Xbox live price going up !

[Scott_Arm]

A couple days ago I saw a $11 000 wire-frame chair with a mesh seat. I could buy three Herman Miller lounge chairs for that price, or maybe four. That price was absolutely insane in my mind, but someone wants it, and I guess its worth it to them. Who am I to say what they should and shouldn't buy?

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Exactly. Value is relative (in this culture, the scope of true value being an RSPCA discussion) and the price of something is 'whatever you can charge'; the justification is 'people pay'.

 

[BoardBonobo]

It works the same way that costing any form of addiction works. Once you've got people hooked they'll be willing to pay anything in order to get a fix if they get a buzz from it or it makes them feel included or special in some way.

 

[patsu]

Addiction may have nothing to do with it. It's business as usual. Can't people leave XBL subscribers alone ?
[size=-2]There are likely more important issues in this world that deserve your attention.[/size]

 

[NavNucST3]

Well worth it, or the only choice?

I don't want anyone to be offended by this, but people are sheep. You couldn't charge a person a fee of several hundred dollars up front and say "here, you are now able to play online for a few years!". But if you feed them in increments, and say "oh, it's only a measly cost of a game every year, teehee" then they'll eat it up. It's not as hard to swallow.

Strangely enough isn't this exactly what tivo used to do. When I was looking at tivos years ago you had a choice to pay per month ($12) or to pay for a lifetime subscription ($299). Now I certainly didn't rummage through any boards but was there any outrage at these fees? Were you railing against the man at that time as well.

So I just took a gander at Tivo pricing and the Tivo Premier is the splash page, the thing is as much as a console and there is a monthly fee on top of the cable fee and internet fee and I'm certain that people pay for it and lo and behold I still don't care. You could even use similar arguments, "why would I pay for tivo when I can get it "free" with my cable company", "why don't these people just use an HTPC", "Why would anyone pay for tivo when they can just watch it from hulu/tv.com/netflix/etc.?!?"

I'll politely suggest that your arguments are red herrings and that regardless of cost Live would simply not suit you. Playstation Plus though now that is the most amazing service ever and cheap!

 

[DuckThor Evil]

I don't want anyone to be offended by this, but people are sheep. You couldn't charge a person a fee of several hundred dollars up front and say "here, you are now able to play online for a few years!". But if you feed them in increments, and say "oh, it's only a measly cost of a game every year, teehee" then they'll eat it up. It's not as hard to swallow.

The point is, "no big deal" is a crock of donkey poop. It is a big deal. I would MUCH rather have more money in my wallet to, you know, play an actual GAME instead of paying for a service that literally costs them pennies to run for each individual users.

It still baffles me that people are so willing to just throw away their hard earned money. It speaks volumes to how folks value their earnings now a days. I value my hard earned money, and I'm not just going to throw it away because some schmuck at MS decided they "could get away with it".

I hope you don't find this too offensive either, but didn't you shell out your hard earned 600$ for PS3, just because they are Sony and some schmuck there thought they could get away with it? With weakish first year game library to boot.

Perhaps many of the gold subcribers actually value the nicely working service high enough to dish out the cash, just like some people valued the launch PS3 to be a good enough value for it's price (was appaling value imo at 680e here)

 

[Billy Idol]

I wouldn't pay for gold if the online part were free as I don't use any of the other features really. But it's moot, they can get away with charging for online because it's in a different league than the competition. That's all that really matters in the end. As long as psn remains in the cretaceous period in terms of use and features then Microsoft will continue to be able to successfully charge for online. So I'll pay for live as long as I still online game on it since even though psn is free it isn't usable to me. I had honestly hoped that psn would have caught up by now and hence put some pressure on Microsoft, but after all these years it's pretty clear that's not going to happen this gen. Maybe the ps4 will fix their online but then again maybe not. It seems like ps3 users are content with it in it's current state so maybe that's a signal to Sony to just keep it free and primitive. In the end that's fine as long as I have a better option which Microsoft seems happy to provide so I'll just stick with them. That way I can get great online and others can go ahead and choose the free option.

Yeah, I really hoped as well that PSN gets his standard up to Xbox Live - but I think that they just made the absolute wrong bussines decision with Home, and spend to much resources there. Maybe Sony hoped that this is the right thing for online gaming (but we all know that we need a Wii2, to make the concept of Home successfull ).

