Wrong. Online play is peer-to-peer, but the matchmaking, voice/video messaging, and other infrastructure stuff is handled by MS servers. (A lot of MS servers, under a lot of MS security.) Live also handles the customer support for multiplayer.
It's hilarious how butthurt people get when I mention the flaws of Live costing money.
Actually Microsoft does do as good a job as is realistically possible* to prevent douches from ruining other people's experiences. The "Player Review" system is quite effective at keeping you personally from being matched again with people you didn't enjoy playing with (be it because of their skill or demeanor).
The banning system itself is automated based on submitted complaints and reviews. It works fairly well when people use those systems. They only ban gamertags by this method though, and this ban is usually temporary and people can always use another gamertag if they're willing to pay. Microsoft does however ban Xbox 360 consoles from Xbox Live for modding, which they can verify themselves.
There's also a fair number of moderators who can issue gamertag bans at their discretion. You've got to remember though, a gargantuan number of people use Xbox Live. And Microsoft doesn't consider "being annoying" a bannable offense, which is why they offer the mute and avoid options.
[small]*OK, they could do better. The point is they do a very good job as long as players take the initiative improve their online experience. It takes less than 30 seconds to mute, avoid, or file a complaint on someone.[/small]
The bad thing about that system is though some twat's can give a a really good player a bad rating, simply because the twat started the argument and he got owned by the good player (if that makes sense)
OT: At least the confusion will stop now, i know many people that got confused with Silver, Changing the name to free was a good move
I am still waiting for a Gold tier system where I pay the lowest money just for pure Multiplayer access. I don't need those additional crap features that are easily replaced by more nifty and powerful hardware hooked up to my HDTV. No, go away bucko.
Man, the Playstation Plus sounds so amazing with all these beta events like Brotherhood and such.
I like the sound of the three tiered system you propose.
XBL: Silver
No multiplayer, just news and demos. But all free of charge.
XBL: Gold
Multiplayer, news and demos. Small charge £20 / $30 per year. (Servers have to be paid for by someone.)
XBL: Platinum
All the trimmings: Sky Player, ESPN, multiplayer, Zune, Last FM - but multiplayer has been tweaked to bar douchebags, screamers, racists and under-18's entry. *Puts on a posh accent* We don't want the riff-raff in here, do we, old boy? *stops the posh accent.* Charge remains the same. £40 / $60 per year.
Except the reason why cable/satellite TV works is beacuse most TV programs are exclusive to cable/satellite TV. If people could watch most of the programs they wanted via broadcast TV, you can be certain that noone would be paying for cable/satellite.
Xbox live has all sorts of crap that other services like PS store doesn't have. Being the owner of both a PS3 and an Xbox 360 and a gold member, there are some pretty vast differences between the services. For example, Xbox live gold members can download an insane number of demos, while PS3 users who technically get to download all of their demos for free have access to A FAR fewer number of demos. Even high profile games often don't have demos for the PS3.
There is other stuff as well, but long story short your claim that everything on Xbox live can be found for free on other services is a load of crap.
Think about it
The Xbox is a basic PC with set programs
You can compare the two
And that some games just wont work on the PC as the controls are lets say...different
sure you can invest in a control pad but whats the point when you already have one for the Xbox
Consoles are there to make gameing cheaper for the mass market
PC's need constant maintenance and a whole lot more money to keep running at optimum spec
(i own PC/ 360/ PS3)
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