Microsoft are increasing the price of Xbox Live Gold soon. From November the 1st, the monthly price will change from £4.99 and month to £5.99 a month. Similar price increases are also being applied to US and Canada Xbox Live Gold customers.

In my opinion, Xbox Live is fine the way it is now and Microsoft can obviously handle the traffic otherwise they would have reached out a long time ago. I don't think there are any additional costs, because as far as online gaming goes: the people who use the service are the ones who host the games. In PC gaming there is no such thing as finding host or connection interrupted because PC games use a central server, which anyone (including people who don't own the game) can legally setup on their own home network with a few mouse clicks.

I know Microsoft offer all these extra features like Last.FM and Facebook e.t.c. but for the people who don't even use those services, this is a giant kick between the legs. The only part of Xbox Live that is actually worth paying for is the buddy system, being able to hook up in an Xbox Live party is nice, so is the ability to find friends by looking on someone elses friends list.

I guess we'll just have to wait and see what happens, hopefully Microsoft will make some worthwhile changes that reflect this change in the Xbox Live Gold subscription charges.

Source: The Guardian