X-Box live

[theboyfold]

Silly question, but I can't see quite what the advantage in paying for the gold level is over the free one.

I just fancy the odd scrap against my mates every now and and again, do I have to pay for this?

[steve_evil]

Yes, any online play in the games needs a gold subscription. There is your advantage over the silver.

[theboyfold]

steve_evil said:

Yes, any online play in the games needs a gold subscription. There is your advantage over the silver.

Boooo at microsoft!

[steve_evil]

Yep, but Sony will be the same once the PS3 arrives. It's not too bad though at about £4 a month as it's a pretty good service and very easy to get into a game with your mates.

[theboyfold]

I just know some of my mates are über tight / skint and won't want to do that

[steve_evil]

They do seem to throw in free trials a lot of the time, should get a month with the system, and you never know, once they've played a few games they might be more willing to cough up the dosh.

[robdickinson]

You get a month with the xbox free when you buy it.

Actualy you get 3 single months, for 3 gamertags, if your bothered to swap.

[Mr E]

theboyfold said:

I just know some of my mates are über tight / skint and won't want to do that

what, they'll drop near 300 quid on a toy, but won't spend a couple of pints a month actually making full use of it?

[mindgam3]

steve_evil said:

Yep, but Sony will be the same once the PS3 arrives. It's not too bad though at about £4 a month as it's a pretty good service and very easy to get into a game with your mates.

I've heard sony's will be free...

I think any games company charging for online use is a farce... why bother when you can have unlimited multiplayer gaming on your PC for free?

[steve_evil]

All the games on the PC though are split across different servers for different games, XBox Live integrates everything, you're really paying to maintain the upkeep of the servers and scoring systems.

Plus you have to pay for PC MMORPGs etc and all the servers you play Counterstrike or whatever game on have to be paid for by someone, I was in a battlefield 2 clan on PC until I was told I had to pay £8 a month for the upkeep of the clan servers. Granted you can setup a server at home and play but that can cost a fair bit of money and you won't be getting all of the official ranking systems a game like BF2 offers.

If PS3's online play really will be free then that will be great, but as they seem to have copied all the other ideas from XBox live it won't surprise me if they have a similar system in place to the silver and gold system Microsoft offer.

[robdickinson]

A big server farm and a shedload of bandwidth doesnt come cheap. Mind you neither does the PS3 lol. Its not like you can connect to other peoples console's directly easily.

[catretriever]

I believe MSft are running a free Gold membership week this week during E3 so fill-yer-boots