Over the past few years console games have been becoming more and more about their online capability ... "great!" you can say but nowadays single player is diminishing in the community. Sure we have recently had games like inFamous and [PROTOTYPE] which are all about the single player and Red Faction Guerrilla which featured major online play as well as online.
But the biggest problem I am noticing is with the cost of online gaming. before Xbox Live came out, to play a game online (e.g Warcraft 3) you would need to buy a PC + the game + pay for your internet subscription. Nowadays it's buy a new console+games+internet subscription+Xbox live (unless you bought a Ps3,but then you just went and bought a Ps3) + any DLC so as to stay fresh.
It's strange really, a company releases a game, you buy it, and then 3 weeks down the line you have to pay an extra £7+ to get the DLC, I know that sometimes there is a free option, or the entire DLC is free i.e Batman Arkham Asylum. I'm pretty sure that this is the reason that we have patches for games every now and then.... well it works in the pc online game world , see Runes of Magic chapter II or Requiem online, but oh well the whole point of being in business is to make money.
Finally two last points on the 360:
1. Make the points system a little less stupid ... either give a small discount on buying more than 500 points - rather than a straight £4.50 increase or whatever it is, or change the pricing system (make Castle Crashers a multiple of 500, rather than 1200 thats just annoying)
2. I have heard in multiple places that Xbox Live gold will be going free in January ... heres hoping
