Why is Microsoft not giving Xbox Live free?

[Vanbael]

Because Microsoft will continue to exploit the stupidity of America (took a shot at my own residence there) to keep paying R&D so they can figure out how to scam the entire world so that they can eventually take it over.
Don't you see this entire made up conspiracy? They are slowly training us to do what they want. Its manipulating the dead braincells in the gamer's mind and controls them to hit purchase on materials they don't need.

In all seriousness, service is service. I don't care how accessible my friends are (though Steam wins on that front), if it cost less and puts out greatly then it wins me because I'm a little more conscious of where my money goes. And seriously, $60 a year, you could just buy whatever the hottest game is for that year. I want to invest my money in damn good games, not a company that will charge for a service with same quality and more prepubescents yelling into a microphone.

 

[SpAc3man]

because Microsoft wants to charge for EVERY LITTLE THING (why else would they charge $100+ for office software)
also welcome to the escapist

They like giving free stuff to students. My uni is a member of the MSDN Academic Alliance which provides free Microsoft products via download to students studying stuff like computer science or engineering. For one of my papers I did last year I needed a C compiler for at home so I could work on my project away from uni. Of course there a free compilers (including one from MS) but I wanted to use MS Visual Studio as that is what I was using at uni. Sure enough I could get just about any version of it for free from the MSDNAA so I downloaded MS Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate. Further research revealed that MS VS 2010 Ultimate normally costs just under US$12,000

I got it for free. Legally.

Unfortunately none of the basic Office software is available on this magical service. I can only get a 60% discount on that through another source.

 

[Aj Swan]

OMFG Can we stop with the whole STEAM thing already? Yes, yes Pc is just dandy, but the discussion is about XBL vs PSN. So PC has its perks, big F'ing whoop. PC gaming is expensive, even if you don't have to pay for anything. You still have the bill, the cost of the game (not taking into acount pirates), the internet bill, keeping up with the software and OS's, graphic cards, and so much more. 60 bucks a year isn't bad. I make that in a week. But all the PC stuff is going to cost more than $1000.

 

[Saelune]

Because its not unreasonable to charge money for a service and people are just overly greedy and cheap. You pay alot less for a year of Xbox than for half a year of WoW.

 

[Cory Legros]

Because people will pay for it

 

[Asuka Soryu]

Because they can make money and it's not like a load of people are gone to just quit XBox Live so they don't have to make it free.

 

[Azaraxzealot]

Having owned a 360 with LIVE in the past, I can safely say that the only difference I noticed between PSN and LIVE is that I now have an extra $60 in my wallet. I've noticed no difference between the two connectivity wise. None, nada, zero, zilch. I view LIVE as you're really just paying for the content they have, virtually the same content that PC's and PS3's get for free and you're just being suckered into a P2P system.

As many others have said and will continue to say, they know people will buy it, thus they sell it.

SHH! You are not helping MS
/s

I too have went from Live to PSN. I had Live for 3 months and there isn't a 'better' community, (BTW what the hell does that mean, other then your friends who is this community?), the services is the same, the games multiplat games lag just as much (but the first party Sony games like KZ2/3, Metal Gear Online, Resistance 1/2, Socom etc. all use dedicated servers and don't lag at ALL) and the games are great for both. I don't see any benefit for playing for Live other than playing the exclusives online, because nothing else justifies its purchase.

WAAAAAITWAITWAITWAIT! Metal Gear Online has dedicated servers? All I've ever seen are games hosted by the community. o-O"

Having owned a 360 with LIVE in the past, I can safely say that the only difference I noticed between PSN and LIVE is that I now have an extra $60 in my wallet. I've noticed no difference between the two connectivity wise. None, nada, zero, zilch. I view LIVE as you're really just paying for the content they have, virtually the same content that PC's and PS3's get for free and you're just being suckered into a P2P system.

As many others have said and will continue to say, they know people will buy it, thus they sell it.

well, some have said that the PS3's connectivity quality depends on the quality of your ISP.

so anyone playing on cheap 10 dollar a month internet would see problems while someone playing on 100 dollar a month lightspeed internet would claim there is no problem.

Thing is, bud, I don't have such a grand internet speed. The highest speed I ever get when I download is 156kbs. =\

there's a difference between download speed and your own internet's speed. if you're using a high-quality internet like comcast then you wouldn't think anything is wrong, but if you were using somthing like the 15 dollar a month AT&T service then it would always seem laggy and crappy.

 

[Bigsmith]

the real reason is it isnt free is because we will pay for it

sorry but Mr gates loves him some money

Bill Gates hasn't been at Microsoft for a few years. That explains how something as wretched as 7 could slip out.

You don't like Win7? Why?

Yeah, I was wondering as well. Windows seven is like a God after the vile that was the operating that shall not be named. *shudders as it's still on his desktop*

Ot: I'm pretty sure that it costs because of how much you get from it. I personally don't own an X-box, but when I've used friends X-box live accounts and gone online the stuff is pretty sweet.

That said, steam is coming to the ps3. This can only be a good thing.

 

[Phoenixmgs_v1legacy]

there's a difference between download speed and your own internet's speed. if you're using a high-quality internet like comcast then you wouldn't think anything is wrong, but if you were using somthing like the 15 dollar a month AT&T service then it would always seem laggy and crappy.

Where I'm from, Chicago, Comcast is faster than AT&T but AT&T's connection quality is better and more stable. I'll take 1.5mbps DSL over Crapcast's 10mbps connection any day.

