Yeah I was CLEARLY mistaken -- when EA "bought into live" 3 years back, I hadn't realized that they still controlled their own login system -- I thought that they had done away with that. That would have prevented them from cutting off live support to their games, since, as I thought I understood it, MS was in charge of running all that. I should have done a little more research before I opened my mouth, and should have thought twice about how much EA wants to bend over people for money.