Poll: Always online console - how much would people pay?

[Entitled]

Inspired by the recent rumors about the next Xbox possibly being always online, and this older news [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/117046-Microsoft-to-Offer-99-Xbox-with-Kinect-and-Monthly-Fee] about Microsoft experimenting with a mobile phone style two-year subscription contract for selling xboxes dirt cheap.

There is a lot of backlash in comments about how an always online console would be a total failure (assuming that it's exactly like the 360, but always online), but it seems like few people put the two together, considering that focusing a hardware around an obligatory connection service would be the perfect opportunity to further shift from a hardware-based business model to a subscription contract-based one.

So, assuming a... let's say $20 monthly LIVE subscription, contracted for 30 months, how much would the average gamer be willing to pay for a next-gen machine itself?

 

[tippy2k2]

snip

You're going to have to be WAY more specific here...

Is your idea one where you get unlimited access to games for X amount of money?
Is your idea the current form of XBOX Live where it gives you access to extra stuff but you still buy games?
Is your idea one where you get ONE game for X amount of money (like a MMO subscription) and each game costs this amount?
Is your idea that the system is free but you HAVE to pay for Live to use it?

What exactly is your hypothetical system?

 

[Entitled]

snip

You're going to have to be WAY more specific here...

Is your idea one where you get unlimited access to games for X amount of money?
Is your idea the current form of XBOX Live where it gives you access to extra stuff but you still buy games?
Is your idea one where you get ONE game for X amount of money (like a MMO subscription) and each game costs this amount?
Is your idea that the system is free but you HAVE to pay for Live to use it?

What exactly is your hypothetical system?

I guess it's the fourth, though it's pretty much the same as the second, but applied to an always online system.

Anyways, feel free to apply it to any possible variation. I personally think that front-loading the price of the games just wouldn't make much sense as it would increase the subscription way too noticeable.

The whole point of the mobile phone model is to make people pay in smaller bits, instead of ever having to see three digits at the same time.

 

[tippy2k2]

I guess it's the fourth, though it's pretty much the same as the second, but applied to an always online system.

Anyways, feel free to apply it to any possible variation. I personally think that front-loading the price of the games just wouldn't make much sense as it would increase the subscription way too noticeable.

The whole point of the mobile phone model is to make people pay in smaller bits, instead of ever having to see three digits at the same time.

If it's basically a 360 with a forced subscription fee (or even a free 360 with a forced subscription fee), there is no way in hell I would pay for it. Hell, even now, unless Live drops it's price-tag, there is a solid chance that I'm jumping back to the Sony ship. There is almost no reason anymore to pay for a subscription when a competitor is offering the same (with similar performance) for free.

With that said, Playstation Plus is something I'd be willing to pay for. A subscription-based program that allowed you to play games is something that I would be interested in. However, I don't think I'd be willing to go much more than what it is now ($60 a year if I'm not mistaken) unless I got to choose the games I wanted to play and every game was available to choose. If I got to choose the games in question, I would be willing to pay more depending on how many games a month I was able to get.

 

[Smooth Operator]

Well always online and subscription purchase are not in any way connected, so you first need to decide which topic you want to discuss.

But I find the subscription purchase more interesting so I'll comment on that, it would certainly be a new way to acquire your console and at a really low entry level at that, not to mention for MS it will be getting increasingly hard to sell shit that comes for free everywhere else so you tie console payments with Live payments and then the lines just nicely blur into obscurity.
Obviously it must be said that this system will forever and always be the more exploitative method as you end up paying far more while it lures people in with the low starting price.
And it wouldn't make sense to charge any more then the regional phone subscriptions, last Xbox came in at $400 so if you charge $40 per month they are already overpaying within the first year, after that it's all money in the bank.

 

[King Aragorn]

I wouldn't pay at all. To me simply, subscription is just too troublesome and also, we're paying more. It's like buying a game based on the cover art, it may be rather persuasive from the outside *low price point*, but the actual game, you're getting something pretty bad. *The extra $$$$ you're paying.*

 

[Genocidicles]

I would pay nothing because it would be worth nothing within ten years or so when they switch the servers off, subscription or not.

 

[Maximum Bert]

Can only speak from a personal viewpoint but a console thats has to be always online to play would be a deal breaker for me while even a free console that was subscription based would also be a deal breaker unless it was 1 pound a year or something.

I like choice and the ability to pay up front then get the goods not have a continual leech of money from me.