But I still have hope that they are willing to improve PSN online gaming experience! There is this rumor that cross game chat will be in one of the future updates. And I think that this could be a major improvement to the PSN online experience - at least, it would simplify organizing the online gaming with friends.

But then I have the feeling that PSN will never be as good as Live: all the things you mention in this thread, which Live does better than PSN - I absolutely agree with you here, and whereas Live seems to improve over the years, PSN online gaming experience somehow stagnates IMO!

And then, I somehow fear that Sony could 'start' charging for such a 'plus' online gaming experience

 

[Shifty Geezer]

I hope you don't find this too offensive either, but didn't you shell out your hard earned 600$ for PS3, just because they are Sony and some schmuck there thought they could get away with it? With weakish first year game library to boot.

Perhaps many of the gold subcribers actually value the nicely working service high enough to dish out the cash, just like some people valued the launch PS3 to be a good enough value for it's price (was appaling value imo at 680e here)

That argument doesn't work though because PS3 was sold at a loss. Hence the final price was good value - how many other things in this life can you buy for less than they actually cost to make?!

 

[DuckThor Evil]

That argument doesn't work though because PS3 was sold at a loss. Hence the final price was good value - how many other things in this life can you buy for less than they actually cost to make?!

Well not many, but the pricepoint of PS3 was something only they could try to pull out of a hat and even dream of success. Also Xbox live fee also has been partly covering huge losses from the Xbox business in general. I don't think you can just separate them. It's not like they are rolling in money because of Xbox Live. (Still rolling in money though heh).

 

[manux]

Well not many, but the pricepoint of PS3 was something only they could try to pull out of a hat and even dream of success. Also Xbox live fee also has been partly covering huge losses from the Xbox business in general. I don't think you can just separate them. It's not like they are rolling in money because of Xbox Live. (Still rolling in money though heh).

You have to remember at ps3 launch time there was blu-ray players priced between 1000-2000e and ps3 was bargain compared to any standalone player... and those blu-ray players sucked. It just depends on use case, as an entertainment machine including blu-ray ps3 was cheapish at launch. As a game console it was horribly expensive compared to competition. Had I gone the route of xbox360+launch blu-ray + upgraded player + upgraded 3d player... well, ps3 is and was good value to Me. And that's before considering any gold live subscription fees which would be ridiculous as I mainly play single player games and online game very randomly.

I had live gold for a month on my xbox360 and didn't find reason to continue paying for it. And it was ridiculously difficult to get rid of the subscription, took me half on hour on ms webpage to find out the page and button to discontinue. And this is sick as one can perfectly fine subscribe from xbox360 but to unsubscribe one needs to either call or fight the ms web page via pc to find the quite well hidden unsubscribe page.

But in short, the value is very different to different people. For me there isn't reason to pay for live but I can see how those who game more online could feel it's worth the money(especially so in US where there are additional services such as netflix)

 

[DuckThor Evil]

You have to remember at ps3 launch time there was blu-ray players priced between 1000-2000e and ps3 was bargain compared to any standalone player... and those blu-ray players sucked. It just depends on use case, as an entertainment machine including blu-ray ps3 was cheapish at launch. As a game console it was horribly expensive compared to competition. Had I gone the route of xbox360+launch blu-ray + upgraded player + upgraded 3d player... well, ps3 is and was good value to Me. And that's before considering any gold live subscription fees which would be ridiculous as I mainly play single player games and online game very randomly.

I had live gold for a month on my xbox360 and didn't find reason to continue paying for it. And it was ridiculously difficult to get rid of the subscription, took me half on hour on ms webpage to find out the page and button to discontinue. And this is sick as one can perfectly fine subscribe from xbox360 but to unsubscribe one needs to either call or fight the ms web page via pc to find the quite well hidden unsubscribe page.

But in short, the value is very different to different people. For me there isn't reason to pay for live but I can see how those who game more online could feel it's worth the money(especially so in US where there are additional services such as netflix)

Yeah I can see how the launch PS3 was a good value to people, especially if Blu-ray was important for the user. Nothing wrong with that, it's just that the Live fee get's so much bad rep, when it can very easily be argued that in a gaming console a well thoughtout and executed online gaming infrastructure is, if not more important then atleast a core feature that for very many comes first to something like a movie playback. Of course individual tastes will vary.

