Why is Microsoft not giving Xbox Live free?

[Catalyst6]

I own a Xbox 360 and repeatedly ... pay for a Xbox Live Gold Membership

I believe that the fact that you're paying for it is example enough.

hmmm You have a fitting username

Uh... thanks? I don't get it. Cheers?

 

[Kadoodle]

having to pay for something free on other consoles is a waste but xbox live has just too many features from better multiplayer to nice social networking options

Excuse me? Multiplayer is in no way better. Also, the social experience is shit due to the fact that 50% of the community is comprised of pre-teen boys screaming "******," among other things.

The PSN is like omegle, occasional trolls, but an overall clean and a decent experience. Xbox Live is like Chatroulette, you may be more "social", but half of the time you stare at some asshole's dick.



Answer to OP: Because they [Microsoft] can, and because people are too dumb to say "To hell with this shit."

Excuse me, I may have said that I was open to all opinions but let me make one edit: I don't want any Sony fanboys coming just to troll and give their close-minded "opinions" about how much better their precious PS3 is than the Xbox 360. So a suggestion might be to GTFO

Not a fanboy of the PS3. I'd rather have a PC anyways, i can't afford it. I'm not close-minded, I think what I think for a reason, and I have every right to think AND say it. Xbox live has a higher percentage of assholes. That's a fact. I'm not fond of little boys screaming ****** and fuck. The ps3 does not have such problems as often; in fact, they are rare.

 

[Nigh Invulnerable]

I believe it's because, as the great PT Barnum said, "There's a sucker born every minute". Seriously, why pay for internet service twice? Sure, XBL is quite cheap, and if I owned a 360 and could just pay a XBL subscription to use the limited internet browsing, Netflix, etc. capabilities without also paying Comcast for internet service, I'd think Live was great. However, I have to pay a monthly fee for internet, have a PC and PS3 with free online services for my games, and therefore will never pay for something like Live. It's one of the prime reasons I'll probably avoid that console, especially with so many games now being dependent on their multiplayer and downloads/patches. Finally, I own Left 4 Dead 2 on PC, and I haven't had to pay a penny for any of the new DLC. Until Live allows me access to things like Red Dead's Undead Nightmare expansion for free, I'll avoid Microsoft's console.

 

[Hellblazer12]

having to pay for something free on other consoles is a waste but xbox live has just too many features from better multiplayer to nice social networking options

Excuse me? Multiplayer is in no way better. Also, the social experience is shit due to the fact that 50% of the community is comprised of pre-teen boys screaming "******," among other things.

The PSN is like omegle, occasional trolls, but an overall clean and a decent experience. Xbox Live is like Chatroulette, you may be more "social", but half of the time you stare at some asshole's dick.



Answer to OP: Because they [Microsoft] can, and because people are too dumb to say "To hell with this shit."

Excuse me, I may have said that I was open to all opinions but let me make one edit: I don't want any Sony fanboys coming just to troll and give their close-minded "opinions" about how much better their precious PS3 is than the Xbox 360. So a suggestion might be to GTFO

Not a fanboy of the PS3. I'd rather have a PC anyways, i can't afford it. I'm not close-minded, I think what I think for a reason, and I have every right to think AND say it. Xbox live has a higher percentage of assholes. That's a fact. I'm not fond of little boys screaming ****** and fuck. The ps3 does not have such problems as often; in fact, they are rare.

Perhaps you should read ALL of the other comments- they portray what everybody else think

 

[Dys]

Because servers cost money to run.
It's either charge you, or do what Sony does, and charge developers who will then be less likely to support you.

Not all games run on servers (Call of Duty 2, Gears of War 2).


They charge because they can, and people are willing to pay for what should be free.

This is exactly it. The reason microsoft charge for xbox live is because they have determined that people are willing to pay for it. It has nothing to do with the (negligible) cost of hosting the servers. I don't see steam, PSN or even windows-update charging subscriptions and two of those services have far more content to host and therefore data transferred through them than LIVE.

No doubt microsoft are very aware of the whole "the paid option is better quality" instinct people have as well. From my own experiences, xbox live is inferior to PSN[footnote]Inferior in that it performs poorly in the following fields: lag time, accessibility (no standard wireless card on the xbox is a dick move), p2p match-up time and p2p region matching (as an Australian player, I don't want to be put in a game consisting of poms and yanks, global spanning pings are not quick).[/footnote] Despite this, despite even many of my friends having had the exact same experiences as me, a handful of them still blindly insist that the xbox service is generally superior (because it's a paid). This is no coincidences, it's clever marketing, which is baffling because windows have consistently demonstrating atrocious product support and marketing for their mobile and recent operating system software...