With the advent of Microsoft's Xbox Live Marketplace, many companies have welcomed the new ability to profit from micro-transactions. Sony's Playstation 3 and Nintendo's Wii also plan on using a similar function to allow companies to release content for download by gamers to enhance their gaming experience.

However, recently it has come to the forefront of heavy scrutiny of casual to hardcore gamers. But why is it a problem? After all, companies are able to give console gamers extra content they always wanted but could never receive like their PC gaming counter-parts. It allows players to get access to demos, extra maps, extra multiplayer modes and additional single player content.

With the good comes the bad however and gaming companies are taking advantage of this under a thin veil which has drawn debate to the point of G4TV airing a debate on their "The Loop" segment of "Attack of the Show."

The problem many gamers worry about is that companies will take the idea of charging gamers for content to an extreme and force gamers to shell out extra money to get what ordinarily would have otherwise been normal content in the game.

Electronic Arts (EA) has drawn some of the greatest ire from fans, seeing one member of our own message boards going so far as to say there is no justifiable reason for any content that is in current-generation games to be taken out of next-generation titles in order to squeeze out a couple extra bucks.

Much of the ire towards the Madden and NCAA Football games has come in the form of alternate jerseys for teams in the game as well as historic stadiums in Madden. In the most recent games, dating back to roughly 2002, both games on the current-gen consoles contained alternate jerseys and historical stadiums free of charge from the moment a player opened the box.

However, with Madden and NCAA 2007 for the Xbox360, EA has left the alternate jerseys out in favor of what many suspect will cost them roughly 160 Points per Conference. EA also recently released the historical stadiums for 300 Points each. Thus far only the Los Angeles Rams and the Seattle Seahawks have received such treatment.

"I think we should let it see what happens before trashing it completely," said Matt Gagnon, of the MaddenMania forums. "That said, I'm not optimistic. EA has been at this for 2 titles and a lot of people are already complaining."

Lumines Live has also drawn heavy attention in that Q Entertainment's full release of the "Base" version of the game for 1200 Marketplace Points ($15 US) lists certain features on their menus that are only obtainable with the purchase of an additional "Advance Pack" for an additional 600 Points ($8 US) to round out most of the missing features.

The system shows a great amount of potential and has given users a great way to become more informed about their decisions about games and have unending access to additional content to extend the shelf-lives of their games. However, unless something is done to prevent the growing problems, many gamers fear that the problem will grow to a near unmanageable problem.