Why do people pay for Xbox Live?

[-Samurai-]

I pay so I can use online multiplayer.

But why are you paying Microsoft for a service they aren't providing you? It's like paying EA a monthly fee to play COD, why would you do that?

Because if you had to pay each and every company money to play on their servers, you'd rack up a hell of a lot more than 60 quid a year.

Even if thats not the case, do you really want to handle putting in a subscription and cancelling it every couple weeks? Its unneeded hassle, live puts it all into one service, sorts out the payments to EA, Activision, etc and it does it all for the low low price of £40 a year.

The idea that Microsoft takes your money and distributes it to developers and publishers is more than laughable.

Hell, most developers don't even host multiplayer servers anymore(although they do have stat tracking servers). They're all peer to peer. The server is the guy with the best connection. So saying that you pay Microsoft to use an Activision or EA server that doesn't exist is ridiculous.

 

[Doctor Glocktor]

The whole 'NOT hacked by a smelly nerd' thing.

 

[squid5580]

Look at PSN... Now look at XBL.


That is all.

/thread

I'm willing to bet that Live has actually had more downtime before this incident than PSN. It's not like Live can't be hacked and brought down.

The only times i can ever remember live being down is during maintenance during major updates.

ehh there was that one x-mas a few years ago. Went down because of too much traffic at once or some such thing. But a couple days later it was back and they gave everyone a free copy of undertow (or reasonable facimile if you already owned it).

Funny thing about paying for gold is if you buy alot of arcade games or DLC it pays for itself. I am always snagging games and DLC for 1/2 price because I am a gold member. i bet if i did the math by the end of the year MS is actually paying me for being a gold member.

 

[omega_peaches]

Guys, the PSN down jokes got old after the first 1000.

 

[jackpipsam]

Because I like servers that work, my info not stolen, $80AUD a year isn't that much and overall it's stacks better than PSN

 

[Orinon]

Guys, the PSN down jokes got old after the first 1000.

it did for PS3 owners
though seriously It's a simple thing
I own an Xbox 360 and I'm willing to bet that that Xbox plus two years of Live is cheaper than a PS3

 

[Warlord211]

I see your point but it's really just that gamers will stand by their favorite conole no matter what, within reason of course, besides the Xbox does other things better than PlayStation so its all about even in the end.

Oh also will everyone shut up about how "Microsoft actually protects its user data, Sony just made a mistake, Microsoft could've too, oh no i'm defending Sony, WHAT HAVE I BECOME?! *cries*

Sony didn't "just make a mistake", they purposefully didn't put up ANY firewalls to protect the user's data. Thats not just making a mistake thats stupidity at its finest. A twelve year old with some computer skills could of hacked that.

 

[hallow eyes]

Sure I could get all kinds of stuff for free but its a quality issue. Ive never experienced a time where Live was down and Ive always felt pretty secure with my account information also none of my freinds have a PS3 and gaming all alone is about as sad as it gets

 

[Dogstile]

I pay so I can use online multiplayer.

But why are you paying Microsoft for a service they aren't providing you? It's like paying EA a monthly fee to play COD, why would you do that?

Because if you had to pay each and every company money to play on their servers, you'd rack up a hell of a lot more than 60 quid a year.

Even if thats not the case, do you really want to handle putting in a subscription and cancelling it every couple weeks? Its unneeded hassle, live puts it all into one service, sorts out the payments to EA, Activision, etc and it does it all for the low low price of £40 a year.

The idea that Microsoft takes your money and distributes it to developers and publishers is more than laughable.

Hell, most developers don't even host multiplayer servers anymore(although they do have stat tracking servers). They're all peer to peer. The server is the guy with the best connection. So saying that you pay Microsoft to use an Activision or EA server that doesn't exist is ridiculous.

Oh really? So how come when say, the servers for black ops go down, nobody can play?

The servers store the players information, without that, nobody can play. I think that kind of counts.

Hell, if it was all peer to peer, Demon souls players wouldn't care that atlas was taking down the servers soon.

 

[Reaper195]

Well, we pay to not have our information stolen >.>

<..>

old joke is old

Seconded.

 

[-Samurai-]

I pay so I can use online multiplayer.

But why are you paying Microsoft for a service they aren't providing you? It's like paying EA a monthly fee to play COD, why would you do that?

Because if you had to pay each and every company money to play on their servers, you'd rack up a hell of a lot more than 60 quid a year.

Even if thats not the case, do you really want to handle putting in a subscription and cancelling it every couple weeks? Its unneeded hassle, live puts it all into one service, sorts out the payments to EA, Activision, etc and it does it all for the low low price of £40 a year.

The idea that Microsoft takes your money and distributes it to developers and publishers is more than laughable.

Hell, most developers don't even host multiplayer servers anymore(although they do have stat tracking servers). They're all peer to peer. The server is the guy with the best connection. So saying that you pay Microsoft to use an Activision or EA server that doesn't exist is ridiculous.

Oh really? So how come when say, the servers for black ops go down, nobody can play?

The servers store the players information, without that, nobody can play. I think that kind of counts.

