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.

Comments

the trick here

[toddhunter]

Is to see what the price will be in one or two years time if it takes off. The price was always going to be good to start with. All the better to get as many people using it as possible.

Great News

[Babbster]

Before I start my gushing, I will offer this IGN interview which goes into more detail about the changes and includes some digging at the Sony online situation. I really enjoy zealous PR.

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.

Re:Great News

[nobodyman]

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.

I'm inclined to agree with your post, but the starter kit is 40% more expensive than one year ago.

Generally speaking, kudos to Microsoft for an online scheme that rages over it's competitors at a good price. However, I don't get the decision to announce a price hike one week before E3. Most people are cutting prices.

Re:Great News

[Babbster]

I write this off for a few reasons:

1. Microsoft wants to recover the subscription fee (or the bulk of it) with every starter kit purchase. Given the inclusion of a game, demos and hardware, leaving it at the same price means that those subscribers are getting a discount on a service that's already rolling nicely.

2. The price hike means slightly less pain for Microsoft if current subscribers decide to abandon their current account in favor of getting a new starter kit, because they want the included game, they've ruined their rep on the service or both. They'll still lose a bit on packaging and the software included, but a lot less than if they included the hardware (as in #1).

3. They can justify charging more (if you consider it a price increase rather than finally getting charged for the hardware) for the service because it will be more mature, have many more subscribers and will have many more games than at the start.

Finally, I'd just say that the price increase is NOT immediate. You can go out and get a starter kit today for the $50 price with the hardware. Even if you don't want to sign up right away, you can buy it and simply hold it. Unless I'm mistaken, the current version of the kit (the one that comes with Tetris) has a subscription code that can be activated anytime between now and October 31st. By then, there will be a game type to please just about anyone and people who do it this way will still [hopefully] have several months of Halo 2 action(first quarter 2004 is the current release projection). :)

Re:Communicators

[Babbster]

The headset that comes with the Xbox Communicator has a standard 2.5-mm "stereo" (in/out channels instead of left/right) plug. IMO, the headset that comes with Xbox Live is a piece of garbage. Fortunately, I have a couple of much nicer headsets that work just fine with the Communicator module.

To answer your question more directly, no, the headset won't work out of the box with a standard PC sound card where you need two 1/8" connectors. I'm sure there are adapters that could make it work but you can get much better headsets and cheaper.

The primary reason to buy the Xbox Live Communicator hardware is to get the adapter that plugs into the controller. I suppose the headset works for some people, but the fact that it uses a standard jack means that you don't have to settle.

My take

[jvmatthe]

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.

Re:Excuse me?

[vaguelyamused]

I don't think $50.00/year is unreasonable for hack/cheat-free online gaming, something you don't get on the PC. Additionally if you look at the economics of it from a non-PC owner perspective, (You mean I have to spend $1200 on a PC to play Half-Life 2 online but after that it's free?) the X-Box is a pretty good deal (especially after the upcoming price drop). There is practically no motivation for someone who doesn't own a PC to purchase one just to game as opposed to a console. I've really enjoyed PC gaming but the upgrade cycle is can be pretty steep. I've been very tempted to purchase an X-Box, it'll be cheaper than my last video card and a lot cheaper than the upgrades my older PC would need to keep up with the system requirements of some of the newer games.