Why is Microsoft not giving Xbox Live free?

[IamSofaKingRaw]

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

[

Yeah. The games are hosted by the community on servers. Just like in KZ2 and Resistance 1/2, the MGO people allow the users to make their own create their own server games and host them for others to join...but we still don't pay a cent for that.

 

[IamSofaKingRaw]

This has been debated before. I encourage anyone who sees this to watch this video.

Part 1:

Part 2:

I watched the first 10 min of part one. The guy arguing pro XL couldn't come up with anything to prove its worth.

 

[IamSofaKingRaw]

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.

Please elaborate. I want to see these features that may have went over my head during my 3 month time with XBL. I see no difference other than the fact that XBL has party voice chat, and PSN only has party text chat.

 

[Jumplion]

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.

Interesting comparison, and for the most part it is true. Personally I send messages to my real-life friends that I know and chat with them rather than ones I've met online. And jumping into a party/playing with friends depends on the game, doesn't it? As far as I know, LIVE has a group party chat thing that, well, basically just chats. Some people apparently love the feature so much that it justifies the $60 price tag, though I don't see how.

And I personally prefer the PS3's interface, much more clean and smooth for me. The 360 interface has too much going on at once for me, and slightly slower going from section to section and big-box-thing to big-box-thing. But maybe that's just because I've had more experience with the PS3. Whatever.

None of that really challenges my main point, which I still stand by. You're still paying for services that you normally get for free and you're paying to access half the content on the disc that you should already be allowed to access.

 

[AndyFromMonday]

Just an excuse to grab more money from customers. They claim that all the services offered with Xbox Live justify the price, but I never ASKED for them. All I want is to play online, which is why most people pay for XBL. All in all, it's just Microsoft being Microsoft. In regards to connection, as it stands I've seen no difference between PSN and XBL. As for DLC, you don't get it early. They just delay releasing it on other platforms.

 

[Anah'ya]

Just an excuse to grab more money from customers. They claim that all the services offered with Xbox Live justify the price, but I never ASKED for them. All I want is to play online, which is why most people pay for XBL. All in all, it's just Microsoft being Microsoft. In regards to connection, as it stands I've seen no difference between PSN and XBL. As for DLC, you don't get it early. They just delay releasing it on other platforms.

I got the PSN+ network after begin horribly disappointed and generally pissed by the lack of download speed for anything I tried to grab from there in comparison to XBL and my trusty PC.

Did it do any good?

No.

Sony would probably profit from asking for money from their customers. As it is I am very happy with the swoooooosh download speed of XBL contra to PSN. Plus or not.

 

[TheKruzdawg]

While there is no game that requires pay in order to play it(disregarding the initial 60 bucks), I am referring solely to DLC. Map packs require pay if you want to stay with the crowd with all other gamers, I can't remember how many times my friends are sighing in anger as I ask for the invite.

Yeah I can understand that. I only buy the DLC for games that I really like and intend on playing for a long period of time. For example, when I bought the first Modern Warfare used (albeit a few months after it came out) I never purchased the map pack(s) for it because I didn't see myself spending THAT much time in it and because I didn't have a lot of friends who played it as well.

On the other end of the spectrum, I have bought nearly all of the DLC for the Mass Effect games because it's one of my favorite series and I consider it money well spent.

 

[StormShaun]

Dont we pay Microsoft too much to pay for online play

We already pay for...

The console
Games
DLC
Avatar shizzle
Themes
Gamer Pics
WiFi equiepment
Bill Gates battleship.........hmmm, yeh theirs more.....alot more

 

[Macrobstar]

No, They didn't lost a lot of customers. The 360 has better community support, Party chat, and overall better exclusives. I own all the consoles, But I prefer the 360 over the others. The price doesn't bother me, they offer amazing service and I couldn't see myself preferring the PS3 over the 360.

PS3 has party chat, and you're exclusives are mostly generic shooters, the only good exclusives xbox has IMO is the left 4 dead series and I can play that on PC

 

[darth gditch]

To pose my own question to this forum, why do people feel that they are entitled to services they did not pay for? I mean, I can't go to the supermarket and say "I bought your milk, now give me a free glass and free cookies to go with it." I don't think anyone would.

Online multiplayer is a service above and beyond the primary purchase price of a console. Companies are well within their rights to charge consumers for it.

Purchase of the console - yes. Purchase of the GAME - no. When you buy a game, you pay for both the single AND multiplayer experience. I don't see any sane reason, why you should pay extra for something you already paid for. This is not a price to pay for a glass to drink milk in it. This is a price for DRINKING the milk which you already bought. If we're going to compare XBL Gold to a glass you have to buy, then sorry, I prefer to drink the milk from carton.

Allright, call me a fanboy, because I have PS3 and not X360, but trust me, if I had some additional cash, I would love to have X360 as well (I so want to play Alan Wake). I understand paying for extra goodies and features. This is normal. Free = less stuff. Fee = more stuff. But demanding an extra payment for a multi in a game you already bought? No, this is not a bonus stuff. This is removing stuff from you until you'll pay extra. In other words - a dick move.

Ahhhhh; I see where you're coming from. I agree that you shouldn't be charged for multiplayer, but unless online multiplayer is the ONLY multiplayer option, you're not being charged for multiplayer. You're being charged for online multiplayer. If there is no splitscreen or LAN options, yeah, it's a dick move. If these options exist though, Live is still not an entitlement.

 

[ultimateownage]

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

sorry but Mr gates loves him some money

Somebody has probably already said it, but oh well;
Bill gates is not only one of the most charitable men on the planet, but he has been retired for quite some time now.

