Xbox Live is king and from what we’ve seen from Nintendo and Sony, that’s not going to change anytime soon. Live is all about the feeling of community and an incredibly important part of their community is Major Nelson’s blog. Larry Hryb’s blog has quickly become an everyday destination for everything Xbox and for good reason, it’s normally the first place important new Marketplace content is made public.

While it’s obvious the Major Nelson blog is a strategic part of the Xbox Live plan, rarely has that been more obvious until just recently. If you’ve visited the blog in the past few days, you probably noticed that the last seven posts were empty, opinionless messages regarding over-priced gamer pictures and themes from EA Sports, Godfather and Just Cause. Posts like these hurt Major Nelson’s “community” aura, even if it’s all just a dog and pony show in the first place.

The majority of the Xbox Live community, along with myself, feels these gamer pictures and theme packs should be free with the game we purchased, not an extra charge. Major Nelson advertising this overpriced, generally unnecessary content strikes a negative cord with the community. Comments on his most recent posts confirm as much:

“Wow, EA isn’t messing around…that’s like $100 (US) in content offered up over the last week or so. Gotta love shortchanging the actual discs!”

“why wernt these teams in the game SFU EA u money grabing B@stards”

“I definetely won’t be buying any of these themes…as usual…but these prices on Marketplace have got to come down. 150 points for a single team theme…should be 20 points, or maximum 50. Gamerpics should be 10 points a piece, or maybe 50 points for a pack. Oh well.”

“EA forgot to make a referee picture pack and theme. Maybe a hot dog vendor one, too.”

I’m just hoping that the recent influx of picture and theme pack advertisements don’t become the norm. I’d like to think people visit Aeropause for news with an opinion, instead of just a quote and a link. Many people visit the Major Nelson blog for some Xbox Live community news and a little info from Larry himself. You can be sure that the posts you’re reading without any comments from Larry probably weren’t even posted by him in the first place. If fanboys continue go there every day and get bombarded with posts about worthless Marketplace content, they will undoubtedly opt to frequent other gaming blogs who are forced to sift through their corporate sludge.

On second thought…keep it up, Major!