This is nothing more than a bitch session post. I do not understand why Microsoft, which has had years to get it right, cannot build a working online system. Most of us at Iron Realms have had a 360 since last spring, and we have had constant problems trying to play together online. We’ve had problems with Ghost Recon, with Burnout, with Rainbow Six, and so on.

At the moment, for instance, we were trying to have a spirited afternoon firefight in Rainbow Six. Instead, we’ve spent 45 minutes trying to find someone to host so that everyone can both connect to the game and hear each other. Either someone won’t be able to connect to the host, or some people in the game won’t be able to hear each other, though everyone else can hear them. This is the typical problem we encounter.
$50/year for Xbox Live Gold account gets us 45 minutes of wasted time. If Xbox Live was having network problems I’d understand. It’s a rampant, frequent problem, however, and has been enough to cause us to simply stop playing certain games online with each other (like Burnout) in disgust.