Pronk
New member
The fee isn't bad, you're only paying it once a year. Plus there's always cards to make it cheaper. They do this to ensure that everyone has a secure gaming experience, we all know what happened to PSN which is free.
Compared to ?0 for Playstation network which offers the same functionality, it is. And paying for Xbox Live certainly doesn't stop accounts getting regularly hacked either.
Regardless, having to pay for Xbox live gold for the apps like YouTube and so on is flat-out ridiculous. That's just denying users who don't want Gold functionality out of penny-pinching pettiness.
As for your argument that the xbox is better than the PS2 because some PS2s had disc read errors, I can assume you think that the PS3 is considerably better than the Xbox 360 then, given the 360 has been plagued by technical shortcomings? And slight advantages in graphics, speed and power count for very little when the experience is close enough to be negligible (and again, the PS3 is more powerful than the 360, so will you be singing the praises of the PS3 here for the current gen?). And as the machine that's the No. 1 selling console of this generation by a country mile has shown, it can count for nothing if the user experience is something new and fun that people want.
Despite all of the above, I still think MS have put in a credible performance console-wise. But they could still do better - and a start would be matching the free online services their competitors offer and making sure their next console is tested and designed properly so it doesn't have to go through three redesigns before you get a model that doesn't regularly overheat and permanently break, take up half a room because it's so big, and also not be so loud when running that on quieter games you literally cannot hear the music!