Next gen features *spawn
- Thread starter Scott_Arm
- Start date
There are rumors floating around that Microsoft will stop using Microsoft points sometime during this year. That has little to do with hardware speculation on the next Xbox though.
That doesn't really make any business-sense. A lot of people don't have credit cards and there are people that won't trust anything but prepaid cards.
They could rename them to something else but I can't see them discarding some form of "internal cash" system any time soon.
Yop that's the only reason I still have not buy any games (or application) on the android market, I hate to pay with my card on the net I do so only when I've no choice.
Still I prefer prepaid card labelled in proper currency, I've never like MS points system.
I think it's a little bit more than a rumour at the moment.
What's the problem with buying prepaid cards loaded with money instead of points?
How exactly would that be any different from points?
A bonus question would be what currency would be used?
Persistantthug
Newcomer
Money.
PSN cards (American) come in $10, $20, $50, and $100.
You can even get them in grocery stores now.
So why wouldn't Microsoft do this?
Persistantthug
Newcomer
Such as what? (besides Cross Game chat, because I know that's an obvious answer)
What I mean is, PS3/PSN has Direct TV, Netflix, got YouTube and Hulu first, has twitter, has facebook, NHL, MLB, VUDU, Lovefilm, VIDZONE, BBC, MUBI...a web browser to traverse the internet, HOME, and a ton of other stuff as well.
So what is it that you feel PSN/PSN is lacking that XBOX 360/XBOX LIVE has?
You didn't answer the first question:
how would that be any different/better from points? Why would it be better?
Because the real price wouldn't be hidden by an intentional layer of obfuscation? Points seemed like a great idea, I'm sure, when they were just going to be used like tokens on these tiny XBLA games, but those games got bigger and more ambitious, and they also started selling full retail titles as downloads. MS points don't seem cute and innocent when you're asking for 4000 of them for a game. That's why the On Demand prices are all in real money. But since they've already basically integrated the XBLA and On Demand markets in the new dashboard, having some games priced in points and others priced in dollars, given how ambitious some XBLA games have gotten, doesn't make sense any more, if it ever did.
It#s so that you know what you are apying without hacing to guess/work it out, same as PSN. A game that's $7.99 or £5.99 or €6.99 is exactly that t the buyer, whereas a game that's 800 points isn't clearly known what it costs to the user. the major disadvantage I see with cash rather than points is that it seems point cards get better discounts. Will a $60 card really be sold for $30? Other than that, the transparency of cash is desirable, I think.So basically they'll just devaluate the points to show smaller numbers and possibly change the name
I still can't see why that's anything noteworthy.
Silent_Buddha
Legend
Points also have the nice property of being universal. MS didn't have to create a seperate card for each region they sell X360's in order to represent the local economy. In that way it's easier (less costly) to introduce them into smaller markets. Granted the savings are small, but every bit of money wasted (cards in local currency instead of universal) is money left on the table.
Still the brand is big enough now that I'm guessing MS would rather have it be more user friendly than be more cost effective.
As well, as Shifty mentioned, this should allow MS to theoretically make more money as the cards are unlikely to be discounted as heavily when it has a monetary face value versus a points value. Hence MS could lower the margins built in for retailers.
Regards,
SB
Still the brand is big enough now that I'm guessing MS would rather have it be more user friendly than be more cost effective.
As well, as Shifty mentioned, this should allow MS to theoretically make more money as the cards are unlikely to be discounted as heavily when it has a monetary face value versus a points value. Hence MS could lower the margins built in for retailers.
Regards,
SB
For me, the only thing I like is stuff like '3 other friends are playing this game' and then being offered the ability to join their game. I don't have enough friends with 360 (or time for uninterrupted online gaming - kids suck for that
) to enjoy party chat anyway, but now I guess with Vita party chat, who knows?I must be some kind of a freak then but I'd say points are actually more user-friendly than money. Sure, their numbers are a tad bit big but chopping off a zero from the end can help. Also how would the direct money based thing work in countries that have no official XBL support, like Estonia? Wouldn't that cause some extra legal problems?
I really can't see why it should be any different if they'd replace points with $/€/£ on the card. MS will still sell them to (r)etailers at fixed cost. Just when people see that a 20€ card is on sale for just 10€ they might see it as a better deal than 4k card at half that's original price.
Another thing no one seems to take into account is that money's value changes and generally there is no nice and round number that you can use in all the currencies. It's far easier for the devs to set a fixed price of N units (points) for their game than to figure out a nice round number for each and every different currency in use for their game price.
Persistantthug
Newcomer
For me, the only thing I like is stuff like '3 other friends are playing this game' and then being offered the ability to join their game. I don't have enough friends with 360 (or time for uninterrupted online gaming - kids suck for that
On the PS3, developers program that feature into their games.
For example...I play alot of BATTLEFIELD 3 on the PS3, and I get "join requests" all of the time. The notification appears in the upper right hand corner, and alerts me regardless of what I'm playing or doing....provided I'm logged into PSN, of course.
This isn't new, because BATTLEFIELD: BAD COMPANY 2 (PS3) did this too.
If I'm not mistaken, Uncharted 2 did this as well.
True, but on 360 all games have it afaik. This is an advantage. Cross game invites are also handled more nicely.
Don't get me wrong though, I'm fine with the PS3. Just saying that the 360 got those things right the beginning, and they could improve the PS3 further. Obviously though, witnessing Vita's features, Sony is willing to learn.
Don't get me wrong though, I'm fine with the PS3. Just saying that the 360 got those things right the beginning, and they could improve the PS3 further. Obviously though, witnessing Vita's features, Sony is willing to learn.
Persistantthug
Newcomer
