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Here’s part of their email informing subscribers of the price increase:

“This holiday, Xbox LIVE is adding new Gold features, including ESPN and Video Kinect, with Hulu Plus coming on Xbox LIVE in 2011.”

“Besides launching the new features and titles, we will also be increasing the price of Gold membership on November 1, 2010.”

I already don’t use their crappy Twitter, Facebook, and Last.fm implementations. I HATE ESPN, don’t have any plans to buy a Kinect, and won’t ever subscribe for Hulu Plus on top of Xbox Live and Netflix. Microsoft is bankrolling their stupid new features by forcing a price increase on every Xbox Live subscriber! Why not make all the jocks who actually care pay for ESPN instead?

The worst part is that we’ll just take it because of games like Halo Reach that are totally awesome online and aren’t available on any other platform…

I’ve gladly been paying for Xbox Live since it launched day 1 on the original Xbox, why not offer some sort of customer loyalty program?! But no, that’d be too pro-consumer.

This is the kind of dick move that will make people think twice about owning an Xbox now or in the future. If this kind of thing becomes a trend, I doubt I’ll be as loyal as I have in the past.

Just finished watching the Nintendo and Sony live streaming keynotes (and Microsoft’s yesterday)… I must say, Microsoft and Sony both had great E3 keynotes. Happy I own both platforms. Totally not feeling Nintendo anymore personally.

My early 20GB 360 was starting to feel cramped with all the downloaded games and now the option to install disc games to the HDD, so I was thinking about buying a new hard drive soon, although they do still cost a bunch for a 120GB (about $130) so I wasn’t in any hurry.

So when my friends here were saying they wanted to buy a 360 soon but weren’t sure if they could manage to buy a new console just yet, so I proposed that I could upgrade to a new larger hard drive console (with HDMI video out) and sell them my old 360 for only $150. They liked the idea, so I ordered a 120GB black elite console on Monday from Amazon (they don’t tax here in TN) and it arrived the next day (yesterday). It costed more than a hard drive upgrade (after I sell my old 360) but I do get the added value of the HDMI out (I can already see the difference in picture quality) and the classy black console. The best part is helping my friends get a reliable used 360 and they’ll also be on Xbox Live, so that’s a big plus.

I just need to call to get the free hard drive transfer cable from Microsoft (their gift for my buying 2 360s) once I get my stuff off my old hard drive my friends will be “next gen” console owners finally (provided they have the $150).

I’ve also got two “great games” that came packed-in with the Elite LEGO Indiana Jones and Kung Fu Panda! I plan to trade these in before I even open the plastic wrap…

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