Slashdot Mirror
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."
* The rumor is, how Nintendo will work it is, if you're in person, you can just add someone to your friends list directly. Otherwise, you have to enter in some kind of universal unique ID which follows the machine, no matter the IP address. Of course, this is all just rumors and press releases at this point.
* I think they expect people will do that themselves using IM, etc.
* Well, zero payment isn't quite synonymous with single payment, but yeah.
* Have you been paying attention? All the stores like EB and whatnot have been announcing $1000+ XBox 360 "Value Packs."
But...you are trolling. Every single article about XBox360 and the Nintendo trolls seem to come out and post about how great Revolution will be (not that anyone knows anything about it other than it's "revolutionary" and aimed at the a wide audience that includes the elderly). While Nintendo was the price leader this past round, that did not help them as they still came in second in Japan and third in Europe and North America. Your theory that consumers who are willing to pay $1000 for a console are unwilling to pay $50 a year for xbox live seems contradictary. What's $50 a year when you've spent $1000 on a single console? Of course the $1000 figure is absurd, as the system will sell for $299 and $399. Retailer bundles that may exceed $1000 have no relevance to the price of the actual system.
I had actually forgotten about this. I had been swept up a bit in the hype and was looking forward to getting myself a 360 when they came out.
But no, I refuse to have to pay to make my games work at the whim of microsoft. They either work for ever or not at all in my opinion.
So bring on the ps3 or the revolution. Hopefully they show a bit more common sense!
What if I've already got an XBox live subscription? Do I have to purchase a separate "gold" one for the XBox 360, transfer the existing subscription or can I use one subscription for both?
After I wrote it, I realized I misworded it. Obviously, those who buy the $1000 value packs are going to get Live. The question is whether other consumers will look at the cost of the value pack and recurring costs of Live and just put off buying a 360 until the indefinite future, when things may be cheaper. The effect of consumers delaying purchasing a 360 may allow Sony and Nintendo to overcome the handicap of releasing their consoles later. I'm just saying that MS has built up some ill will at their price, whereas Nintendo and Sony are building up good will for their systems, since they're presumed to be cheaper.
Of course, all this pre-release speculation is kind of pointless. Remember how lame the original XBox's launch catalog was? But they came back from behind and made a respectable second place finish in the US. (Of course, in Japan... well, I just got back from the store, and while I was there I saw just a third of a rack devoted to Xbox games but a whole rack devoted SNES games, to say nothing of the three racks for the PS2. Heh. The 'Cube had about a rack and a half or so.)