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Xbox Live Pricing Revealed
Xs writes "For those of you wondering how much it will cost to play online when your year of free Xbox Live runs out, listen up. Microsoft has just unveiled their pricing plan for Xbox Live. Pretty cheap, too! You will be given two options: one is to pay for a full year of service, that will cost you $49.99. Second option is to pay by the month, that will set you back $5.99 a month. The Xbox Live starter kit is also getting a new price of $69.99. Plus, MS will also start selling the voice communicators by themselves - they'll retail for $29.99." Sounds like a pretty good deal.
Now that that's out of the way, I'd like to first say "nice job" to Microsoft for not trying to gouge its users by charging something more along the lines of $10 a month for the service. I would also like to thank them for finally revealing this so that Xbox Live proponents like myself can answer what is a very basic question about the service: "How much does it cost after the first year?"
As a snippy aside, I'll close by saying "I told you so" to the many folks who kept insisting that I was an idiot when I suggested that Microsoft probably wasn't going to significantly increase the price of the service after the first year. There's no telling where it will go in future years - especially if their next console meets with quick success and they have not only the incentive but the ability to gouge XBL users - but Microsoft is demonstrating that they understand how to grow this service instead of turning its users off.
Posted my take on the new system earlier today. The short of it is that the pricing structure is good from a business point of view, as it allows a modest increase in pricing that can be sold reasonably well to the consumer (i.e. the consumer won't feel like they're being completely ripped off and might actually feel they're getting a good deal).
The increase is not just in the starter kit. Renewal is $50, but that's for service only. Remember that the first year was $50 and included a headset and game.
Curmudgeon Gamer: Not happy
I think the price for the service will stay the same in the long run, but more games will have their own monthly fee on top of the Live fee. MS has said over and over again that the individual games can charge their own monthly fees above an beyond the Live fee, so it's only a matter of time.
5$/month is a good deal for something like this, but as soon as it becomes an 5$/month + 10$/month * any number of games you're playing, it will no longer be a good deal.
Sure, I'm trolling but..
In countless times, both with my purchases of Microsoft products,
as well as with their customers and partners, MS products and services
always seem enticing at first, but always end up disappointing or a
complete burn. They just can't help themselves.
As interesting as the Xbox might be, I just can't bring myself to invest
in any more MS technology. I know I'll eventually regret it.