If any company believes 'Pay to Play' is the way forward, they are very much mistaken. Yes, people will pay for an MMO, because with the multi-player aspect it is reasonable, but not for single-player. In actuality, anyone running such a scheme will probably make a lot less.

Some claim that this is necessary to keep PC gaming alive, yet to be honest, it doesn't look anywhere near dead. I really cannot understand how many consumers believe consoles to be superior, with their 3 or more years worth of out of date hardware! They are limited is so many ways, and always will be. This is an undeniable fact.

Take for instance the economic recession of last year, the number of console games being sold, and thus profits, fell off drastically. Why? Because £40 to £45 for an inferior product is damned unreasonable, when the same product is available on PC for half that price!

"Pay to Play" (paying a monthly fee to access a single player game) might just work for me, provided certain conditions are met. For example, Ubisoft would have to make me see the value in it... they're not going simply package SH5 up and make me rent it as is on a monthly basis. If they keep adding content, fixing bugs, etc., I'll be more than happy to pay them on a regular basis. I need to see that value first, though. Don't hold it against me when I say I'm not holding my breath. Ubisoft would need to prove themselves to me before I'm willing to commit.

While we're on the track of renting... I'd love to see a single authorization each month to confirm that my "Ubisoft account" is active. Rhapsody does the same thing for my "To Go" subscription. Plug my MP3 player in once a month, and I'm verified for another 30 days. Why can't Ubisoft do the same? Rhapsody's gotten $15 a month from me for the last few years. Ubisoft ought to be drooling at the prospect.

Well, I guess it means that eye-candy isn't the core of a good simulation. I bet you if you made a poll, graphics is ranging far behind any features for most of the "simulation players" at subsim. Realism probably also is much further up on the list. Graphics only has to be reasonable, and SHIII surely still is. If someone managed to add the SHV wolfpacks and dynamic campaign features to SHIII, that probably would be the olymp for most subsim gamers. Better graphics is nice if everything else is in its right place, but the real immersion for a simulation player comes from realism.