It is amazing the amount of different game consoles that are available in stores today. There is the Wii, Playstation 3, Xbox 360, and many earlier versions of these consoles such as GameCube and Playstation2 still for sale.
What is even more amazing is the lifestyles that revolve around the videogames that you can play on these consoles.
At the University of Iowa and at other universities around the U.S., students, especialy males, spend a lot of their freetime in a virtual world. In fact, it's easy to say that some people schedule their entire lives around the gamer lifestyle (with breaks for classes, well, sometimes).
Xbox Live is just one of those gaming perks that allows people to become more involved in the virtual world, and even get some social activity out of it. It is like an online gaming option where you can access the internet through your Xbox gaming console. At the University of Iowa, not only to several students have Xbox 360s with the Xbox Live option, but some even pay money for extra Xbox Live abilities.
My friend Mike recently purchased an Xbox 360 and loves the options that Xbox Live gives him. His gaming console came with the Xbox 360 silver package which allows him to voice chat with other players as well as download content, such as new games, a week after they are made available for gold members. With a gold package, players are able to not only do everything that is included in the silver package, but they are able to download content a week earlier, video chat, and have multiplayer gaming online. However, subscriptions are required for a gold package and it costs $49.99 a year.
You would think that being on a college student budget would deter a lot of university students form purchasing the gold package, but that just isn't the case. Mike says that he pays for the extended service because he is really into the games and since this is what he does with his friends, it's worth every penny to get the experience out of it.
"Some people pay money to go to the movies or the spend extra money going bar hopping. This is what I do for fun, so why not spend the money on it," Mike said.
Xbox Live is even working on expanding its services to cellphones and other handheld devices, bringing a whole new meaning to the term gaming.
I say if you're into it, go for it. Who knows, maybe I'll give it a go, but as long as I don't have to pay for it.
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