Hell, if it was all peer to peer, Demon souls players wouldn't care that atlas was taking down the servers soon.

Hence the parentheses that say "(although they do have stat tracking servers). And I neglected to mention the master server, which is a given.

Do you really think that a dedicated machine has to pause the game to find a new host? Games like Black Ops use peer to peer hosting(except for their PC version which has dedicated servers available for a price. And even then it's through a third party.).

 

[KILGAZOR]

I pay for Xbox Live so I can play Halo Reach online.

 

[Sonic Doctor]

It just isn't that big of a cost, and if it is just for cross game chat(Highly doubt that), then it is money well spent, because every time I am on Live partied up with friends, there is always at least a couple hours where we aren't playing the same game.

Gotta say, this is a really weird time to be bringing this up. It's not exactly a high price, either.

Yup, 60 dollars year is only 5 bucks a month. If one has a paying job, it is just a small drop in the bucket.

Though really, one just has to have good fortune in a single moment to pay for a year. And if you catch them when they are having deal, it costs even less. Last December, I had just graduated from college and got a ton of money as gifts from family members. I went on Live to pay the $60 to change to a yearly subscription and I found they were having a deal that week and I got a year of Live for $39.99.

The only real perk, as far as I can tell, is cross game chat. I guess that's a big deal to some people though I personally couldn't care less. Seems to be it's just being charged for because people will pay it. And that's really a good enough reason.

Fixed.

 

[Kuilui]

I paid for live because originally halo2 came out on xbox and I loved that game and wanted to play it with my friends. I did play my PS2 online but the servers went down for it and the 360 came out first. Honestly I was always more of a fan of Sony until the 360. Then the 360 came out first and I decided to upgrade from my xbox to my 360. The PS3 came out later and it was expensive and it had no games on it so I didn't bother with it. So I stuck with live and games like Gears of War came out which was fantastic in my opinion. So I kept paying, I also played a bunch of other games like Socom for it.

By this point I didn't have the money for a PS3 and live was their for fifty bucks a year, so it wasn't that big a deal. Most good games came out for both systems so I didn't see a reason to change over. Changing over would have cost me like 500 dollars and that's about ten years worth of live. So I stuck with live seeing no real pull to go the way of PSN. Here I am still paying for a service that costs 5 dollars a month that all my friends have.

People pay far more a year for MMO's. If people didn't think the 360 was worth it then they wouldn't bother. They offer a quality service for an annual sum. Not a big deal to me. That's just capitalism.

 

[mjc0961]

Because they want to, and think it's a good value. So if you would please stop trying to tell people what is and isn't worth their own money, that'd be super awesome.

 

[cgmetallica1981]

Look at PSN... Now look at XBL.


That is all.

/thread

I'm willing to bet that Live has actually had more downtime before this incident than PSN. It's not like Live can't be hacked and brought down.

Xbox LIVE's down time before this incident? Not even close. I'm gonna ask you a question: Which consoles do you own?

 

[Dogstile]

I pay so I can use online multiplayer.

But why are you paying Microsoft for a service they aren't providing you? It's like paying EA a monthly fee to play COD, why would you do that?

Because if you had to pay each and every company money to play on their servers, you'd rack up a hell of a lot more than 60 quid a year.

Even if thats not the case, do you really want to handle putting in a subscription and cancelling it every couple weeks? Its unneeded hassle, live puts it all into one service, sorts out the payments to EA, Activision, etc and it does it all for the low low price of £40 a year.

The idea that Microsoft takes your money and distributes it to developers and publishers is more than laughable.

Hell, most developers don't even host multiplayer servers anymore(although they do have stat tracking servers). They're all peer to peer. The server is the guy with the best connection. So saying that you pay Microsoft to use an Activision or EA server that doesn't exist is ridiculous.

Oh really? So how come when say, the servers for black ops go down, nobody can play?

The servers store the players information, without that, nobody can play. I think that kind of counts.

Hell, if it was all peer to peer, Demon souls players wouldn't care that atlas was taking down the servers soon.

Hence the parentheses that say "(although they do have stat tracking servers). And I neglected to mention the master server, which is a given.

Do you really think that a dedicated machine has to pause the game to find a new host? Games like Black Ops use peer to peer hosting(except for their PC version which has dedicated servers available for a price. And even then it's through a third party.).

Of course not, but i'm saying that without the servers that the company has, people wouldn't be able to play. It just doesn't work. End of.

 

[vvvmr]

microsoft really cares about xbox live users.they give us good protection,deleteing freind requests is easy as hell.sony really does not care about psn users at all.you guys got hacked because the manager of psn said that becaus it was free they dident have to give you protection.

Steam is free, are you saying Steam gives you no protection as well? Microsoft cares about getting free money for their customers. You might as well send me a $10/month and I "promise" to make COD even less laggy than it is now, it makes the same sense as paying Microsoft to play COD.

I'd still pay Microsoft, cuz its cheaper than your subscription rate xD

on a serious note, i got an xbox, and i pay for live, i don't really mind