Xbox Live price increase.

[Chimera 1]

Well I am already paying $95 a year by paying monthly so it wouldn't change for me. Now that I think about it I think I am switching to a yearly subscription so I can save that cash. WTF was I thinking!!

 

[darthviper107]

No Fah-king wai

 

[Chimera 1]

So far it seems like if MS did raise the price they would lose half their membership so that would hit them really hard in the wallet.

 

[karamazov80]

But if they double the price and lose half their membership, then they wouldn't be affected at all, wallet-wise

 

[Sup3rman]

i can't see them raising it to $100 a year! that's a bit much i think..especially in todays economy! i think it would be a bad move on MS part

would i keep it?? not sure...when i start playing modern warfare 2 online i guess my answer would be yes i would keep it probably just for that game..i don't really play anything else online

 

[hairlesswookiee]

I'd have a tough decision. I know I already said I would definitely cancel, but I just now realized how much I use Netflix on it on top of the gaming I do.

 

[BadMoon]

This would be a tough decision but I would sadly probably pay for it. It is worth it to me. Yes, one could argue that PSN is free. However, their online sucks IMO compared to where LIVE is at. It isn't even on the same level. I also use my NetFlix a ton on LIVE. I really hope they don't raise the price. I also don't think they would.

 

[Vader AL]

less than $10/month? No brainer for me, yes.

 

[Kibishii]

I wouldn't pay $100 unless some of the online MMORPG's went console.

 

[tnaig001]

I would pay if they had more servers and play and much less lag.

 

[willocrew]

So far it seems like if MS did raise the price they would lose half their membership so that would hit them really hard in the wallet.

Not really. Microsoft wants to raise its price in order to maximise its profits.

There are a couple of things going on in the equation:
1) Net growth of xbox live subscription
2) Infrastructure (e.g. servers)

Microsoft wants to maximise the use of its current Xbox live resources so the simplest way to do this is by price control - i.e. If every server can only handle 500 gamers & there are 800 people who want to play, the simplest solution would be to just increase the price enough such that you will have only 500 gamers left who are willing to pay the increased price.

It is much better than channeling microsoft money into upgrading the servers to account for the 200 gamers.

The point is, the small increase in price isn't due to "upgrades to servers & increased cost of maintenance" as Microsoft would have you believe. It just a form of price control.

e.g. Laggy servers due to too many gamers? Simple, just increase price to get an optimum number of players & instant improvement in server quality.

Because of this, you'll often have an intermediary period just before they actually add more physical servers where the quality of Live would be quite poor because they are really trying to stretch the resources before making the switch.

 

[Havok]

I might keep it if it went up that much but it would take some serious thought and I just think it would be stupid on their part. I really hope it isn't true and seeing how it's only one persons prediction, I'm not gonna worry about it too much.

 

[Dally]

I'm not sure. I may just move to PSN. I've been having a lot of fun playing the PS3 recently.

 

[wofford29]

I'd drop and just get my multiplatform games for the PSN for free. Not as good, but Live isn't worth $100.

 

[Darth Caedus]

Don't think MS would do that. The PS3 is actually increasing in sales over this year and this would drive people over towards to the PSN.

 

[hairlesswookiee]

I'd drop and just get my multiplatform games for the PSN for free. Not as good, but Live isn't worth $100.

Agreed. I'm not even certain its worth the $50 it is now. That's almost the price of another game.

 

[Moonloop]

I'd probably keep it. But if the price is raised to $100, then some downloadable content better go down in price. I mean, I think $50 is a great deal, but $100 is not worth it.

If Microsoft really wishes to increase the price, then I think they should do it gradually. Raise it to $60 for 2010, and then add another $10 every year or so. But then at that rate maybe it will end up being over $100.

 

[BadMoon]

I will use this as a recent example. I decided that I wanted to rent Trick R Treat. I decided that I didn't want to watch it on my xbox because the system lets face it is damn loud. So I rented it off of PSN at 7pm est time tonight. Lets just say that I have watched transformers 2 a two and a half hour movie and it's still downloading off of PSN. As a matter of fact it is at 16% as we speak.

Had I done this on the 360 it would have started after 2 minutes of buffering and been fine the whole way through.

Let's face it guys and gals, you get what you pay for. Or in my case tonight you don't.

So I would take a firm stance on just paying $100 for the whole year of almost perfect service rather than dealing with PSN. It is garbage through and through.

 

[THX-182]

I'd drop and just get my multiplatform games for the PSN for free. Not as good, but Live isn't worth $100.

Me too. I think $50 is worth it but I wouldn't pay more than $60 a year for it. If they were to raise it to $100 I would buy any game I would want to play online for the PS3. It's free. Microsoft would lose many current subscribers to the PSN.

People defend the $50 Live membership VS the PSN free membership because of Live's features but it is just barely winning that justification. At $100 they'd better offer some sort of super awesome incentive or to come over to my house once a month and give me oral for that price.

I love X-Box live because of it's better features and it's better than PSN so it makes it worth the current price. But a price hike would be out of the question for me.

I can afford it no problem. The money is not the issue. I just don't want it that bad and it's not worth $100 a year.

 

[Chimera 1]

Read this from Microsoft: Price increase may actually be coming our way!!