O.K. It's the year 2004 for some of you who have somewhat been, confined in a cave.

But this is something that has been on my mind since the first Pay-To-Play online games (interesting ones in this case)hit us in the face.

What is your take on Online Gaming in the future? Online marketers can fore-see that video games, whether console or PC, would make big money in the United States. They understand the audience (somewhat), and they understand the "popularity" of the game that is being created for online use.

My take on Online Gaming? It's pretty acceptable at this time we have to pay for just about each game (5 dollars or more) a month to take advatage of its online capabilities... But, think about this 5 years from now? There will be more and more games with online/ORPG features with its own fee, just to play a game with a replay value of either nothing or something.

For example, I play FF-XI, PSOep1&2/3 (will get to this later), XBOX Live games (this, too), and just about to quit Anarchy Online... And the total cost to play these games are just about 90 dollars (or 27 a month minus 40 for XBox Live). Well, mathmatically speaking... anyone who considers themselves an online gamer will have to prepare to spend $324 a year PLUS the XBOX Live Kit and to get that online.

So you're at $350/yr (just for online gaming)... and most gamers are in their High-School phase of life (basically still borrowing from their parents), wouldn't this affect online gaming marketing? I believe so, because not every family can afford to have dial-up/BB services which adds to another $300/yr on dial-up and $948 for Cable (there are discounts, however).

And if your income is outstanding (like mine), you will be spending at least $1298 a year on playing online games alone. That's basically 1300. And for dial-up users, spend just about $624/yr (Yes, I subtracted XBOX Live, hence BB only).

Well, there are big time cable companies out there, and unless you're in a monopolistic town, you have a choice of providers:

EarthLink/ DSL DialUp - Great U.S. ISProv., $10 for first 6 months compared to AOL's 2-month Free w/ Sprint.

Time Warner/ BB - (Austin/Houston TX) Have decent discounts.

And these things most careful people, like myself, some others reading this, and parents pay attention to.

And we all know, the normal person isn't going for the high price no matter how bad someone wants to "play online". Nintendo (who isn't aware of the online gaming successes) needs to wake up, and smell the coffee. Their only game PSO/+/CARD are successful, and yes the HL Triple compatibilty is genius but, there may be more games out there later... updates and content cost money...

My suggestion for the future? Nintendo and Sony should do... is create a "XBOX-Live-Like" Net-Gaming program. PS2 is doing good, but there are still games being released with it's own net fee. And my belief is the only way anyone will maintain cap., is by doing what was said above.

I don't know if anyone agrees with me but, that's how it should be. Whether or not the actual game title is recieving money, it should go toward the companies (who should give back shares).

How you like that Alan?