LIVE price increase

[Mick Dundee]

Anyone else think this is BS....Because Xbox knows their online experience is a bit better than everyone else they charge for it... now.. they will charge MORE for it... 9.99 if you go monthly...24.99 for a 3 month card.... and 59.99 for a year.

 what a bunch of douche bags at Microsoft...

[KaiserWAVE]

The curious thing is that they raise the prices in the U.S, Canada, Mexico and the UK. The UK is (for now) the only European country that gets a price increase. Official word is that the prices in Germany (and supposedly other European countries as well) will stay the same. Could be related to the Euro, as Great Britain is one of the few (and among them the biggest and most important country as far as the toal population is concerned) that doesn't have the Euro. Don't know. I hate to admit it but I think it's worth it. But it would be really interesting to know WHY they do it other than being Microsoft and just saying "beacause we CAN"

[MedaForce]

I would feel a bit better about the whole price increase if they just came out and said WHY they are doing it.

It would also be nice if they just released a 3rd Live group for people who don't want all the bells and whistles. I use Live just for Online gaming and Market Place. I shouldn't have to pay extra fro crap I don't use (NetFlix, Twitter, FaceBook, LastFM, and ESPN)

[Jonesat]

I would feel a bit better about the whole price increase if they just came out and said WHY they are doing it.

It would also be nice if they just released a 3rd Live group for people who don't want all the bells and whistles. I use Live just for Online gaming and Market Place. I shouldn't have to pay extra fro crap I don't use (NetFlix, Twitter, FaceBook, LastFM, and ESPN)

you just said why they are doing the increase -LastFM, NetFlix, Twitter, Facebook...etc...
plus prices are going down on all OnDemand content as well.  plus to pay for all the extra goodies your getting with Natal in November. (hense the price change in november)

I think its defiantly worth it. its 5$ a month(when you purchase a year pass).   its just like cable tv, you pay a shit load of money, and you get all these extra channels you never watch or ever will, but your paying for them anyway. same thing, except this is cheap.

things like world of warcraft is almost what, 20 a month? 

but still, 5$ a month is not bad at all all things considered.
Plus keep in mind they are being nice compared to most places and allowing you to still purchase the cheap year passes until November and not charging an additional fee once the price increase comes into play, which is also good
But anyway, with all the extra stuff you get, discounts, plus the amazing servers that microsoft uses, i think 5$ a month is not bad at all.

[Phantom5800]

Microsoft does have to pay for all that crap they're adding ... though with 17million subscribers (old figure I'm sure, probably higher now), if they all buy the year pass at $50 that's $850,000,000 gross to MS. That is ... a lot of money from fees alone. They really don't need THAT kind of money to support Live, they really don't considering who they are. They also make more money from advertisements on the XBox and dlc, etc. Considering the last fiscal year showed $1billion in profits (profit, not counting what they spend to maintain stuff) from XBox Live ... I see no reason they had to increase price. Also note ... online games over Live are Peer2Peer and do not run on servers which should cost almost nothing for them (a server or two for match making and that's it).

I may be a little bitter towards Microsoft, but I look at the numbers ... and that is way more than "required" to run the service for what they give in return. For now Sony gives a free service to play games online, and if you want to pay extra for discounts, free game deals, and some other bells and whistles you can. Why Microsoft doesn't adopt the gamer friendly policy, and why their fans support it is beyond me (but it's most likely because they know/think they would only get a million or so people with a plan like that).

Sorry, end rant here. I don't even own a XBox 360, and my reason was very simple ... I have to pay for online play when PS3 does it for free.
...

[PDDestro]

For ppl in the US just hold off and buy the 12+1 live cards for $30 when they go on sale @ Amazon, Buy.com, & Newegg.com. The sales might go up too but it's still better than paying full price...

[AppleQueso]

Paying for xbox live in general would be a lot more justified if it wasn't just p2p.

[Mick Dundee]

I wouldn't mind paying if it was so I could use (if I actually wanted to) the extra services such as the Last FM, Netflix, Facebook, and any other crap... but just to play with other people should be free in my opinion

[Jonesat]

lol obviously they want to make a profit, but your also forgetting the cost of having all these servers running dedicated to sole games, and they keep running as well (unlike EA games that only support servers for 400 days ish)  look how many of their games from release STILL are supporting dedicated servers!

i play online on ps3, and if all they needed was 5$ a month to fix their shitty servers and actually have some quality, i would def do that in a heart beat.  

its def worth the 5$ a month ppl

As Tycho says :

"PSN is not an acceptable substitute for Xbox Live, though it's often said  to be, because in order to appear reasonable it is sometimes necessary to say things which are untrue. The only way to say something like that with a straight face is if you don't have experience with both, or if you don't play a lot of online games with friends. Even ancillary things like how it updates games (or the box itself) aren't up to par. I've had that fantasy before, believe me, the one where I shift my allegiance: Bluetooth headset slung firmly over the ear, I would set out to found a virtuous kingdom. But then I couldn't chat with whoever I wanted, when I wanted to chat with them. I couldn't form a game independent group to plan the evening's adventures, retain communications, or simply to mute every other person on the service. Invites don't manifest themselves in any kind of consistent form. These aren't little things - they're baseline functionality. It would be great if Sony offered a product this absolute, but they have chosen not to do so."

[Phantom5800]

^ I'm sorry ... games don't necessarily have servers running for them on XBox Live, but it's true. If they do it is for score boards or match-making (though that might be possible with P2P). XBox Live online gameplay is through Peer2Peer (ie, directly connecting all the consoles, not mediating through a server). The servers for XBox Live are to keep track of GamerScore and to host their downloadable games. Yes that does cost money ... but read my post from above, they make money off of advertising on the XBox, as well as dlc. The fact that they charge for a service that is in fact comparable to PSN is ridiculous now. When they started ... it was the only option besides PC, so they could get away with it, but now PSN and Wii are both free to play online (say all you want about it not being as good, it's free to play).

The only issue I've had with PSN is that it sometimes takes almost FIVE SECONDS (omg) to connect to the service and maybe close to TEN SECONDS to start playing a game online from the in-game lobby (sorry if you don't know what a server lobby is, I know almost no 360 games have one that I've seen).

Okay, rant #2 ... end I'm sorry if I am just sounding like a rabid fanboy, but I hate the price-gouging Microsoft is doing (just like I hate how expensive Apple products are when compared to other alternatives). Compare the service they offer now for $60/year vs what Sony offers for free to all users ... and the difference is ... cross-game-chat ... yeah, that's about the only thing gaming related that is different.

[AppleQueso]

Yeah I've never gotten what was supposed to be so bad about PSN. I've never had any major issues with it myself.

Really though, they can raise their prices all they want. I don't have nor am I too interested in a 360 anyhow, in no small part due to expensive proprietary accessories ($95 for a 60gb HDD, seriously? I can buy a 500gb notebook HDD for my ps3 for that much) and having to pay for simple online multiplayer service.

[Aaagreen]

I'll just use the money I save from not renewing to fund Stea-oh wait, it's free?

[Jonesat]

I'll just use the money I save from not renewing to fund Stea-oh wait, it's free?

he means Stealing


lol

[Aaagreen]

Totally.

[Drakul]

frankly $10 a year. Less than a buck a month.... I'll live.