The following blog post won't containt any pictures, movies or humorous jokes. Really, I assume the subject may not interest a lot of people, but I need to get this off of my shoulders so atleast I know that I have voiced my opinion and have done my part.

The subject of "kids" and "teenagers" on Xbox Live, and the internet as a whole has been on my mind for quite some time. But what really pushed me over the edge to the point where I had to voice my concerns, or views on the matter was yesterday's release of the Spring Update for the Xbox 360, and the subsequent uproar about the "MSN Messenger is not available to Child Accounts" error when thousands of people tried to use MSN (the Spring Update's most lauded feature) on their 360.

For those not familiar with the problem (and you can skip this paragraph if you are), it has been around since the launch of the 360. Upon creating your Xbox Live account, you had to enter your age and create (or enter a current) .Net Passport, also known as a Live ID. This is basically the account that is used for MSN.com, Msn Messenger, Hotmail.com, as well as your gamertag. Now when I created my Xbox Live account, I was the age of 17. Up to this point the only restraint placed on you for being under the age of 18 was that many movie, game and contest advertisements throughout the Blades on the 360 weren't viewable. And after yesterday's release of the Spring Update, MSN Messenger would not work if you were under the age of 18 (for security/protection concerns that come with the use of an online communicative program where having anonymous contacts you have not talked to or seen before is common). The real problem however is the fact that even if you were younger than 18 at the time of creating your Xbox Live account (which you could have done as early as 2002 when the Xbox Live service first went Live on the original Xbox), but you are currently over the age of 18, your 360 wouldn't be able to detect this. In other words, no matter how old you are, if you created your Xbox Live account before the age of 18 you aren't eligible to use the new MSN Messenger on your 360, nor can you view the formentioned advertisements on the Xbox Live Blades.

Getting back on topic, yesterday there was a very large uproar from not only kids and young adults who couldn't use this feature (which is available, for free, to anyone over the age of 13 on the PC), but also from adults over the age of 18 who created their account a year or more ago. They were paying the same price for the Xbox Live service as everyone else, yet they were being restricted certain features that really should be available to them through an option in the Family Settings. The problem arose when people who either created their Xbox Live account at the age of 18 or later, or who had lied about their age during the original setup, couldn't stand all of the complaints from who they assumed to be "little kids" about not being able to use Messenger. Here are several of the common complains found on message boards:

 - It's not like you kids could use the feature yesterday on the 360, so now that it's available (for free) it's not like Microsoft is actually taking a feature away that you previously had"
 - "Go use Messenger on your PC"
 - "What's the matter, can't talk to all your little school friends on your gaming console? It's meant for gaming, not texting!"
 - "Kids always complain about any little thing that doesn't go their way"
 - "If Microsoft did fix this update, you teenagers would just find something else to complain about"
 - "This is what you get for ruining Xbox Live"

To be frank, comments like these aggrivated me to no end, for a lack of better words. Anytime I hear someone either in real life, over Xbox Live or on a forum degrading teenagers or kids saying "You're just some punk kid", "Grow a pair", "You'll learn that in middle school" or "Don't worry, he's just some kid" it really bothers me. In reality, "kids" or young adults have every right to be using the same service we do, because they pay for the same service we do. Staying on the subject of Xbox Live, I've met a hell'uva lot of great kids and young adults over Live, who have more respect, more maturity, and frankly more intelligence then a lot of the adults on Live. The same is true for internet forums. Almost everyone trash talks on Xbox Live, and yes there are a lot of kids or young adults who take it to a (pointless) extreme, but I would argue that there are almost as many adults who do the same.

The only reason why kids, in my mind, get singled out is usually because of their voices. I hear the same garbage that comes out of kids mouths over Xbox Live that I do from adults, however their higher-pitched voice opens up a whole new avenue of insults that on the flipside is not appplicable to most adults. Having this opportunity, adults are the first ones to say "Oh, he's just some kid", an insult that kids can't use under most situations. So perhaps, the majority of adults are even worse then most kids for going down the route of insults based on age and voice.

So next time someone in your Xbox Live game, or on your forum insults a kid just for being a kid, step in and tell them that they are likely the ones who need to grow up.

 

This week is... or, I should say 'would have been' E3 week. It's sad that in a week where us gamers would usually be downloading new trailers by the dozens, reading in-depth previews of this holiday season's biggest blockbusters, and having revealed to us brand new IP's and sequels from our favourite developers; we are doing none of this. It's a shame that E3 has been downgraded; what once was a spectacular month for gaming has now become one of the most lackluster.

What do you miss most about E3? And how are you killing time during these dog days of gaming?

In quite a peculiar way, Sega has admitted that their Sonic games of late have utterly sucked. By which way did they make such claims? Through their "Sonic The Hedgehog" comic book. The following is from a pre-lude to issue #175:



The setting is this: Robotnik has captured Sonic, attached a "Neuro-Transceiver" to the hedgehog, and is controlling him via a video game pad against his friends. And in case you can't read the captioning, it says "It's not my fault! The controls are horrendous! I should've spent more time in development".

So true...

Some scans from a certain magazine have been released on the internet of the new Splinter Cell game titled "Splinter Cell: Conviction". Although the series appears to be taking a whole new direction resulting in many questions from fans; there is one question that has been at the top of everyone's mind.

Is "the new" Sam Fisher modelled off of Brian Ekberg; Sports Editor here on GameSpot? Judge for yourselves...

"Thank you for purchasing our faulty Guitar Hero II guitars. To express our graititude, we have released over-priced content packs in the form of three songs per-pack; two that you want, one that you don't. Did we mention that they were 500 MS points per-pack? Horse armour what? As an added bonus, if you download all three packs within the next 24 hours, we will ship to you a real-life salt shaker. Just dabble that on your RedOctane-arrogance-induced wound and you will have received the full Guitar Hero II experience".

-RedOctane/Activision