Welcome To Xbox Live. Bring Money!!!

[DeadlyYellow]

The top 20% of wealth in the United States control about 80% of the economy. Why not charge more?

 

[Hiphophippo]

Paying for online multiplayer.

/snicker

 

[ShakesZX]

Peer to peer incurs no costs to the company. they should not be charging for it.

Xbox Live isn't completely peer-to-peer. Microsoft still needs to have hosting servers and whatnot to make the experiences run smoothly for everyone involved.

 

[lacktheknack]

Ever heard of "inflation"?

 

[TheSkaAssassin]

anybody that compares Xbox Live to PSN is retarded.
Let's face it people, Xbox Live is the best multiplayer service out there, and it costs money to be the best.
Nothing is free my friends.

 

[Judgement101]

They could start providing Australia with half the services that is offered to the USA and Europe.

Instead of 1/6?

 

[LooK iTz Jinjo]

Let us have more than 100 friends..... -.-

people on XBL are not your friends, the people on your 'friends' list are nothing more than people that happen to have the same games as you, so you have people readily available to play with instead of hitting up matchmaking.

Not always, I have 30 odd people on my Xbox Live friends list who I know in real life about 10 or so are really good friends I see on a regular basis in real life. Of the other 20, I play with the same few every night and a couple of them who I have been playing with for 2-3 years I consider to be good friends beyond just having them on my XBL friends list and facebook, but to the point where if I was in Melbourne I wouldnt hesitate to knock on thier door.

You might not have had the same experience as me or whatever but that's mine, I don't need 100, but I do HAVE online friends I consider FRIENDS.

 

[MagicMouse]

Spoiler: Quotes

"

Just a guess, but it could be anything from expanding their network to they need more money to maintain their current network because people cancel their accounts to save money.

No, if anything they are bringing in more subscriptions.

This is really simple.

They are forcing people to buy services so that they can profit from it. If you want the base service(which SHOULD be free anyway; and IS free on PC versions), then you have to pay for all this extra stuff that you may or may not even want/use.

MS: "Hey look at all this cool stuff we got you!!"
You: "Oh, thats kinda cool I guess."
MS: "Now pay up!!"
You: "But I didn't ask for it!!"
MS: "If you want ANYTHING you must pay for EVERYTHING MUAHAHAHAHA!"

So, people asking to be paid for a service is uncalled for? Yes, the whole "buying everything, but using only a portion" type of service is annoying, but would you rather them try to separate their services, hindering the connection abilities of it's users by diverting processing power and other essential resources just so you can save a dollar?

$5 isn't that bad. Honestly, when i heard everyone ranting about this, I assumed it was jumping up $20 or more.

"

This isn't about monetary difficulties for me, its the principle.

And separating the services would not be hard, at all.

Think of it this way, I buy a cheap car because it does what I want efficiently and is cost effective. Then, the car dealer sneaks into my garage and upgrades my car with features I won't even use. They then demand that I pay for the upgrades. Thats unfair business practice in my mind.

MS could VERY easily separate the services. People that want the basic can buy the basic, and then subscribe to other services by paying extra. This is how MOST electronic services work. I.E. Cable tv/internet.

Now put that ONTOP of the fact that on the PC all these services are free and we have a problem.

 

[rabidmidget]

We don't even get Hulu in Australia, are they seriously going to overcharge us another $10 (which better be in Australian dollars) for features we will never see?

GIVE US OUR INDIE GAMES!

 

[mornal]

It seems necessary to point that, although the people on this site have little to no use for new features coming (I personally will never be using the ESPN thingy), some people might. Games have become more casual over the past few years and, while not completely mainstream, do have a larger and more diverse fan base who might use their Xboxes for more than simply playing games.

I also like MagicMouse's suggestion of charging for individual services. Unfortunately, I doubt that would be implemented. A large portion of Xbox owners would only purchase the multiplayer feature, and I doubt Microsoft could make enough money off just that without a larger price increase than what we're seeing now.

 

[Digitaldreamer7]

MS could VERY easily separate the services. People that want the basic can buy the basic, and then subscribe to other services by paying extra. This is how MOST electronic services work. I.E. Cable tv/internet.

Now put that ONTOP of the fact that on the PC all these services are free and we have a problem.

Excuse me, but, NONE of these services are free on PC. YOU just arn't the one paying for them. These services cost someone something.

Take for example a team fortress server for 20 people ranges anywhere from 25 to 30 PER MONTH. (these are the "public" servers that you see listed in the game when you hunt for a multi-player server.) 32 players is 40.00 - 50.00 PER MONTH. Compare that to 60.00 per year and see which one is cheaper.

The ventrillo servers people use for voice chat can run anywhere from 10.00-75.00 per month depending on the number of users.

What most clans do is take donations from it's members to pay for the server costs, so if you have 32 player server which is run by a clan of 15 people, that's 3.34$ per person, per month for this server. that's if there are 15 people in the clan. ok, now for games that do not have voice for free in them, factor in another 20.00 per month for a voice server and you are looking at 4.61 per person, per month. so for .40 more per month with xbox live you are getting SO MUCH MORE then you would with a pc gaming clan. you get access to play ANY GAME YOU OWN ONLINE not just one as in PC games, voice, movie rentals, netflix, constant updates, friends lists, etc. it takes everything that is complicated in PC gaming and rolls it into one for a low price.

