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New Xbox Live Pricing Revealed
NiteStar writes "The new packages and pricing of the Xbox LIVE Gold service have been leaked. The 'Premium Gold' 12 month pack, retailing at 70USD, will include the Gold Xbox LIVE subscription, a communicator headset, "Billiards" Xbox LIVE Arcade game, $20 discount on a games purchase and 200 points in the Xbox LIVE marketplace. The 'Gold' 12months will just include the subscription and an extra free month for 60USD/year. Packages for 3months and 1month will also be available."
Price sounds great, especially if you plan to use the discount voucher. What worries me is that individual games may add their own charges for playing online.
I hope MS forces game developers to provide online gaming capabilities without the option of charging extras.
People are fast to assume that because a premium membership is offered it means that the 360 won't be online out of the box. This is patently false. Everyone can play online, with all the current XboxLive features, for free. Only the "special" content costs extra.
The hassle of having to pay and renew is going to turn off most 360 buyers (especially the younger crowd). Nobody likes the feeling of a $70 tithe hanging over the back of their head.
People will ask "$70 for a subscription to what?" The only thing I'd pay for would be downloadable content (i.e. mods and full fledged expansion packs with new levels, bosses, equipment, etc.) but aside from a few Splinter Cell maps and some multiplayer maps for Halo, Xbox Live hasn't released jack *&^%. Considering mods alone, the PC/Internet combo has Xbox/Live whipped.
As for a communication medium, people will use their cell phones and IM on their PCs. The 360 is a gaming medium.
The announced cost of Nintendo's WiFi internet connection?
$0.00/month
It looks like Nintendo is really lining up to be a price leader in the next generation, even more so than they were in this one. The question is whether consumers will go for it, or think, "Oh, Nintendo, they're just cheap, not any good." It really does seem like Microsoft is getting a lot of negative buzz about the cost of its new consoles and services though. Will it hurt their bottom line? My instinct is that better graphics are fine and all, but not enough to drive console sales by themselves. XBox-PS2-Cube games all look pretty decent. Would looking even better really enhance gameplay for consumers? It's doubtful in my mind. If anything, it would be nice to see the same level of graphical detail, but more character models and maps packed into the game and on screen.
Nintendo's WiFi connection probably won't be nearly as sophisticated as Microsoft's Live. But will consumers who've plunked down $1k for a console really be excited about paying yet another fee every month?...
We'll see.
I wouldn't say it's patently useless (from article above a bit):
You're getting updates, demos, extras... all pretty much as you'd expect. There's more to being online than multiplayer gaming. For once (and this is rare) I think they're pitching it about right *as long* as they spend the profit on decent multiplayer servers.
For about a year, at which point it's just an average computer, and after another year new games start to run sluggishly. A console on the other hand tends to get better over the life of the console, because the games for it tend to get better but run just as smoothly.
But hey, here's a thought. Let's use some logic before we even get to that quest. Let's take the $500 console. Wait, it's $400. So let's buy a memory card. Wait, don't need one. Already got a HDD in the $400 package. Ok, let's buy a hard drive. Wait, already got one in the $400 package. Need more controllers. Wait, PC games require an extra PC for each additional player, so the $50 more for an extra wireless controller is going to cost less than the price of an extra PC, so there isn't much point in factoring that in for comparison purposes. So what's next? Overpriced games? $60 for a Xbox360 game, $55 for HL2 and Doom 3 at launch, wasn't it? Yes, those console games sure are a rip off. A network adapter! Oh wait, built in. A television... wait, already have one of those, along with everyone else in America. A video adapter (I'm assuming you mean the cables). Cables for HDTV and regular TV are included in the $400 package. So, what's our total price so far? $400 plus the cost of games. And you can build a gaming PC for what was that again? $800 plus the price of games?
So how about I buy an Xbox 360 and build a $300 PC that can do everything but play games just as well as your $800 PC?
Feel free to mod me "-1 - Angry Jerk".