Xbox Live Silver Accounts Now Wait a Week For Demos

1up notes a change in the way that Xbox Live Silver-level (free) memberships work. Now folks that don't pay will have to wait an additional week to get game demos. Microsoft's Xbox representative Major Nelson assures us it's not meant to 'annoy' users of the service, but to provide additional value to Gold subscribers. "When people talk about features they'd like to see added to an Xbox Live Gold subscription, dedicated servers, expanded buddy lists or separate bandwidth pipes for popular downloads are first to mind. Instead of adding features to the Gold experience, however, they're "enhancing" Gold subscriptions by continuing a practice started last summer of stripping Silver members of features and making them Gold-only."

Comments

Translation

[Sentry21]

Microsoft's Xbox representative Major Nelson assures us it's not meant to 'annoy' users of the service, but to provide additional value to Gold subscribers. In other words, 'We divided XBL into Silver and Gold, but Gold wasn't worth the money, so instead of adding value to Gold, we're stripping it from Silver.

Re:Translation

[Morgon]

No, the only real 'change' is that Silver members see the content they're missing out on. As another poster mentioned, this is something that's been the case for over a year; although I don't think it was always enforced.

I don't see why everyone is sensationalizing this. Bandwidth costs money - Gold subscribers at $50 a year pay for that. If you have a free account, why shouldn't it be considered a gift that you're able to download these things at all?

Re:Translation

[Seumas]

Major Nelson is full of shit.

Adding a delay to Silver members is providing "additional value" to Gold members? How so? As a Gold member, I get games on release day right now. With this change, I *still* get games on release day.

There is no value added to the gold account. The only change in value is some being stripped from the Silver accounts. If he were being honest, he'd have said "This is not mean to annoy users, but to provide INCENTIVE to subscribe to gold accounts".

Additional value would be free downloadable content or discounts on the games for gold members.

Re:Translation

[twistedsymphony]

In other words...

Other words, eh?
The Title:

Xbox Live Silver Accounts Now Wait a Week for Demos

Why Not:

Xbox Live Gold Accounts Now Get Demos a Week Early

Everyone keeps taking about them eroding the Silver experience instead of making Gold worth while, aside from the fact that this is the way XBL has worked for over a year now and nothing about the delivery schedule has changed they're actually adding a feature to the Silver accounts in that they now have the ability to see the Gold content they don't yet have access to where before they could not (but still had to wait for it)
If the person who wrote the title actually knew what they were talking about it would read:

Xbox Live Silver Accounts Now Get to See What They've Been Missing

As much as I'd like to see them implement some new features for gold like group chat, a clan system, Marketplace discounts or some other perk, I think the the fact that Gold subscribers getting things EARLY as a perk being twisted into pessimism is rather ridiculous.

Re:Translation

[ECMIM]

Yeah, I mean it isn't as if Sony is giving you online play and demos for free, right? Wait, what? They are?! This changes everything!

Re:Translation

[GeckoX]

When was the last time you had to pay for a test drive?

Trust me, it's advertising. Just because people have been suckered into paying for various types of advertising doesn't mean it makes any sense to do so. Remember, there's a sucker born every minute!

Re:Translation

[CastrTroy]

You're right. I'm pretty sure that the publishers pay quite a bit of money to get their game demo on XBL. MS doesn't do that for free. The publisher pays, the user pays, MS gets rich.

Re:Translation

[nick_davison]

If the person who wrote the title actually knew what they were talking about it would read:...

I think the the fact that Gold subscribers getting things EARLY as a perk being twisted into pessimism is rather ridiculous.

So, your perspective is:

Silver members get demos just when they always would have - when the demo's ready. Gold members get an "enhanced" service where demo makers rush out a demo a week before it's ready yet miraculously manage it in such a bug free state that their new, rush product is so good they don't need to modify it to match what they used to deliver a week later and now do for Silver users?

Wow. Game makers are getting really good.

