FYI - Nothing really groundbreaking, but I thought it is pretty neat to do on the xbox.

Create a game with 0 public slots and 1 private slot. You can then invite a friend and talk in the lobby or start the game and talk.

Wow. That's a really expensive just to talk to people.

$200 for X-Box
$50 / month for X-box live
$30 / month for internet

= $280

What if your relatives live in China?
The X-box not ring like a phone so they won't know when you are available.

Yeah, i only use my internet connection and xbox to make long distance phone calls.

BTW, xbox live is not $50/month. It's $50 for the first year. I'm guessing, next year it will be priced between $9.95 - $14.95 per month or continue to be $50 for the year.

It sounds like a great way to keep in touch actually. If you have some relatives that are like you (as a gamer), you can keep in touch and have fun at the same time for no additional costs. Hopefully father's and sons and siblings away at different colleges would use this system to keep in touch.

This actually has been great. Everytime I want to talk to a friend from online, we just go play a game on Live. I totally agree with you. I wouldn't go out and buy an Xbox just for this feature but since you're talking about people who have an Xbox already, why not take advantage of it?

This is actually a cool feature for someone who has cable internet but not a phone, just a cell phone where the minutes can be precious. That's my situation actually.