Poll: Xbox Live's Dilema

[Calcium]

I don't feel cheated at all; I don't see why anyone should be. When you pay for goods or a service you're not entitled to get unspecified free extras. Of course I wouldn't object if free stuff was given out.

I am tempted to get more games for the PC and Steam, but to upgrade my desktop to modern standards would be even more expensive (at least for a few years) than to just keep paying for Gold.

 

[Michael Logan]

Im acctually fine with paying for live, what I cant stand for however is that they still force me to watch adds. Adds would have been fine if the service was free, but for something I pay for, unacceptable.

 

[NinjaTigerXIII]

Slightly cheated? You had Online gaming for almost a month while anyone who had a PS3 had to worry about Identity theft and no online gaming whatsoever. You guys bought an xbox with the complete knowledge that if you wanted to game online you would have to pay for xbox live, I am completely baffled that you are complaining about this.

 

[Aphex Demon]

We should get a reward for loyalty, or something of the like.

Xbox Live shouldn't be free because we wouldn't have such a refined online service like we do now.

This. If its free, then microsoft may be less inclined to maintain it.

Precisely, some people are too darn ignorant to take that into consideration.

 

[joystickjunki3]

I do not agree, OP.

If any XBL subscribers are making this argument, which I doubt, then they are simply self-entitled little brats that help give a bad name to our community. I have an Xbox 360 and I am a Gold subscriber; I do not think Microsoft should be paying for Sony's complete and utter fuck-up.

On top of that, it's not like Sony just woke up the other morning and said, "Hey, you know what we should do? Just up and give away countless amounts of money... FOR FREE!!" This is an attempt to win back the loyalty of customers they lost after a colossal mistake. This is the least they could do.

As an owner of a PSPgo (don't hate, please), I am extremely pissed off at Sony for the way they handled the situation, so I absolutely deserve some free shit from them, given the context. Microsoft doesn't owe me anything at the moment.

They didn't make a mistake they where hacked, they didn't accidently pushed the network off button

No, they made a mistake.

They didn't warn customers ASAP when they had even an inkling that our information had been stolen. I'm not attacking them for being hacked, this about their inability to communicate with customers.

[edit] I won't even begin to talk about the mistake they made with their network security, but it obviously wasn't good enough. And I'm being generous.

 

[Valdus]

Wait..so I should get something to make amends for having a service which functions and doesn't result in my credit card info being stolen?

Pffft, I play Xbox and it's fine as is. I would like gold to be free but I don't see that happaning in the long run no matter what problems microsoft have.

 

[utopaline]

They should just make it free. Sony's been free from the start and are still doing fine as a company hell they have been down and their going back up and they are still a good company. XBLA should be free and I would probably spend way more time playing and possibly buying things on Xbox.

Doing fine?? really, have you looked at their stock levels over the last 4 years? the PS division has lost them money constantly since it's launch. Yes the PS3 console now makes a profit when sold, but it still has not recouped it's billions lost over the last 4 years. If is wasn't for their extreme cutting in the television sector (selling all their TV panel factories to Samsung for example) they would have lost even more money. The company is facing a lot of hardships with people not having faith in their products (not talking about the PSN being down at all here) They outsource more products than ever, they can't even compete with VIZIO for goodness sake. They have dropped to the #4 spot for Home Theater products. I don't want Sony to fail, they used to make great products but they need to lose that attitude that people will buy our stuff no matter what.

Uto

 

[setting_son]

I don't feel cheated by not having my account hacked and details stolen. But if any other XBL users do feel 'cheated' that Microsoft aren't giving them a free game I'll offer you a deal - give me your personal details, address and your credit card info and once I'm done clearing out your account I'll get you 800MS points as compensation for being so cheated.

 

[KLJT]

I own both and when a friend asked if I feel like Sony has lossed some of my respect for potentially losing my details i said (and i quote) "Sony may have lossed my details but Mircosoft itself steal from me every month and doesn't give two shita about anything but my money" they said fair enough and i got back to playing my playstation while using Xbox party. Guess which is my prefered console.

 

[omega 616]

It kind of makes me chickle, they obviously thought "wait, there getting free games? How can I make a reasonable arguement to get free games ... I have been loyal? YEAH! I have been loyal so I want free stuff."

Do me a favour!