Alternatively, a year ago, Microsoft imposed an arbitrary delay on Silver users getting demos - demos that system buyers had been led to believe they got when they were ready as part of their basic purchase - in order to create a false sense of value for Gold users. Rather than face the pretty reasonable outrage of the community at the time, they hid what they did, not reminding Silver users about how they'd just had what they'd already bought from Microsoft ganked. Now, a year later, figuring a lot of people have forgotten they paid for a system with a service that promised Silver users getting demos when they were ready, they figure there won't be such a backlash. Now it's more profitable for them to say, "Hey, you're missing out. [Please don't remember we manufactured that missing out]. Buy the expensive version! [Please don't remember that you did buy that but we, uh, stripped it and gave it to a more expensive version.]"

The summary was incorrect. It should have read:

XBox Live figures less backlash, now tells Silver users how they screwed them a year ago to encourage upgrading now.

The sad thing is the number of sheep who don't get that taking something away from one service, only to make another seem better, really is a degredation of the original and not an enhancement of the newer one.

They successfully teach Microsoft:

Hey, in a year's time, why don't you release "XBox Live Platinum - With advance access to Halo 4 demos that Gold users don't get, all for $19.99/month"?

The sheep will then see Platinum as an "upgrade" despite the fact they bought a system with Silver that was meant to have demos when they arrive, then upgraded to Gold to get them, and now have to upgrade yet again to Platinum.

I have a 360 and the free Silver membership which, as far as I can tell, is worth exactly what I pay for it. There's not a lot left for Microsoft to strip from it. They can't remove store access - it just means they sell less. They can't remove their current poor demo access - it just means less sales. Take any more and they just cost themselves money.

If anything, they've already gone too far. They've hobbled so many of their games as to make them almost unplayable without a Gold account (Test Drive Unlimited requires your gamerscore to unlock the game and then ties the easy methods for doing it to the auction system that again requires Gold membership). Knowing I'll inevitably find my play experience degraded as punishment for not giving Microsoft more money each month, I buy less 360 games and more on the PC where makers like Valve manage to offer all of the services without "needing" enhanced and expensive levels of service. They create a system where I'm punished for not spending, what, half a dozen bucks a month? In exchange, I buy $20-30 less in games each month for the system because I know it's artificially hobbled. The point has already come where trying to grab money now has had a knock on effect on how much money they get overall.

The challenge is, companies like Microsoft have some numbers they can predict and see easily and some they can't.

They know: Hey, since stripping features from Silver, we're up 1m Gold accounts from our previous predictions. We make $6m a month more, high fives all

really?

[SendBot]

assures us it's not meant to 'annoy' users of the service, but to provide additional value to Gold subscribers

I was reading the major nelson site about this yesterday after reading tycho's post at PA about it.

It annoys me that value is being considered as a zero sum game. To enhance the value of gold memberships, they do so not by adding value to it, but detracting value from the free version.

And isn't the point of demos to produce interest in sales of new games, thereby increasing MS's licensing revenue? How exactly does this help increase their bottom line? I wouldn't expect anyone to upgrade for this reason alone, especially as it's done in poor taste.

Re:FInally!

[pthor1231]

There is indeed content silver members can't get. Any online play.

I don't see a problem

[oahazmatt]

I'm an Xbox Live Silver Account user and quite honestly, I don't have a problem with this. Were I a Gold Account user, I would probably want as much value for my dollar as possible, even if it was something as simple as adding advanced downloads. It's not as if Silver Accounts will never get the opportunity to download the demos.

Re:Not new

[Anonymous Coward]

Ahhh, so the only thing that's really changed is they've found yet another way to advertise the Gold membership to people. Gotcha.

Re:How to add value

[TeraCo]

You're mistaken. Game reviews are the video game equivalent of commercials. Demos are the equivalent of a 'test drive' when buying a new car. Your average ad man would reel in horror at the thought of giving a person access to 'advertising' that was just as likely to turn them away.