In their latest podcast, Microsoft's Gamerscore crew defended the annual price of $50 for Xbox Live. They spoke of bandwidth costs, tech costs, all different kinds of cost, and that the service is good for the annual fee -- and given the lack of options in the market, they are absolutely right. This is just the tip of the iceberg in an escalating situation that is sure to play out in a myriad of ways, two of them being: Either Sony and Nintendo get on board with the pay concept of Xbox Live, or consumers will no longer pay for the service once they have free online alternatives. With Sony's PlayStation Network being free and growing, the day of reckoning for how online console gaming will work in the future is coming. This same issue came up when Microsoft introduced Live on PC, the notion of PC gamers paying for services they received for free before seemed absurd. When Sony gets their online act together, if it ends up remaining free (and if they sell enough PS3s to put a dent in the market), then we'll get an idea of what the future will hold for console gaming online. Notice there's a lot of "if" and "when" in there though. We still have no clue what Nintendo is doing in the online space. Although the Xbox team is already in defense mode, it's certainly going to be a while before they actually need to worry, unless Nintendo springs some über online system out instantly and PS3s start selling like mad.