I don't have a gold account anymore either after having it for 6-7 years, like you I heavily favour single player gaming. And rather play occasional multiplayer in the same room with the other players like NHL or Fifa. Yeah cancelling the subscription was a bit too much hassle, but now you can just use the codes.

 

[patsu]

Yeah, I really hoped as well that PSN gets his standard up to Xbox Live - but I think that they just made the absolute wrong bussines decision with Home, and spend to much resources there. Maybe Sony hoped that this is the right thing for online gaming (but we all know that we need a Wii2, to make the concept of Home successfull ).

If Home is profitable, then it's helping Sony to accumulate resources for bigger things. The problem with Home is it's a missed opportunity. Phil left. The top management didn't (don't) pay attention to it given that one interview hinted it's not their priority right then. From the outside, it looks like the management did not repurpose it or assimilate it into their key plans directly. Kaz was involved in setting high level goals. It's left up to the team's middle management to set their own course. I could be wrong here though.

But I still have hope that they are willing to improve PSN online gaming experience! There is this rumor that cross game chat will be in one of the future updates. And I think that this could be a major improvement to the PSN online experience - at least, it would simplify organizing the online gaming with friends.

But then I have the feeling that PSN will never be as good as Live: all the things you mention in this thread, which Live does better than PSN - I absolutely agree with you here, and whereas Live seems to improve over the years, PSN online gaming experience somehow stagnates IMO!

And then, I somehow fear that Sony could 'start' charging for such a 'plus' online gaming experience

I think both Sony and Nintendo will improve online gaming as soon as they can. This is because gaming is no longer a console-only thing. Besides Wii, the FaceBook + Flash games and the iOS + Android games are attracting masses to the industry, and they are all online. The 2 firms will stake their claim in the new space (Some may say already too late) because it's now a rapidly growing segment. The question is how and in what form. The iOS's online gaming network starts with a free Game Center service on iOS 4 this week.

Their plans will likely cover online gaming for social and core gamers. XBL should be heading that way too. Network helps to keep a better tab on their customers. It is also a key anti-piracy measure. It's more efficient for distribution.

At a different level, Sony group management worries the most about their Bravia brand. They feel the burn to get all their devices (phones, PCs, readers, TV) hooked up to the content sources. These plans will slow things down tremendously (compared to PS3 only efforts), but if used well, can provide economy of scale for all negotiations.

So we will see 2 separate online efforts from Sony soonish. It's really up to Kaz Hirai to weave both together within Playstation context. He will have to start with PS3 PSN. However, there is a chance he announce PSN for portable first to boost the device's overall package/image. e.g., If Qriocity were on-time, PSP Go would have been the "first" device to use it (although PS3 version may launch together).

Sony should consider charging for a plus experience should consumers desire it. But they will likely leave online gaming free (It may be too late to change now. ^_^).

 

[mrcorbo]

So then folks should just sit back and be willing to accept price hikes? Have fun setting the price margins for games next year then! Microsoft lead the hike to $60, and I have no doubt that, "because they can" they'll hike it up to $70 next generation. You do realize that this will ultimately lead to a collapse right? The market will saturate to a point where there are millions upon millions of users who are 'fine' with what they have, and each generation will be harder and harder to 'start up' so to speak.

Point is, this kind of behavior is counter productive. The market won't be able to sustain itself if the prices keep rising for no reason at all. There isn't even a justification here to fall back on, no new hardware, new services, nothing. It's just small services that they provide, a connection from one peer to another. They're ripping folks off, and folks love it. Why? Because they simply aren't smart enough to know any better. Ugh...

Ummm.....no. There's an ideal pricing for everything where you are selling the maximum number of units at the highest possible price. Given that higher prices -> lower sales there comes a point where the higher profit you are making per unit doesn't make up for the fact that you are selling fewer units. On the other hand, there's also a point where the increased unit sales enabled by a lower price don't make up for the decreased profit per unit sold. This is how the market dictates the price. It's not one man and it's not one company. Ultimately, the consumers set the price.