 

[NinjaRabies]

I am content with gaming on my Xbox without gold, though half the enjoyment of The Orange Box disappeared once I found out it doesn't work on local multiplayer. I can't afford, nor do I have the room for a PS3, not to mention I prefer the xbox controller, but ITT I think, if xbox live gold or whatever it's called, was reduced in cost, I might get a subscription. Hell, I might even invest in extra stuff so I didn't have to use a wire, I would most likely begin buying more games and downloading demos, not to mention using whatever else they have to offer. I know I can download and buy stuff online already, but I don't have a live gold account so I don't bother. I also know that if it became free, a few more would buy them. Even if they have a ps3 already.

Bah, don't mind me. Rambling.

 

[auronvi]

My huge issue with XBox Live is the restraints they put on the developers.

Huge limitations on free content for players (free DLC and the like)
Closed network, no cross-platform gaming (i.e. PC VS Xbox, XBOX vs. PS, or any combination)

Microsoft seems to be getting a "Too big to fail" mentality when that's not the case at all. Gamers are very fast to switch to the next best thing. Playstation 4 comes out (speculation), free cross game chat, better friends list functionality such as joining games and lobbies from the XMB, Netflix, Steam, a good version of Playstation Home, and the Playstation Store all at no cost to the user. What could XBox Live offer then that would warrant the price tag?

The coolest thing that I have seen that very few other developers have taken advantage of was the ability to run UT3 mods on the PS3. What if Oblivion and Fallout 3 could have done that? This was probably not included because they didn't want to make one console version better than the other.

Free and open is always better than closed and pay. Xbox Live[footnote]Poster has an active Gold Membership. Bought it for 30 dollar for the year and only really plays COD with friends but wishes they would just play it on PC instead.[/footnote] is the virtual version of a golf club... a golf club of whiny, racist, prepubescent, children. Ya, a golf club. Didn't mean to be redundant.

 

[Macrobstar]

People go on about credit card info being stolen, bu I would have lost much more money paying for xbox live then with whatever hackers are doing with my info, so as far as I'm concerned xbl gold users have lost more than me

 

[DrEmo]

This is just another case of gamers being self entitled and greedy.
Why would anyone even think that because PSN gets hacked, XBL users should get compensation.

We should get a reward for loyalty, or something of the like.

Why?!
Why should we be rewarded for using a service that is there to entertain us in the first place?!

What OP is getting at is that Steam, Wii's online network and PSN are all free. Xbox Live is a paid service which gives you roughly the same service for a pretty steep price. Sony is giving PSN users a free game to apologize for their free service's downtime. Xbox owners are starting to see that they get the same service but for a price.


To summarize: PSN, Steam and the Wii all let us play online for free. Steam and PSN let us share content, send messages, keep track of achievements and friends all for free. Xbox Live, what makes you so special?


EDIT: About the loyalty thing, we are paying a monthly fee for a service. The only difference between Xbox Silver (free) and Xbox Gold (paid) users is that Xbox Gold players can play online and get SOME demos a few days sooner than Silver members. Demos are already free, so you're paying around 10 bucks a month to play online.

What he's getting at is that we should get something for that. Stores like Starbucks and such have a program where you get a reward for buying stuff from there often. Why doesn't Xbox Live reward its long time members with something? You've been an Xbox Live member for 6 months in a row? Have a 20% discount on your next purchase. You've been with us for a year? Have a free arcade game of your choice. Etc.



Now, about Netflix on the Xbox, I don't know how that works, so I don't know if the price is covered in the gold membership (I can't use Xbox's Netflix service, so I don't know much about it) and I don't know the difference between Netflix on the PS3 or on the Xbox (of Wii for that matter) so I can't really argue that point. If anyone else can, I'd love to hear about it.

 

[Jimmy T. Malice]

Why would Xbox owners feel 'cheated'? They're not the ones that had to cope with three weeks of downtime...

 

[SoulChaserJ]

Time to chime in again. Are the people making references to "Microsoft rewarding loyalty" not seeing that they've already started down this path with M$ rewards? I'm not a proponent of M$ by any stretch but you're asking for a program that has already started.

So again I ask....Where is the sense of entitlement coming from? M$ has provided a service, a service Gold members pay for. You knew what you were getting up front. If you wanted something different, why did you bother buying this service?

 

[Extravagance]

I'd like some kind of MP reward, as those things are really expensive and you constantly need them for new DLC. I'm not too bothered about paying for xbox live, because it's not too much of a hassel and I like the features it brings. I'm also not bothered about the PSN free games;

"Playstation are giving me free games 8D" "..But my network wasn't down for ages, and none of my information was stolen. Pretty shitty trade off, don't you think? 2 games for that?" "...Fuck."