WAAAAAITWAITWAITWAIT! Metal Gear Online has dedicated servers? All I've ever seen are games hosted by the community. o-O"

Yeah, MGO has dedicated servers for weekly survival and tournaments. Plus, MGO supports dedicated hosts so there is no player host running around with 0 ping like COD.

 

[Cecilthedarkknight_234]

Since when had Micro$oft ever given anything for free?

 

[invadergir]

the real reason is it isnt free is because we will pay for it

sorry but Mr gates loves him some money

Bill Gates hasn't been at Microsoft for a few years. That explains how something as wretched as 7 could slip out.

I take it you never had to experience Windows ME.

 

[Wintermoot]

because Microsoft wants to charge for EVERY LITTLE THING (why else would they charge $100+ for office software)
also welcome to the escapist

They like giving free stuff to students. My uni is a member of the MSDN Academic Alliance which provides free Microsoft products via download to students studying stuff like computer science or engineering. For one of my papers I did last year I needed a C compiler for at home so I could work on my project away from uni. Of course there a free compilers (including one from MS) but I wanted to use MS Visual Studio as that is what I was using at uni. Sure enough I could get just about any version of it for free from the MSDNAA so I downloaded MS Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate. Further research revealed that MS VS 2010 Ultimate normally costs just under US$12,000

I got it for free. Legally.

Unfortunately none of the basic Office software is available on this magical service. I can only get a 60% discount on that through another source.

or you could use open office (it,s free and legal it can also read more file types then MS office)

 

[invadergir]

oops double posted for some reason.

 

[Skizle]

The reason why Xbox Live arguably a better online service than PSN is because we pay for it. Our money lets Microsoft make improvements to XBL.

That's why even though it costs money, more people are on XBL than PSN. It's an all round better service.

and yet pc gamers have the best service and its costs us even less

Yet no matter how much money we throw at Valve they still wont release episode 3

 

[mjc0961]

Take a look at all the features Xbox LIVE has. Then take a look at the much smaller list of features PSN has.

That's why Xbox Live isn't free. And I'd rather play on Xbox Live than PSN because of those extra features any day.

 

[iLikeHippos]

It costs as much as a normal game - how much could you complain? At least you GET to complain about Xbox live - not the same when it comes to, say, the PSN.

Besides, there are many ways to sell. Sometimes you make it cheerfully cheap to attract as many as possible, and sometimes you make it slightly expensive to give a sense of spending. Some clothes costs 10.000$ and are only used once, merely because the tailor has a name and the rich who buys them wouldn't have it any other way - they like spending a lot.

If you REALLY don't wish to spend for supported servers, you could just hit the PC. But don't expect the same service if you're not paying squat. You get what you pay for, after all.

 

[farmerboy219]

I know "fanboy!" will be yelled at me when i say this but surely with the amount of adverts on xbox live that is enough to cover the costs of running live

 

[Aeshi]

It's Microsoft. They can get away with just about anything.

If Sony had done this sort of thing people would be screaming for them to all be put on Death Row even if their version was just as good.

 

[HyenaThePirate]

The reason why Xbox Live arguably a better online service than PSN is because we pay for it. Our money lets Microsoft make improvements to XBL.

That's why even though it costs money, more people are on XBL than PSN. It's an all round better service.

I know I'm probably going to get a few "trollz" accusations or something, but I don't see how you paying them helps improve the service itself.

For one, it's Peer to Peer and from what I understand P2P is worse than the stuff that PSN/PC has like dedicated servers and whatnot (P2P also limits the number of players to something like 16v16), so this means you're essentially paying for something that should be free and is also inferior.
Next, most features you get with a LIVE subscription don't have anything to do with online connectivity. You get stuff like Netflix, Last.fm, something with Facebook and Twitter, whatever. You get a ton of features that most people already have for free on the PC. You're paying for features that you should get for free, and infact you probably already have for free.
And on top of all that, you are being forced to pay for access to half a game's content. Most people throw a hissy-fit when Capcom makes you pay for DLC already on the disk, why should this be acceptable? You've already payed $60 for a game upfront, some of that goes to Microsoft for licensing and whatnot, why should I be forced to pay extra just to unlock half a game's content?

I dunno, if I'm wrong on any of those assertions please correct me. I've enjoyed PSN and STEAM and they've both been great services for me. Personally, I guess, LIVE just doesn't seem all that appealing. The only reason that LIVE costs money is because people are willing to pay for it, so why drop it? Infact, didn't they recently increase the price of LIVE? That, if anything, speaks greatly for how much people are willing to shell out for something they shouldn't shell out for.

EDIT: Oh, not to mention, the LIVE service in anywhere but the US gets shafted severely. They don't even have any of those features like Netflix, Facebook, Twitter, ESPN etc... and they still have to shell out more cash for those features even though they're not getting them.

Let me put it this way...

You've been on my PS3 friend's list for what? 2-3 years now? How often have you noticed me online? How many times have we spoken or played something together? How many times have we dropped each other a message to say "Ahoy friend, how are you?"

Exactly.. none.

On the XBOX however, I'm almost constantly being annoyed by people I played one freaking game of Crackdown with 5 years ago, who just want to chat about everything from the weather to what's fun to do in my town, or inviting me to jump into a multiplayer game with them if I have the game.

In a nutshell, it's the difference in community that separates the two. PSN is free but it's like Farmville... you might not be paying for it and it's good for a little spot of fun here and there, but it's a pretty empty experience in pleasant window dressing. That and quite frankly it's simpler to use, jump into a party, and join your friends with a simple flick of the button, where as PSN is less aesthetically pleasing, droll, and needlessly complicated at times to the point that I rarely play multiplayer titles on the PS3.. instead it's my "watch blu ray, play occasional JRPG (when available) system.