The End of Xbox Live Subscriptions is Near

I subscribe to a lot of shopping/tech/gaming rss feeds and one in particular, TechBargains.com, is updated so often, I read it like a commercial pricing index.

One thing I've noticed lately is that Xbox Live 12+1 Month subscription cards have been steadily coming down in price over the last 4-6 months. They started at $50 a year for 12 months and now they're $30 for 13 months.

The Playstation online service, PSN has been free from the start. Nintendo, while it's extremely limited in capability is also free. How much long with Microsoft keep up the pricing scheme. If it's not on it's way out the door to charge people for their admittedly awesome service, why is Microsoft letting companies like BestBuy and sell the subscriptions so deeply discounted?

I give Microsoft till the end of 2010 to dump the pricing all together. Maybe it's just a dream, but hopefully it will be a reality soon.