 

[Stavros Dimou]

I own a Xbox 360 and repeatedly having to pay for a Xbox Live Gold Membership is quite annoying. After a while i started thinking about why Microsoft isn't giving Xbox Live free. Surely its to make more money and the Xbox Live service and benefits is quite worth it but surely they must realize that they lost many costumers to Sony's PS3 due to this and that this is always a major disadvantageous point when used in console wars. I am open to all views and opinions.

They don't let LIVE to be free,because they have servers that cost to operate.
Xbox LIVE games are running on Microsoft's own servers,it's not like the Wii where each player's wii can host an online multiplayer game,and it's not like PC either,where gamers buy a 2 and maybe 3 computers to use them as a gaming servers working 24/7 FREE just because they like gaming.

Wii-style online is not good enough,so they don't even think about something like that.
But when it comes to PC-style online,there are some things that Microsoft really doesn't want to happen to their xBox and here are some of the reasons:


a' Because someone might upload a pirate copy of a game on their server that you might download.

b' Because for everything that you download Microsoft wants to earn cash.

c' Because Microsoft collects data like what games you play,or who you chat with,to sell this data to other companies for marketing purposes.

d' Because then mods would be availible for consoles too,and that would be catastrophic for developers that want to charge you 10$ for dlc content that a modder can make in a night and give it away for free.

 

[tehbeard]

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

Adverts?
Only ad's I've seen apart from some movie ones (e.g. inception) have been for 360 games, zune marketplace movies, I.E ads for stuff that is on/owned by live, never seen any for colgate or gatorade.

 

[IamSofaKingRaw]

Bolded part is wrong. Some(but very few) PSN games have demos. Your other point is not really of much value. You mention that but didn't the Mortal Kombat demo come first to PSN? Didn't Batman Arkham Asylum get free content only on the PS3. Getting demos for $3 games isn't much of an incentive to get $60 XBL.

Not wrong, just hyperbole. Even a sony fan like yourself has to admit the demo offerings are scant at best, to the point of being nearly non existent. As for those demos, I use them all the time to determine whether I want to plunk down 10 or 15 bucks on a down loadable game. There are no three dollar games to be found on either service, barring the indie market which PSN doesn't even have. Lemmie know what gem you picked up for three dollars man, seriously. As for those decisions sometimes the answer is yes, sometimes it's no. I like able to make informed purchases based on my own opinions. If that's crazy call me crazy. If you enjoy buying games without so much as a screenshot that's your business, to each their own.

As for my other part not being of much value, that's your opinion. I wouldn't have mentioned it if I didn't appreciate it. For instance, the mortal kombat's demo? I never heard of it but that's probably because I don't even play, follow or like Mortal Kombat so the value of that is questionable to moot for me. It's a plus to you though so you'll wave your little sony flag and that's cool. Just don't expect me to wave too. That said your examples are going to be pretty singular, as in the exception to the rule. Sony doesn't give out bandwidth very often, they can't really afford to. The service is/was running in the red as it is which is why they introduced plus in the first place and that Joker DLC didn't keep more copies from being purchased for Xbox, for all that was worth. I mean looking at all the stuff that hits the 360 as much as a year before it hits the PS, for games I do play like Fallout, Mass effect or Oblivion, why would I care? Does that mean you're wrong? No. Like I said, how much value YOU derive. Maybe I think it's worth 50 bucks a year just to never have to see an ad for Axe body spray.

But don't get the idea I'm an Xbox fanboy. I just don't like getting fanboy froth on me so I'll react negatively to that. I own both consoles, that's how I even know demos are all but non-existent on PSN. If you want to send me a message over at "Ghengis John" on PSN I'll say hi. But don't expect to see me playing it often.

Aside from the cost I've never noticed a difference between the two services, they both work fine.

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.

There are twice as many people on PSN, although that does include people with PSP's.
http://www.computerandvideogames.com/282338/news/xbl-hits-30-million-accounts-psn-60-million/

The number of accounts is meaningless. I personally have 3 PSN accounts to accommodate all my demon's souls characters. Last I checked I didn't become 3 people.

I too own both systems but I haven't used old since early last year. I really don't find the fact that XBL has demos for small arcade games a worthy enough reason to pay $60 a year to them. Whats the most annoying is that they get all this money from elsewhere like all the ad revenue and none of that goes towards actually making the online service better than the rest. I could careless if Sony isn't making a profit out of PSN, I'm not a shareholder, I care about the fact that PSN users get the same experience Live owners do but without the charge.

Also, if I remember right, Sony requires those types of games (ones that are ported from the 360 months after) to have some sort of significant upgrade. Mass Effect 2 was remade using the new Mass Effect 3 engine and included some free DLC all for $60, and Oblivion ran better (like better draw distances) and included DLC.

P.S. I too was exaggerating about the $3 games, its hard to catch sarcasm on the internet, but my point was that I don't really see the point of having a demo for small/medium sized games. The larger ones like Modern Combat Domination, Tumble and Echochrome have demos, but that is because they have lots of content that a demo can't offer.

 

[alrekr]

overall better exclusives.

Really such as?

Anyhow MS charge money becaue people will pay; just like a how people will pay for the same new COD every year.

 

[Ghengis John]

P.S. I too was exaggerating about the $3 games, its hard to catch sarcasm on the internet, but my point was that I don't really see the point of having a demo for small/medium sized games. The larger ones like Modern Combat Domination, Tumble and Echochrome have demos, but that is because they have lots of content that a demo can't offer.

That's fair.

 

[jpoon]

This was definitely one of the reasons I ditched my 360's and got a PS3, that and because of all the RROD's I had.

 

[CrafterMan]

Because they're a company that's looking to make money.

Deal with it.

Amen to that!
Haha it's a damn good business acumen.
-JB