 

[Entitled]

Well always online and subscription purchase are not in any way connected, so you first need to decide which topic you want to discuss.

Of course subscription purchase can be done without always online, as it was demonstrated by the 360, (and always online can be done without any new busines models), but these are still connected issues, in that an always online console can be most conveniently presented as a service instead of a product.

You provide a next product but with extra requirements compared to it's old counterparts, and people get angry.
You provide a next product that has a tricky payment model compared to it's old counterparts, and people get suspicious.

But you provide a new service with a new payment model, (that by the way involves getting a product thrown at you), and apparently people stop calculating exactly how much money it costs compared to an alternative that is not a service, because it is seen as a separate entirely new thing.

 

[Harman]

I wouldn't. Always-on DRM is probably the worst aspect of the current generation (even more so than microtransactions and unnecessary DLC) and I have absolutely no desire to partake.

 

[Doom972]

A console that requires a constant connection to a server to work? If given for free, I might be willing to buy a few games. I wouldn't pay for the console itself, though.

In practice, it could work like cable descramblers do for cable companies - a machine that a company gives you so that you can pay for and use the services that they offer. This is the only way I can see an always-online console working for me, and even then the games would have to be much cheaper ($10 max).

 

[Entitled]

People either didn't read the OP and thought that $0 stands for "no deal", or $0 as a take-home price point is a huge psychological barrier that appears appealing enough.

I'm wondering if Microsoft is really trying that, whether they could really push it that low.

I'm hating the idea of always online systems, but it would also be pretty spectacular to see it win that way.

 

[spartandude]

if they want to make an always online console and have a subscription then they can kiss my money goodbye

 

[Aris Khandr]

Personally? I wouldn't pay anything. But I'm not a console gamer. I don't own a TV, much less the HD-TV that everyone has expected you to have since the 360/PS3 generation started. I had a TV and a 360, and found that as time went on, more and more games were just completely ignoring the idea that you didn't own an HD-TV. So I stopped owning their games on consoles. The only console I have is my DS, and I'm fine with that.

That said, I'm not inherently against "Always On". I'm almost never not online. I'm guessing that if they rolled it in with a benefit to gamers, they'd accept it without issue. "Always on" and one-time use registration codes like PC games in exchange for new games starting at $40 instead of $60-70, and I bet you'll get quite a few people on board. No guarantee that they'll go that way, but that's how I'd do it.

 

[zidine100]

i wouldnt, why because i would like to be able to use my consoles in about ten - twenty years, instead of having expensive door stops i spent hundreds of pounds on only to find out that surprise! we've taken the serves offline.

that and im not living in america, so.... i dont have the almighty reliably fast internet connections that everyone would expect you to have.

 

[Shoggoth2588]

I wouldn't buy one. I play console games because I don't want to worry about being booted off of my session because of an internet hiccup. I can understand some gamsters paying for an always-on console and embracing it, especially if they're from a PC playing background but I see it as others have said: as a way for game makers to dictate how their product service is to be used. I don't see games as services but as products. In 20 years from now for example, people will talk about how great Diablo 3 was when you could still play it. Other people, in 20 years, will be blowing dust off of their Playstation 1's or Playstation 2's and showing their children how awesome Shadow of the Colossus was or, Parappa the Rapper: Hell some people will be showing their grand kids how awesome Super Mario World and, Legend of the Mystic Ninja was on the Super Nintendo.

 

[dreadedcandiru99]

I wouldn't. Always-on DRM is probably the worst aspect of the current generation (even more so than microtransactions and unnecessary DLC) and I have absolutely no desire to partake.

This. It's a very simple if-X-then-Y equation, as far as I'm concerned. Always-on DRM is an instantaneous, non-negotiable deal-breaker, period.

 

[blackrave]

People or me?
Me? I wouldn't get nexbox even if M$ payed me (I have too much fun with my PC)
But if I must use all my Marketing, Strategic planning and Sociology skills, I would say that price point somewhere in between 50 and 100 USD would be the smartest choice (so "less than 99$" in poll)

P.S. My bachelors degree in economics and entrepreneurship wasn't useless after all. It allows me to be smartass on the forums.
P.P.S. Yay, money/time well spent???

 

[Tropicaz]

20 dollars being around 13 quid?
So thats about 470 quid for 3 years? Yeah no thanks. I'd rather pay for an ps4 that's mine forever.