come on car voltron no chance paris

Great show, Thanks guys. It make the workday much more tolerable.

On the XBL issue, the the cost and the downtime, people need to realise the buisness model. The downtime compared to how much you spend on a year of service equaled somewhere between 69 cents and a few bucks depending on how you interpret it. Not to mention it was never completely down.

I think that a better decision would have been to give a free gold month. However, like Natalie said, no matter what they did people are going to complain. If they follow through on compensating people who already have undertow than I think it was a generous move. 69 cents vs a 10 dollar game.

They CANT give points to people. Noone seems to understand that. Points go beyond XBL, it also goes to zune purchases, enhanced email on the internet.. etc etc. They do not want to cross-pollunate what they do outside of XBL.

As far as free. I think it will be eventually. Until it gets threatened by Sony it wont be.

I do feel that if we pay we shouldnt have to deal with ADS!

and thats all I have to say about that.

Should Live be free? I have bounced back and forth on the subject too. I agree with Natalie and Parris but would like to add something to the discussion. The $50 fee also acts as an unspoken barrier to keep people off the system that we'd rather not have to deal with. Anonymous Screaming Singing users or I like to refer to them as ASSes. If Live was free, what would keep people from rejoining w/ a new GT to continue to act like ASSes once they were kicked?

If the $50/Year fee stays then the ads have to be reduced or preferably eliminated. Also, a bit more feedback and informational status would be needed for problems/issues.

Live will need to up the features BEFORE Sony catches up.

If MS makes Live free then we will have to learn to live w/ ads and of course we will have to deal w/ more ASSes on line.

Why does Natalie keep dropping out? Might want to fix that up soon.

Should Xbox Live be free? No. Why? Because money keeps them honest. Money from the customer is much MUCH more influental than the money of a sponsor. If the service messes up, the sponsors are not going to be hammering on Microsoft's door demanding it be fixed, at least not for a week or so. However Hell hath no fury like a cheated customer. I think the worldwide outrage of the Xbox community is proof of that. Sure it could be cheaper but we still have pay if only to keep microsoft honest and dedicated to keeping Live the great service it is right now.

On the issue of Home I really don't see it being the huge attack on Live that everyone is saying it is. For one it is just the PS3 version of Second Life. I can't see the Second Life demographic shelling out $400 for a dumbed down version of Second Life. Another factor is ease of use. On Xbox Live you can send messages, check on your friends, choose a game, all in just a few button presses. Home, from what I understand, requires to you walk to certain rooms or objects before you can do anything. One last point about Home that I believe will hinder the experience: Room. Xbox Live has millions of users. If Playstation hopes to compete they would also have to have a huge install base. But will all these people fit into that virtual room that we saw at GDC last year? Think about how cramped it will be on any given night.

Thats just my 2 cents.

Really enjoyed the show guys, but for future reference Xbox Live has now been dubbed (by me) Xbox Lag.

KZ made some good points about the consumer paying for the service making it more user based. I honestly don't see any advertisers wanting to spend that much money to ensure their products get some screen time.

I also fear that as a free service advertising could end up as say a streamed commercial before being allowed access to an XBLA game, similar to what the theaters do before the previews now. It ends being an entertainment service to becoming an excess of ads on the eyes.

If I have to pay $50 a year to stop more ads from hindering my gaming experience I'll gladly do so. As it stands advertising killed television for me.

I wouldn't mind paying for live if I could see my themes. All I see are ads! I think one of the robots in Battle of the Planets (G-Force) could kick either Voltron. Baa, who am I kidding those bots sucked.

That's what I said! Fiery Phoenix would cut right through Voltron.

Great show, guys (and gal). My opinions:

* I agree on the free X-box live IF AND ONLY IF Sony puts up a full service that competes with XBL. If not, I won't mind paying for it. And even thought we're having the connecting issues, what Microsoft has to do is put on practice all the materials the teach you when you apply to one of their Windows 2003 Server courses

* Ricardo Montalban, as Sean Connery, shows us why as an actor you don't have to be afraid to fully play on your role

* I also don't take the Brawl game as a serious fighting game. You want serious? Play Soulcalibur, Tekken, DOA or even KoF.

* And Parris, I agree with you: Voltron Lion is more powerful than the Voltron ships. The lions are sentient, something that you don't see on other giant robots (althought a parry between Shin Getter and Voltron Lion would be awesome)

Take care.