Not bad if you ask me.

 

[Fallen-Angel Risen-Demon]

anybody that compares Xbox Live to PSN is retarded.
Let's face it people, Xbox Live is the best multiplayer service out there, and it costs money to be the best.
Nothing is free my friends.

I'd rather have my cost-free online, then your online that will get bumped by 5 dollars every time someone in upper management decides he needs a third house any day.

Don't feed the troll. It's what he wants.
OT: Make live cheaper. I'm getting rid of it now, I was anyway to get TOR.

 

[Anah'ya]

Allow me to break this up for you.

Uhm... sorry to say this but aside of providing the platform for which to play Multiplayer games on, both XBoX Live and Steam don't have much to do with Multiplayer. It's the job of the actual developers to do the multiplayer code (which is a basic part of a game to begin with) and aside of providing that Friends list and maybe a game browser Microsoft doesn't have anything else to do with it.

There's also not much of a "network" to be maintained and be made better as there are no server farms to take care of, update, pay rent/electricity for etc. beyond the ones used to keep the service online. Also basic networking, chatting etc. code doesn't require much "talent", maybe aside of talent in the Marketing department for getting more money out of it than it being worth (as has been proven is there).

Uhm... sorry to say this, but do you sincerely believe that providing the "simple" services as friends lists, server listings (in STEAMs case), community features and whatnot is a neglectible effort, let alone cheap? Have you ever hosted services of the likes or been involved in the process of keeping servers and services on said servers running? Do you believe that the whole infrastructure of the community is run on a single WindowsXP machine putterin' away happily in a Microsoft Office broom cabinet?

There is a network. And it is substantial. Hardware failovers aside, there's bandwidth to take into account and the proper handling and maintaining of that as well. Then there's network security. The more I think of it the more jobs and tasks I could throw at you that need to be covered and kept staffed 24/7 to make sure the wee little LIVE fanboys and fangirls don't throw a fit over outages.

.. and why can I tell you that? Well. Chalk it off to 11 years in the field of work that you are so lovingly downplaying here.

And I am not even including the mandatory customer support or paid staff providing entertainment snippets on LIVE. Not that I personally use that. However it's there, and these folks need to earn their living just as much as.. you.

I mean. I get it. It's easy to overlook it. You have your dashboard and your friends list. Can't really be that much of a hassle to manage all that, eh? A mistake easily made by the User.

Microsoft also gets a cut of ~15% on every new game you buys and a cut of all those "DLC" sales... as does Steam with the slight difference that they take a lot less and their service is completely free and they still make shitloads of cash and are probably the most profitable gaming service on the PC. Hosting costs are negligible at best.

The movies you mentioned aren't free either and they're also getting a cut from those sales aside of providing a platform for their in-house "Zune" sales and Netflix (none of which are "free", so it's not a feature you'd really want to have but just a paid-by-users commercial).

The cost of "DLC, Movies, music, multi-player games" wouldn't be higher without Microsofts involvement but a lot lesser (e.g. compare with PC prices and Steam which does about the same XBoX Live does and more for free and without all the "now watch a commercial from our partners" stuff.)

Dedicated servers on the PC are either paid by huge gaming communities (sponsored by advertisement and the clicks they may get), people that host their own servers out of their own free will (I think I still have a L4D and TF2 server running right now people may be playing on and it doesn't cost me anything as I run them on a Virtual Machine I need for hosting other stuff anyway). That aside, Microsoft aren't using "Dedicated Servers", they use said P2P code... which passes on both hosting costs and drawbacks of hosting games to its users (for instance causing a lot of lags and connection problems/disconnects) and they don't even allow for the use of Dedicated Servers if wanted.

Basically, I haven't read such a load of bullshit in days...

I am not sure how I can break that up without repeating myself. I will, however, draw attention to you saying you are hosting a server yourself. Tell me. Did the hardware cost you anything? Is your internet connection, by any chance, something you have to pay for monthly? What about the operating system, or tools you might be using for it? What happens when the equipment breaks? Will you replace it? Will your users be breaking in your door, demanding for you to make sure it doesnt happen again and raging at not getting their 99.9% network reliablity?

To still say that PC dedicated hosting is "free" is, once again, closing your eyes to the small details. Someone always carries the costs, be it the community chipping in or the user by having to look at advertisments. Though in that case the cost is significantly less than what it would be if you were to add mandatory support and actually have to guarantee a certain uptime for your userbase.

Now I know you'll be throwing the BUT MS DOESNT HOST GAMES! at me. And I'll just refer you to the top of my reply, where I tried to break it down to you that even if you aren't hosting the actual game, you're still in need of a network that I would very much LOVE to see you provide for free. For.. uh.. however many users XBL happens to have at the moment.

That is all.

/tips her hat