So when Activision decided to raise the price of their games to $60, and other companies followed suit, that only affects the Activision customers? Companies watch other companies for new ways to milk their customers.

It may seem small, but MS may decide to raise the price again down the line, seeing how quick people are to spend their money.


Don't start with that "inflation" BS. It doesn't cost them millions of dollars of subscription fees to run Xbox Live; the only expenses they may have are maintenance of the shop and voice chat servers, they don't even run game servers.

Besides charging for online I hardly would have a reason to be mad at them.Yea it sort of svcks because PSN is free, but too me the benefits of having an xbox outweigh that of having a PS3

Why do I pay this subscription? Why will I continue to pay for it?

Because X-Box has games I want to play, such as Halo. Onetime PS exclusives (like Final Fantasy) are coming to the X-Box as well (no need to buy a PS3 just yet). All of my friends and family across the country and around the world have X-Boxes and we all play the same games, this alone makes the subscription fee worth it for me.

I don't understand where people get this pay by the month deal for xbox live...It's a one time fee of $50. You can't break it down like that, it doesn't make sense.

Iso more free games.

Probably because there's a pay by the month option.

I heard a rumor that the ps3 doesn't have a subscription fee. Only rumors though...

Yes. But that is $7 a month. (Or whatever the amount is.)

Except according to the article, the one-month cards are now $10, meaning if you pay by the month you're paying $120 a year.... Just another way of forcing you to commit to a whole year and/or milk as much money from you as possible.

I usually buy things (WoW) monthly in case I stop playing in the middle of the year, thank god I don't use LIVE.

Ehm...all subscription services work like that; you can buy shorter ones, but the long ones are cheaper per month.

Ehm...what?

I'm fairly sure inflation does exist, and there's nothing strange about correcting for it, every single company does it, without exception.

Yup. Good thing an inflation of 3% on $0/year for almost every other online multiplayer service is still $0/year

And that, I believe, was Nami's point. No one else is charging and all well within the black. Microsoft doesn't even carry the heaviest load on their servers, yet they do charge.

Should Microsoft really be blamed for charging for a service? If other companies want to miss out on profits that's their business, there really is no reason for MS to do the same. They are offering a service and naturally want to be paid for it, you don't go to a store and get a steak for free, or a car. Very few services are free, why should xbox live be? You, me or anyone are not entitled to free online play in any way, shape or form. It's a privilegie when we do get it, not something to be expected.

Last time I checked, I already do pay for online play: My ISP.

That is pretty much the only Internet-related service I pay. When it comes to the Internet, your logic completely falls apart, because the vast majority of Internet services are free. Hell, you are using a free service to tell me that most services are not free.

Also, both steaks and a car are finished products, not services. A car wash would be an example of a service

Explain this then:
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20081029125613AA4Fwp3

I don't pretend to know how inflation or economy works, but if the price of games has stayed the same (or lower) in 15+ years, then why does the price of an online service need to go up $10 after 8 years due to inflation? If they made a "premium account" or something where people could pay extra for this facebook/netflix/twitter stuff, and just leave the price low for people who just want to play games, then it would be fine.

They are just milking more cash out of the customers they know won't cancel. (yeah I know what you're going to say: "smart business plan", "companies have to make money" but this is not a good way to treat your customers... and sometimes ethics and people's feelings play into things more than just making money.

I can't be bothered to read ten pages to see if this has come up before, but I hear there are rumours of a platinum service :sadvaultboy:

http://www.gamesradar.com/xbox360/xbox-360/news/pachter-groan-suggests-100-xbox-live-platinum-service-is-on-the-way/a-20100903114835428042/g-20060321132945404017

That's the point he made with the inflation. They aren't milking *more* cash out of the users, if at all they are milking the same. Just use an inflation calculator you can see that the price increase is absolutly warranted.

Not to mention people completely underestimate the bandwidth, servers and personal costs for these kind of operations. I'm not saying MS isn't making any profit of this, but it's not as big as people believe.
Xbox live traffic has increased massivly and all that traffic costs MS a good deal of cash. The traffic of comparable services from Nintendo and Sony is tiny in comparison.

I heard a rumor that the PS3 has an online multiplayer. Only rumors, though....

Disgusting!

I have Xbox Live for a year as a birthday present. I shall not bother updating to another year.

No dedicated servers (get dedicated servers for free on PC)
Few games offer a server choice or jump into an ongoing game (can do both on most PC games)
PC online gaming is free and dedicated servers means less lag and server choice offers more choice for the type of game I want to play.

Microsoft make enough money without charging for online gaming.

This will drive more people towards the PS3 or back to their PC's as in my case.

Less people on Live, less fun on Live.

Or they won't care at all and cough up the extra $10.Honestly no one I know outside of these forums knows about this.Why the hell would you switch to PS3 anyway or PC.If you don't already have the system then you would be spending $200-$1500 on a new platform.

Precisely. The $10 a month will do no such thing. People who bought the Xbox 360 knew already of the pros and cons of buying it (in most cases) so they knew that they would be paying to play online. Those who didn't wish to have to pay obviously wouldn't have bought the Xbox in the first place. 360 owners aren't going anywhere I can assure you of that.

Semantics. Replace my two examples and they are just as valid. You make a good point, but I still think my argument holds up, expecting to get something for free is just silly, very few people are willing to just give something away, especially a corporation whose prime function is to make money.

:lol: Have you been on Live? I think less people might be more of a good thing than a bad. A few nights ago I played a Ranked match on Rock Band against someone who sounded like he was young-teens age. Before the song started he was dropping mad f-bombs, and when I took the lead he kept screaming F[ceeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeensored]! F[ceeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeensored]! into his headset.

And that's hardly an uncommon experience, even for me, and I don't play online almost ever.

And we're expected to pay for the privilege

Eventually people will look at PS3 and say "Hey, why am I paying for something others get for free and the service is pretty much the same?"

Yeah, the kids that get their parents to pay for LIVE will stay no doubt, but for those of use who have other things to spend money on and have to be pretty careful, we will go somewhere else. Xbox players will be left with all the little teenage screamers.

I have CoD games for Xbox LIVE and PC, PC servers are much better, less lag, less agro and more people who just want to enjoy the game.

Well I have both, but I don't mind the pay increase. While yes online play on the PS3 is free, most of the games I find fun, and that I own, are for the XBox. I really only use the online service of either for downloading tv shows, additional content, or arcade games. Which is probably why I have no problem with the increase, because the service Microsoft is providing me is highly convenient.