DvsDevise

Yes I agree to an extent. I don't think MS have been halfassed with regards to the service. It's the legal departments that force these decisions. Pew Pew Pod might contain some hardcore sex mini game that opens up on Christmas day 2010. Legal departments get over cautious over these possible circumstances. MS would need to certify the title, get it rated, then they could remove the Live connection requirement on the game. Would you buy Pew Pew Pod for $5 instead of $1?

I asked the same question to XNA/XBLIG moderators about a year ago. They told me it's there for parent controls. However, a connection to Xbox Live wasn't required to enable parental controls. Xbox Indie games are unrated, so just have a yes/no option in the parental controls settings would do the trick!?!. It seems so simple. Obviously that's not the full reason.

I'm pretty sure I understand why Microsoft are doing this. If a game passes the peer review proce...

"As for Konami's Kojima, he described the evolution he sees in Natal as something "like the 2D to 3D shift, or the first time that I ever played with Family Computer [NES]" - a major new step forward for the game industry. He commented after he first saw Natal: "I wanted to share my surprise to everybody... but I had to restrain myself."

http://www.gamasutra.com/ph... ...

I bet you 560 points is Microsoft's cut, and valve gets nothing. Be gratful for valve, it could really be 800 points. They still took a bullet even though it's not free.