Well, Sony's structure is better, I think. You pay an optional $50 fee and you get all these cool benefits that makes Live's $60 a month look like a joke.

ESPN3 Coverage and UFC coverage as well as unlimited last.fm usage is far more important then a few games and free stuff PS+ gives.

Also sony still to my knowledge doesn't have party and cross game chat which is annoying.

Paying $60 a year for multiplayer when it's offered for free on other consoles is already a joke.

Agreed.

Well Live was out a year before and when you have the system known as the Halo/COD box charging $60 a year is smart.

again I expect that all the systems next-gen will charge for online services. Its becoming more about the services you get for the money compared to just playing games.

I really don't want to be paying to play to play my games online.
I'm already paying to get the game and we're already paying to have the Internet, so why should I have to pay even more to play the game I own over the Internet connection we're already paying for?
That really doesn't seem fair.
I enjoy playing online games but if I have to pay extra for it it's going to be a tough choice of whether I bother or not.
Good thing most of Nintendo's best games don't rely on online play.

Steam. That is all.

OK the last one is hilarious.

I haven't even visited Steam before, I suppose I shall take a peak to see what all the hubbub is about.

Okay, but I don't care for UFC or ESPN3. MS should have implemented a structure where I would pay, what, $20 to play online. Though, like people have said, other platforms allow you to play online for free.
If I want to watch ESPN, I'd watch it on TV, as well as UFC which is included in the package of channels anyways. No need for me to pay for it on 360- really?

Then again, I don't watch that crap. Yes, crap. In my opinion. Rather play sports than to sit and watch.

Not having cable and being able to cut the cord I don't have a choice.

true, when i get my own place i dont even plan on having cable or phone line except maybe a celly but i will have internet which should one be interested in this kind of service would benifit them greatly

everything you can get from the internet anyways

Agreed. All that extra stuff is just filler so Microsoft has another excuse to charge $60 for online multiplayer. Is it worth it? I can't say, since I don't have an Xbox 360 anymore, and I never had a Gold subscription. I'm happy with my PS3 and all the free stuff I get. PlayStation Plus is completely optional, it's not required to play online.

Anyways back on topic. Why are people constantly comparing Origin to Steam? How is one better than the other? Does it really matter which service the Wii U uses? EA is already helping Nintendo with their online infrastructure, so adopting Origin is an obvious choice, right?

Hmmmmm... Xbox LIVE would be a bit more valuable if they made a very, very intuitive interface for their menu AND received a lot of exclusives. Anyhow, I got my laptop with me, so I don't use those services nor do I have Gold (that may change if I get Halo and GTA5).

Go look up xbox Metro ui.

If they were to go with Steam, does that mean that all my Steam games could then be played on my Wii U?

i think the games would have to be optimised and coded a little differently we should remeber that a console game doesnt think like a pc game considering the variable hardware of a computers and how a pc game is coded to handle many specs

thats all i can think of right now even it if makes sense or not but one example is if you were to run say just throwing it out there meatboy pc version on a console without changing anything it would perform pretty badly compared to a console version designed to work around the specs it has

now i often question my self thinking a console would be the same thing as a pc just not as open to features like you get on pc though thats going to change definitly

Please no!
Did you guys know EA installs some kind of spyware thing on your computer, so they can check it, with Origin?
I uninstalled Origin after that!

That kind of stuff isn't allowed on game consoles. Don't worry about that.