we?

I like xbox live. I'm weird though. I find it terribly convenient.

I agree with most of your points except #2. The reason we spend that 50 bucks a year is so we can get a more cohesive and stable experience. It's more stable and integrated into every game as opposed to PSN which can have you running off who knows what quality of server. It's all up to the developer because sony isn't footing the bill most of the time. Nintendo's online is a joke. It's a conduit to let us spend money. I can't even tell when people are online.

Granted it's not perfect, It should be less then 50 a year and the whole silver/gold should be dismantled. You should either have xbox live and all the features or not and not these varied levels of accessibility that just muddle the inherent value.

Also you...uh..

yeah I can't concentrate. Your avatar is distracting. Also, I like redheads.

What were we talking about?

Gotta say, I like Live. I've never had any problems with it, but I understand your pain.

I totally agree about the rankings. Horde mode in Gears 2 is completely irritating because people are always quitting early. A guy last night quit in the second round, and I've seen people leave in the first round.

On average I'd say 1.3 people quit every single game of horde I play -- and yet when I submit a negative review they always have five stars. So is this the first time they ever quit? Or is it just impossible to have a low rating?

On top of that, these people have clearly quit before -- why do they end up in games with people who never quit and are just trying to play the game?

5 I don't really see as a big deal. I frankly like how you can't change your gamertag name whenever you want, unless it's in a situation where the XBL community at large things you should. You can change your display name whenever you like on Steam, and there are some people I can never keep up with because of it.

4 just sounds like an idea they had and never really implemented well.

I don't understand why people are getting all bent out of shape over 3. Aside from making a weird looking one I don't care about avatars, and if you don't want to spend money on them you can easily enough ignore that part. Funny enough they're already leagues better than Miis, even if that isn't saying much.

Since it's close to that time for me to get another XBL Gold card, I'll have to agree with you on 2 somewhat. Although that fee does help pay for dedicated servers, and really isn't that much when you break it down. I didn't quite know just much stuff on XBL requires a gold membership though, which does suck. :S

1 is a pain in the ass for sure. Especially as the points are worth different amounts in different countries, so that 800 point game costs ~$11.50 in Canada. Even more annoying is points cards only work in their region, so I can't buy cheaper points cards from online stores who only sell US ones. :S

"Haven't said anything until now" probably isn't the best thing to say, considering these are all the same gripes I've heard about the service since its introduction.

Charging to change your gamertag is a bit crap, to say the least.

Reputation is a bit misleading, but most people are just not doing it right. Aside from avoiding a player (how many times are you matched up with someone you give negative rep to?), you can also prefer people, which I've found matches me up with people I prefer all the time.

I'm still up in the air about avatars until someone makes a damn convincing argument against them. "Being forced to use them" isn't convincing enough to me, I can still use my purchased gamerpics on my cards.

Paying to play and MS Moon monies can be attributed to a business making money. It's also a thing of preference. Why buy a beverage from a vending machine when you can drink from the water fountain for free? Some folks like the sugary drink, despite adverse health affects associated with it. MS points can also be purchased in different denominations, and XBLA games are certainly more adequately priced than what Nintendo has on the Virtual console, I'm surprised nobody gripes about wii points as much as MS points, when it's worse.

As for the points stated in this blog (note: I don't have a 360 but do want to respond because it's somewhat similar as the PSN).

Changing your Gamertag.
I can see why people want to change it sometimes. Hell, I would want Takeshi but some Japanese bastard took it. I think they should do it for free but what'll happen then? Annoying bastards changing their name every 2 seconds to spam you with messages and what not. Should be quite easy for Microsoft to track 'em down but it's a pain if you get spammed by multiple names I guess. That said, I'm don't know how the Gamertag system works in the background.

Reputation
Never heard anything about that. I guess it would work if really did anything. But you could get raped by a whole clan because you've just kicked the shit out of them. I wish there was something like a block function on PSN. Not only that they can't message you again but you don't end up playing games with them ever again. I know that would be a bit too much to ask for but still I'd like to see it.

Avatars
I think they look shitty but that's personal. You had to pay for gamerpics? Really? What a scam. That all I can say about it. I'm pretty content with just a non-moving picture based avatar on PSN

Paying to play
I don't want to pay for something like that. I don't have a credit card (quite hard to get one in The Netherlands) so if I chose to play on a 360 I would never use Live. Or can you pay with those point cards as well? Haven't got a clue. I do think it should free if you buy a console. Pay for a console, pay for their online, pay for the internet, pay for games. I know they want to make money and like you stated a lot of people are using it. But from what I've seen there are no really big differences between PSN and Live. If there are I would like to hear it from someone that uses both the 360 and the PS3. I've heard too much fanboys without proper argumentation. And what about certain games that are played on a peer-to-peer basis? I wouldn't want to pay for something like that.

Microsoft Point Scam
All I can say I like they way Sony does that. Dollars for dollars (Euro's for Euro's in my case). Sure a lot of stuff costs 6.99 (<-dot or comma? I mean six ninety nine.) but that one cent doesn't bother me. It's only one cent and if you buy enough you can spend all the one cents. Uhm, you get what I mean.

@Zerotolo
What about the 6 player video-chat on PSN? I can see and talk to my friends across the big pond in really really good quality. And in-game friend invites? You just have to press the PS button on your controller and invite anyone you like. Some games even have it in their menu's. So it's there. There's a list of people you've met in the games you played too. I don't know what all the fuzz is about. If you're referring to cross-game chat. I don't want that to happen. I don't get it why you'd want that (if that is what you're talking about, I know a lot of other want it.). Let's say I'm playing Uncharted or some other single player game, I don't want to chat with people. I just want to play that game and be amazed by it, I don't want to get distracted by someone else talking shit or yelling that he just fragged so-and-so in that-and-that game. Or how awesome he is at shooting aliens. No way. I'll join your chat anytime to talk about stuff. I'll even skip a good night sleep for that. But just don't mess with me when I'm playing a game. In-game messages are more than enough for me.


Blog-in-a-blog!
Yours,
Takeshi

I like xbox live, but it has kinda problems.

Also, why didn't you do friends list? You should be able to have 1000 friends. Is that possible?

I'm with Technophile. I'm more than happy to pay. I play on PSN from time to time and it's just not as smooth as it should be. I often get disconnected randomly, and this is not due to my connection as my Wii and Xbox 360 never get disconnected in such a way. I don't mind paying because Xbox Live is the best online experience around.

I totally have that video on your avatar, <3

@Takeshi, the main difference between Live and PSN is that Live uses (on almost all games) Peer to Peer connections while PSN uses dedicated servers on all games and the option on Warhawk to use Peer to Peer. Despite people claiming that you pay for servers on Live, you are not. That is why there is host advantage on many 360 games.

@GARISON You're right, the fact that you can have only 100 friends is a bit jank. =(

stop global whining

we?

Don't have a problem with paying really, its just 50 bucks and they have a good network system.

I agree on the rest.

I think paying for XBL would be justified if they actually hosted like... servers. P2P connections aren't very fun.