Also, claiming that people who don't share one's perception of value "aren't smart enough to know any better" or are "sheep" shows a level of egotism and elitism that don't usually lend themselves to objective analysis.

 

[mrcorbo]

It works the same way that costing any form of addiction works. Once you've got people hooked they'll be willing to pay anything in order to get a fix if they get a buzz from it or it makes them feel included or special in some way.

That's hyperbole. There is most certainly a limit to what people would be willing to pay. I suspect that $60/yr MSRP just isn't above that limit for most subscribers. There are options, though, that become more viable the higher that price gets. There's certainly a price where I'd be trading in my multiplayer 360 games towards a PS3 and buying most new multiplatform titles on PC.

 

[KongRudi]

Corporations exist to make as much money as they can in any way that they can. Saying that it isn't right for a company to charge for something that people are obviously willing to pay for makes about as much sense to me as saying that it isn't right that lions chase and kill animals for food when gazelles can survive by eating grass.

Well, I'm a selfish person, and I do not work for any of these corporations.
I'm complaining about the gamers, who don't complain about it..

If Microsoft raised the price to 70$ or 80$ a year, they would make even more money, good for them.. It's not like XBox-users have a choice, if they want to play online, they got to pay. They can even raise the price on games aswell, for all it concerns me personally. I would be happy for them...

I'm not shopping at that brand (Microsoft), because I get more bang for my buck from Sony.
If 360-games cost 40$, and then I could rent access to each games multiplayer wich interested me, for 20$ extra, I would probably shop Microsoft aswell., but I can't.

None of this matters to me, because I'm a PC/PS3 gamer, and ontop of that, I mainly prefer single-player games..
But that dosn't mean that I don't like to be able to bust out Warhawk, whenever friends are visiting, for some local and online multiplayer action, or try out the multiplayer on games sometimes.

The problem for me, is that I expect that Sony looks at their competitors in the game-industry, and if they see someone using a good strategy to gain more money, they might copy it.
They see how happy the 360-users are to have to fork out billions of dollar a year, they will offcourse concider doing the same, from us PS3-users.

Even tough PS3-gamers and 360-gamers like to look at themselves as different breeds, we're the same, just consumers of a different brand. In the end of the day we are all gamers...

If there had been a more outcry from the 360 user-base about their lack of choice of what they actually pay for, Sony would probably be much more sceptic to copying that buisness-strategy, than what I fear they are today.
And sure, most people might find it worthwile to pay 50-60 dollars to be able to play online, but I don't.
But when everyone else is yelling, how it's totally worth it, that won't help me.

So when the corporation I've done my shopping at, Sony, decides to charge for online, that will mean I loose that venue of online gaming.
Because it's pretty certain that I won't be able to play online for free, when everyone else on the platform get's charged for online play.

So that's why I'm annoyed that the 360-gamers is so happy to bend over for Microsoft, and pay them afterwards. :-/

 

[DuckThor Evil]

And sure, most people might find it worthwile to pay 50-60 dollars to be able to play online, but I don't.
But when everyone else is yelling, how it's totally worth it, that won't help me.

So when the corporation I've done my shopping at, Sony, decides to charge for online, that will mean I loose that venue of online gaming.

If it's not worthwhile to dish out 50-60$ per year, then why is it even worthwhile to complain about it? I think your fear of Sony adapting a similar payment system in the future is a valid one though.

 

[Squilliam]

So that's why I'm annoyed that the 360-gamers is so happy to bend over for Microsoft, and pay them afterwards. :-/

On the other hand you should also be equally annoyed with PS3 gamers and Sony. The former for not speaking out louder and the latter for not doing enough to improve the 'free' service which is PSN to the point where it provides real competition.

The shoe here goes on both feet.

 

[BRiT]

Squilliam, but you see, it's free, so who can complain about free, it's well worth the wasted hours and hours of endless frustration trying to get into your game.

 

[patsu]

Might want to check your network connection and power first if you find yourself spending hours and hours of endless frustration waiting for a PSN game. Or return the game.

If Sony doesn't improve PSN, then they deserve to lose their customers.

 

[Squilliam]

Squilliam, but you see, it's free, so who can complain about free, it's well worth the wasted hours and hours of endless frustration trying to get into your game.

Is it because we're still paying off our launch PS3 on installment?