Why does M$ charge for XBL?

Strifehart said:
We live in an age where the majority of gamers are people like us (working class dudes, etc) who own both platforms (if not more).
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Damn... i guess i'm in the minority, then.
Honestly, when i bought my XB360, the thought of multiplayer never really crossed my mind. And, because of that, i never knew that one had to pay to play
If i had intended to be a gamer that played multiplayer often, and i had known that a XBL subscription cost R600 per year, i might have gone the PS3 route.
But maybe not... who knows.
I'm just making the point that the cost factor may have played a role in my decision on which console to choose.

According to the latest IT salary article on mybroadband (http://mybroadband.co.za/news/business/16301-Salaries-The-best-cities-revealed.html), i'm an average earner, but i can guarantee you... there was no way i was gonna be able to afford both consoles

EDIT: Oh, and i almost forgot... I had to sell my Wii to afford my XB360
 
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Inevitability said:
R599 for SA
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I'm sorry, I don't make mountains of cash and try and save where I can, but I still don't see how R50 a month is such a major issue. I can understand that basically you're just paying M$ for the chance to play online multiplayer, but even then it's not THAT bad. :confused:
 
It's the principle of the thing.
It might not be incredibly expensive, but mathematically speaking, it's infinitely more expensive than PSN

Proof:
anything divided by zero = infinity
therefore R600 / 0 = infinity
Q.E.D
:)
 
Inevitability said:
It's the principle of the thing.
It might not be incredibly expensive, but mathematically speaking, it's infinitely more expensive than PSN

Proof:
anything divided by zero = infinity
therefore R600 / 0 = infinity
Q.E.D
:)
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It maybe be more expensive than PSN but at least its fast with the updates. :p
 
Inevitability said:
It's the principle of the thing.
It might not be incredibly expensive, but mathematically speaking, it's infinitely more expensive than PSN

Proof:
anything divided by zero = infinity
therefore R600 / 0 = infinity
Q.E.D
:)
Click to expand...

Well, for me having faster downloads/updates is worth R50 a month. Hell I pay more a month having an account with FilePlanet!

It puts me off a bit having to wait two to three hours just to update the online multiplayer part of a game like I did with Uncharted2. But in the end it is a free service so you can't really complain. I'm willing to pay a premium for faster downloads/updates. The only reason that I haven't gotten myself a PSN+ account yet is because I haven't heard if download/update speeds increase.

I might just try it out for a few months and see if it's worth it or not.
 
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Toxin said:
Well, for me having faster downloads/updates is worth R50 a month. Hell I pay more a month having an account with FilePlanet!
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Again... that supports the viewpoint that it's based on supply-and-demand, i.e. they charge people cos they know people will pay.
And i entirely understand and support the idea that you charge someone for a premium service.

But if I just wanna play multiplayer, i cant do that unless i pay
This is what i'm against...
There's only one option: Pay up to play online or you're stuck with single player (or splitscreen where available)
Your options are : 'Premium' or 'nothing'
But I've already paid for the game and its multiplayer functionality, so why is M$ cornering me into paying for this premium service without giving me a free option.
... give me a semi-cr@p service for free and i'll take it with both hands. PSN subscribers are doing fine with it.
 
Inevitability said:
Again... that supports the viewpoint that it's based on supply-and-demand, i.e. they charge people cos they know people will pay.
And i entirely understand and support the idea that you charge someone for a premium service.

But if I just wanna play multiplayer, i cant do that unless i pay
This is what i'm against...
There's only one option: Pay up to play online or you're stuck with single player (or splitscreen where available)
Your options are : 'Premium' or 'nothing'
But I've already paid for the game and its multiplayer functionality, so why is M$ cornering me into paying for this premium service without giving me a free option.
... give me a semi-cr@p service for free and i'll take it with both hands. PSN subscribers are doing fine with it.
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True dat.

You may have crappy download speeds with PSN..... but at least you can play online multiplayer.
 
Inevitability said:
Again... that supports the viewpoint that it's based on supply-and-demand, i.e. they charge people cos they know people will pay.
And i entirely understand and support the idea that you charge someone for a premium service.

But if I just wanna play multiplayer, i cant do that unless i pay
This is what i'm against...
There's only one option: Pay up to play online or you're stuck with single player (or splitscreen where available)
Your options are : 'Premium' or 'nothing'
But I've already paid for the game and its multiplayer functionality, so why is M$ cornering me into paying for this premium service without giving me a free option.
... give me a semi-cr@p service for free and i'll take it with both hands. PSN subscribers are doing fine with it.
Click to expand...

See there lies the problem, you would rather a a crap or "semi-crap" service free than paying a small amout for a premium service. Its like going to ur local mcd's and telling them you will have the post-sell by date stuff if you can have it for free. IMO its a very poor attatuide to have.

Becuase PSN is happy to leave their service as is, instead of imrpoving it to match or beat Xbox live there is no reason for MS do anything to make their pay-for service better or change the system. Compitetion is what drives industry. Look how many tablet deviced are hitting the market now after the release of the Ipad, a constant tug of war to get a one up on the compitetion leads to better and better tech. Since there is no such compitetion between these online providers there is no push forward.
 
