or ppl like me who just cba to re-subscribe atm lol

it's the prob with having a ps3/360. sometimes i may spend months playing on live every day, but then if i'm hooked on a ps3 game, it's pointless me even having live :(

Now if they'd just extend this free weekend by about 361 days...

But in all fairness, I simply can't see the justification in paying for XBL any more. PSN is free, and you can all tell me how XBL is superior (I know it is) until you're blue in the face, but here's the skinny: I DONT WANT TO PAY FOR SOMETHING I CAN (AND SHOULD) GET FOR FREE. If MS' gaming division tanks because of a lack of XBL subscriptions then that's all well and good, just hope that they learn a lesson from it. I'm sick of being nickelled and dimed by some greedy, soulless corporation (not just MS, but just about all of them).

How *noble* of Microsoft!

*continues to use the PSN, which is FREE 24/7, 365 days a YEAR*

You can pay next to nothing for a 1 year subscription to live (kinda). I just got a deal on amazon that gave me the messenger pad, 1 year of live and pgr4 for $60. The previous year I got the vision camera and a couple of arcade games, 1 year of live, and 1,200 point for $50.

Gears of War 2, Horde mode.

There is a national holiday in Russia on the 1st May and then there is a whole weekend!
Time for my old buddies to pop some heads in XBL :D

So is this worldwide event or just UK??

So, get this. I commented that I thought this was a good move for Microsoft. I pointed out that with MS Entertainment struggling to remain profitable that XBL fees and revenue from MS marketplace are an important part of their revenue stream. I also mentioned that with 17 million XBL accounts, even if half of those are gold that's almost $500 million in revenue. A quoted a recent study that suggested XBL revenue could hit 1 billion in a couple of years.

Two other posters jumped all over my comment, saying I'm negative towards Microsoft. I asked for clarification.

And here I am. Banished to the Gamer Zone for 2 days.

Why on earth are 360 fans so afraid of talking about the business side of the industry? I'm sorry. Instead of commenting on a topic I find interesting, I guess I should just kiss everyone's ass and talk about how great Halo 3 was without sharing opinions about the business side. (Actually, I quite liked Halo 3, but that's beside the point)

Unbelievable.

HOLY CRAP Free Gold for a weekend on Xbox Dive maybe Sony should...oh wait it's already free , My bad. ;)

Free of CHARGE PSN. EVERYTHING IS HIGH PRICE. WHILE PSN IS FREE. ONLY PAY FOR DOWNLOAD CONTENT VIDS OR GAMES.

I believe they are going to make the Gold tier free and they are going to introduce a VIP level. They are doing free weekends to get an idea of how many people would use the service if it was free so that they can update their infrastructure. They are going to go to dedicated servers and start doing MMOs. Just a guess, but it's time to push Live and create other ways to pay for it. MMO's would provide some cash.