What are you paying for exactly? The servers to keep track of your gamerscore? Every game i've tried on Live has ran off somebody elses internet connection.
At least Sony have got the pricing right for the Playstation 3 online aspect; £0.
Does anyone else refuse to pay for Xbox multiplayer?
- Thread starter Inazuma
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What are you paying for exactly? The servers to keep track of your gamerscore? Every game i've tried on Live has ran off somebody elses internet connection.
At least Sony have got the pricing right for the Playstation 3 online aspect; £0.
Soldato
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It should be free. Simple as that really.
But it's not, So I'm happy to paying for it.
But it's not, So I'm happy to paying for it.
yeah, I'd like this question asked again once Home & the PSN revamp is made available for nowt to PS3 owners. It might just do 360 owners a favour and force MS into making Live free too.
Caporegime
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but its also a vastly inferior service. I pay to see everyone i know online using one system. I dont have to use several programs. You can't analyse it bit by bit and say that its available elsewhere, you have to look at the overall package. I think that maybe when Home is released Microsoft might change there pricing plan, but at the moment its a good service for a good price.
It is extortion.
Everything that it does is available to PC users and gamers for free. I hope they scrap the charges soon, but being Microshaft...i doubt they will.
It's available to PC gamers at the expense of either paying for dedicated servers, mucking around with setting up home servers, or having to log in and out of multiple different online systems manually (if say your chosen game doesn't have in game voice comms as standard*).
I'm not a great MS fan, but I can see why they charge for the service as even just to run the central login with some degree of reliability costs money.
*the clan my younger brother is in for PC gaming still pays for a ventrillo server because not every game supports voice comms natively.
I don't see why people who will happily pay twice the amount for a console game than pc game complain about having to pay to use xbox live. If money is an issue in gaming, then I don't think you'd have a console in the first place.
EDIT: as Werewolf says, you have to pay for decent voice comms on a pc, which is part of the xbox live sub.
EDIT: as Werewolf says, you have to pay for decent voice comms on a pc, which is part of the xbox live sub.
Yeah but that's for "hardcore" clan gaming isnt it? If there is such a thing as that on the XBL service then they don't even have the option to pay for such luxuries.
Regular/average PC gamers don't have to pay a penny to play a game online once they have bought it (for about half the price of a 360 game, lol) and I don't recall a game that required voice comms but didn't feature it in-game being released in the last few years.
I think its naive to think that MS need to charge for Live to cover costs. They don't.
"Decent" voice comms is obviously a matter of opinion...the sound quality coming across those mic's is pretty bad. Does the codec depend on the game?
Soldato
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Hey, that's a really good point. Silver offers the amazing stuff for free does it not. Paying only opens the online gaming section does it not?
That honestly never occurred to me
Soldato
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No, because if you worked out how much I play on live against how much it costs it works out as good value for money if that makes sense!
Soldato
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Never paid more than £18 for a full years subscription, £1.50 a month? Its a bargain.
I've never used the 360 voice comms, but by decent I more meant something easy to access and use. Most of the WoW guilds I've been in have used Vent, which someone has to pay for, despite there being an ingame voice chat facility.
Associate
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As PSN gets better, Live will become free. I'm not happy about the live subs fee but I pay it because I've no option to do otherwise.
I also don't like that the sub is associated with an account not with a machine, if my partner wants to play online with her account she has to pay for another sub, that's two lots of £40 that microsoft are receiving from one machine. It's disgusting.
I also don't like that the sub is associated with an account not with a machine, if my partner wants to play online with her account she has to pay for another sub, that's two lots of £40 that microsoft are receiving from one machine. It's disgusting.
Associate
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It would be good, if it were possible, to 'pay-as-you-play' - especially for people like myself who are casual gamers. I'd love to play Halo 3 on XBL with my nephews, but it's just not economical for those sporadic occasions.
Once, I tried to coax my nephews into playing Rainbow 6 Vegas by buying it for the 360 - even though I already owned and enjoyed it on PC - hoping they would join me for some offline split-screen action. Then I realised each player needed their own XBL account - even for offline play. And no guests allowed either! Needless to say, that game went on ebay like a shot - "Tango down..."
Earlier this year, I was in a dilemma of sorts in deciding which version of Burnout Paradise to go for - they seemed quite similar in most respects, the only plus I liked for the 360 was custom soundtracks. My PS3 was new then, and up until that point I just assumed PSN was a paid-for service. As soon as I realised otherwise, my choice was clear...
...And which version of Rainbow Six Vegas 2 do you think I will be getting this month? is it:
A) PS3
B) Xbox 360
C) PC
D) "Shut up already, you made your point..."
Microsoft must realise sooner or later that they should re-evaluate the way they charge, for fear of losing business if nothing else.
Having said all that, only now is it painfully clear I can't join those nice (Xbox 360) Burnout OCUK'ers...
Once, I tried to coax my nephews into playing Rainbow 6 Vegas by buying it for the 360 - even though I already owned and enjoyed it on PC - hoping they would join me for some offline split-screen action. Then I realised each player needed their own XBL account - even for offline play. And no guests allowed either! Needless to say, that game went on ebay like a shot - "Tango down..."
Earlier this year, I was in a dilemma of sorts in deciding which version of Burnout Paradise to go for - they seemed quite similar in most respects, the only plus I liked for the 360 was custom soundtracks. My PS3 was new then, and up until that point I just assumed PSN was a paid-for service. As soon as I realised otherwise, my choice was clear...
...And which version of Rainbow Six Vegas 2 do you think I will be getting this month? is it:
A) PS3
B) Xbox 360
C) PC
D) "Shut up already, you made your point..."
Microsoft must realise sooner or later that they should re-evaluate the way they charge, for fear of losing business if nothing else.
Having said all that, only now is it painfully clear I can't join those nice (Xbox 360) Burnout OCUK'ers...
Bingo!
Associate
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I think it's ace and quite happily pay the fee.
I think paying for the service is one of the biggest scams going. You have bought the console and paid for the game so you should be able to play it online as far as I'm concerned.
If you are an occasional online gamer, like me, then paying for the service is just a hassle.
If you are an occasional online gamer, like me, then paying for the service is just a hassle.
Yeah that's about it.