service gets as good as theirs or better.
Otherwise I don't see it happening."

Can you make a list,honestly? not being smart or sarcastic,i'm just wondering what is left that XBL offers that PSN doesn't atm.No,i'm not counting net-flix or mii's,I mean AVATARS,but really,besides atm "cross platform" voice chat,which I admit needs to be put in there, they are really pretty much caught up and on equal ground.

Don't say "but XBL has more titles" first of all,psn isn't going for all arcade like games,its a different thing,just like XBL is different from PSN and different from Wiiware. Trust me I love some downloadable games now and then,but look at the quality vs quantity that microsoft has. honestly,it has so much garbage games,in their XBLA, then good ones,just so they can say "we have the most to offer" and it doesn't work that way.

And lastly,yeah a Video service that microsoft had and now Sony has,i've scrolled through both consoles videos,and they both have plenty of garbage,but since microsoft has more cuz of a head start,they have plenty more garbage.

So honestly,i'm just asking,can someone answer this clearly? what is there that is left in terms of features on xbl that are so superior other than pointless achievements? I really want to know,if i'm somehow missing something or not,but I don't think so. I'm just really curious what there is left to do,  Sony can't  really be forgiven for the lack of features PSN had over the last year or so,but since the last update,every single main complaint has been ackowledged,(not counting home cuz I don't care)


Once more,i'm just asking for a few things pointed out,unless you care that much for pointless achivements,I just don't know what is left between the 2 services atm,please help point something out to me,or stand corrected!  Trust me I love both consoles,and both services,not a damn fanboy or Sony or anything if it sounds that way,I just really want to know what people consider "still not on par ",because one thing anyone can say is,almost (or every?) online game on PS3 has dedicated servers running on it,which is something you would think you would get for a paid service,but not even micrsoft does that,you get the shitty bandwith of some random player in almost every game,thats one con I definately will mention.

"I dont mind paying at all.

Have you tried the ps3 online its horrible.
"

I don't think it will. Maybe a price drop but not completely gone.

It's only a matter of time before PSN catches up and they'll be forced to kill their fees.

And Nintendo really isn't a threat to the online side.

Whenever the ps3's online can be on par with Live then microsoft should definitively make it free. But till that day comes I don't find paying $50 a year.

I'm not going to pay for live anymore. I did about a year and a half ago. It's not really that worth it.

Well, the way I see it is as once we get Netflix it'll be worth it.
And they wont drop the price because people are still buying it.

The better sony gets get with PSN, the less arguments Microsoft is going to have for charging to play online.

"I'm not going to pay for live anymore. I did about a year and a half ago. It's not really that worth it.
"

50$ isn't that much for a year of awesome content... 4.16$ dollars a month come on people...

"50$ isn't that much for a year of awesome content... 4.16$ dollars a month come on people...
"

I posted about this on another thread, but I personally think that with all the money Microsoft is losing with the RROD situation, that letting people use XBL free would be even more costly for them.

However, tonight on digg there was an article posted from Kotaku: http://kotaku.com/5029541/rumor-xbl-silver-now-allows-free-online-play

Kotaku has jumped on stories before without much evidence to cite their claims, so take it as you will, but I still doubt that XBL will be free this generation... Maybe the next-generation Xbox...

I really don't care, it gets renewed every year as a Christmas present. I find paying for worthless avatars and wallpaper on XBL much more atrocious than paying for a good service.

"13 Million X $50 = $650,000,000 a year, so multiply that by 5 years, and you get 3,250,000,000 so far from Xbox Live fees, not including all the crap people by off of the Marketplace.
"