OmegaFenix said:
See there lies the problem, you would rather a a crap or "semi-crap" service free than paying a small amout for a premium service. Its like going to ur local mcd's and telling them you will have the post-sell by date stuff if you can have it for free. IMO its a very poor attatuide to have.
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Nope, that's not the same at all.
PSN for multiplayer works. No PS3 owner i know has complained about playing multiplayer on PSN.
So we're comparing a service that really works, with another service that really works.

Plus, you're missing the part where i said...
Inevitability said:
But I've already paid for the game and its multiplayer functionality, so why is M$ cornering me into paying for this premium service without giving me a free option.
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I've paid for it already, so then they wanna make me pay again?

Yes, M$ gives you alot of bang for your buck, but that does not detract from the lack of free online multiplayer, which PSN provides
M$ forces you to take their bag of goodies in order to get online mutiplayer.
I don't want those goodies... i just want online multiplayer
For me, M$ can only ever rectify the situation by making online multiplayer free.
Thing is, do you think that if M$ offered free online multiplayer, everyone would still renew their Gold subscription? And this is why they won't do it.
Which takes this all the way back to Page 1 where we found out that they charge you only cos they know you will pay

OmegaFenix said:
Becuase PSN is happy to leave their service as is, instead of imrpoving it to match or beat Xbox live there is no reason for MS do anything to make their pay-for service better or change the system.
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Hey man... M$ is charging you for this so they BETTER be improving the service regardless of what Sony is doing. You're expecting the free service to be premium quality? No way that happens in the real world. What you should be expecting is for M$ (the paid service) to be so far ahead that Sony has to get off their a$$es and improve PSN

But i''m now digressing in order to address your points...

My focus in this whole discussion is online multiplayer.
The rest doesn't matter to me
PSN is doing it (and nobody complains about how cr@p it is) for free, while XBL needs you to pay (a 2nd time)
 
If i'm coming off as being overly-serious, please excuse me.
I really posted the thread as a light-hearted (but relevant) dig at M$
I will, however, defend my standpoint if a counter argument is made :)
 
Inevitability said:
Nope, that's not the same at all.
PSN for multiplayer works. No PS3 owner i know has complained about playing multiplayer on PSN.
So we're comparing a service that really works, with another service that really works.

Plus, you're missing the part where i said...

I've paid for it already, so then they wanna make me pay again?

Yes, M$ gives you alot of bang for your buck, but that does not detract from the lack of free online multiplayer, which PSN provides
M$ forces you to take their bag of goodies in order to get online mutiplayer.
I don't want those goodies... i just want online multiplayer
For me, M$ can only ever rectify the situation by making online multiplayer free.
Thing is, do you think that if M$ offered free online multiplayer, everyone would still renew their Gold subscription? And this is why they won't do it.
Which takes this all the way back to Page 1 where we found out that they charge you only cos they know you will pay


Hey man... M$ is charging you for this so they BETTER be improving the service regardless of what Sony is doing. You're expecting the free service to be premium quality? No way that happens in the real world. What you should be expecting is for M$ (the paid service) to be so far ahead that Sony has to get off their a$$es and improve PSN

But i''m now digressing in order to address your points...

My focus in this whole discussion is online multiplayer.
The rest doesn't matter to me
PSN is doing it (and nobody complains about how cr@p it is) for free, while XBL needs you to pay (a 2nd time)
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..........Agreed!!!
 
I have had NO problem at all with PSN. I quite like the fact that I can either pay for PSN+ or keep the standard free PSN service. I just can't justify paying R600 for a 12 month subscription and for what exactly? A few remade PS titles, exclusive themes (That get released late anyway)...
I've only ever played on an Xbox online once and I was quite impressed it felt smoother for me than PSN did, but thats it really. I get ripped off buying the game, I don't want to have to pay now to play the game online. Period. So all in all I'm happy with PSN :)
 
I found the following which might help to explain it:

Let me explain by making a comparison to PC Gaming. Let's say you are the game company Relic and you are going to make Company of Heroes for PC. What you have to do is create an online system to help players find each other, a system to rank the players based on their wins, a friends list to keep track of your friends, and a chat system so you can chat with people. That is a lot of programming to get all that running. And of course every game is going to do the same thing, so just because I have a friends list in Company of Heroes it is only for that game, I can't see that my friend is playing another game or chat with them.

What Microsoft did was create the Xbox Live system that has all this programming in it to connect gamers together, allow voice chat, friends list, achievements, and a ranking system. Then they give all this information to a game developer who basically takes these prebuilt modules and plugs it into their game. Now they don't have to spend a bunch of time programming all those features in. The best part is it works across all games so I can chat with you even if we are playing different games. The only thing Xbox Live doesn't do is create dedicated servers to host the matches, the games are peer to peer. However lot's of PC games such as Company of Heroes are peer to peer as well. So basically Xbox Live does everything except host the match.

The reason you pay for it is because at the time Xbox Live came out it was superior to anything on any console or even the computer, and Microsoft felt they could get people to pay for it. And people were willing to pay for it.
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Source
 
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