Microsoft Points Die With Next Xbox 360 Update

[StriderShinryu]

As others have said, it's not really a huge change. It just means that there is more instant visual clarity to what you're spending. As they are still using a wallet system, I highly doubt there's going to any less of the whole "I want something for $8 but can only deposit $5 or $10" issue, you'll just see it in dollars and cents instead of Points.

 

[-Ezio-]

As others ahev said, it's not really a huge change. It just means that there is more instant visual clarity to what you're spending. As they are still using a wallet system, I highly doubt there's going to any less of the whole "I want something for $8 but can only deposit $5 or $10" issue, you'll just see it in dollars and cents instead of Points.

perhaps they'll do it the way sony did. you can add lump sums. or you can add the exact amount the thing you're buying costs.

 

[ZZoMBiE13]

I'd like to add that it was a massive pain in the arse. If you wanted to buy (say) DLC that cost 1200 points, you would have to separately pay for a 1000 point bundle, a 500 point bundle (consequently meaning you had to pay for 300 extra points you didn't want) and then use those points to buy the product.

Yup. Hopefully this means we'll be able to add specific amounts to our account rather than the current lump sums. If I have £8.20 in my account and I want to buy something that costs £10, being forced to add £5 is less than ideal.

Sony makes you add $5 even to rent a movie though, don't they? Card charges being what they are, I thought there was a minimum amount they wanted with each purchase. Whenever I rent a movie on PSN it's always "Funds have been added to your wallet" when I get the e-mail notification, and I believe it's always at least a fiver.

 

[Roxas1359]

As others have said, it's not really a huge change. It just means that there is more instant visual clarity to what you're spending. As they are still using a wallet system, I highly doubt there's going to any less of the whole "I want something for $8 but can only deposit $5 or $10" issue, you'll just see it in dollars and cents instead of Points.

While yes, I'm hoping that they have the option to add the remaining amount that you would need like how PSN and the eShop does so then I wouldn't have to add more to the XBL wallet then I needed to.

OT: Yay, so I'm getting like 30 cents then? Don't ask me how, but somehow I ended up with only having 30 MS Points on my account, and I still don't know how I managed to do that.

 

[Ophiuchus]

I'd like to add that it was a massive pain in the arse. If you wanted to buy (say) DLC that cost 1200 points, you would have to separately pay for a 1000 point bundle, a 500 point bundle (consequently meaning you had to pay for 300 extra points you didn't want) and then use those points to buy the product.

Yup. Hopefully this means we'll be able to add specific amounts to our account rather than the current lump sums. If I have £8.20 in my account and I want to buy something that costs £10, being forced to add £5 is less than ideal.

Sony makes you add $5 even to rent a movie though, don't they? Card charges being what they are, I thought there was a minimum amount they wanted with each purchase. Whenever I rent a movie on PSN it's always "Funds have been added to your wallet" when I get the e-mail notification, and I believe it's always at least a fiver.

Could well be, yeah... to be honest I forgot card charges were even a thing. I've always used the shop-bought vouchers for PSN so I don't really know how it works for adding funds to your wallet via credit card.

 

[Roxas1359]

I'd like to add that it was a massive pain in the arse. If you wanted to buy (say) DLC that cost 1200 points, you would have to separately pay for a 1000 point bundle, a 500 point bundle (consequently meaning you had to pay for 300 extra points you didn't want) and then use those points to buy the product.

Yup. Hopefully this means we'll be able to add specific amounts to our account rather than the current lump sums. If I have £8.20 in my account and I want to buy something that costs £10, being forced to add £5 is less than ideal.

Sony makes you add $5 even to rent a movie though, don't they? Card charges being what they are, I thought there was a minimum amount they wanted with each purchase. Whenever I rent a movie on PSN it's always "Funds have been added to your wallet" when I get the e-mail notification, and I believe it's always at least a fiver.

Could well be, yeah... to be honest I forgot card charges were even a thing. I've always used the shop-bought vouchers for PSN so I don't really know how it works for adding funds to your wallet via credit card.

You can add the base values like $5, $10, $20, etc just like how you can on the eShop and Steam. However, if you have some money on there already, but need more to complete the purchase, then there is an option just to add the remaining amount that you need to your account. Nintendo does the same thing with their eShop too.

 

[Jadak]

*tilts head* Now, maybe its all the F2P MMOs I play, and my general lack of first hand knowledge of XBL, but what was so bad about a 'points' system, exactly?

A simple example, from my own experience:

An item I want costs 600 points, the equivalent of $10 (made up number, been a while since I've looked at the rates).

Thus, the steps are:


1) Buy points
2) Use points to buy product

Alternatively, instead of wasting my time, removing the points system changes it to:

1) Buy product

One step is better for me than two. The only user advantage of a point system is if you were to buy points in bulk, and thus next time you purchase something you don't have to worry about actual financial transactions. You've already got the points so you just cash them in for a product and off you go. But for me, no thanks. I'd rather not commit larger amounts of funds to future theoretical items I may or may not want.

Better yet, you couldn't buy custom amounts of points. To get my 600 point item, I'd have had to buy 1000 points.

 

[MCerberus]

Didn't this happen a month ago?

That's what I was thinking. I bought Skyrim a couple of days ago on the XBLM and the transaction was with straightforward currency.

I think it happened very late July or when August rolled around because it was still points as of the 20th when I bought the Skyrim addons(not hearthfire) for my cousin.

Context: Games On Demand games and video rentals are currently only purchasable with (currency) with individual charges. This has nothing to do with addons, arcade games, et al, which are only purchasable with points. So you need to buy Skyrim with dollars and DLC with points.

 

[Steve the Pocket]

So does this also let you just buy things directly with your credit card/PayPal/checking account/whatever instead of having to transfer it to your Live account first, the way Games for Windows Live has worked for years?

 

[Lightknight]

Hmm, so then you can't buy anything until such a time as the conversion rate is deemed acceptable? I mean, I don't care but if someone has a particularly large amount of points they can lose out big bucks if they exchange at the wrong time. Eh, I don't have any points so I guess I don't really care. I'm just glad they're making sense. The reason for using points to begin with was to prevent consumers from thinking of the points as dollars in order to encourage more spending.

 

[CardinalPiggles]

Personally I didn't mind the points system but this way is objectively better for the consumer.

Well done Microsoft, I might just buy your console down the line (if it weren't for the Kinect).

The thing is the old system was designed to make you not realize it's messing with your brain. "Fun bucks", whether it's 'gems', 'coins', 'x points', or whatever obscure (and actually pretty effectively) how much money something costs from your brain. So people may not have hated it, per se, it's something people should have minded a lot more.

Oh don't worry, I always thought of it as 'this costs £10' rather than this costs 1200 points or whatever (haven't bought anything from XBL in a while to be honest). I'm very particular when it comes to money. Whenever I spend money I think about competitive prices, value per unit ect.

 

[Abomination]

Does everyone remember when there were Steam points?

Oh wait, that never happened because some companies are capable of ensuring dealing with them is a seamless process.

 

[Cannibal Johnson]

*tilts head* Now, maybe its all the F2P MMOs I play, and my general lack of first hand knowledge of XBL, but what was so bad about a 'points' system, exactly?

My problem is that usually I have to spend more than I want on something. An example being I wanted to buy a 160 point (that's about $2.00) DLC for Mass Effect, but the problem is you can only buy MS Points in Packs of either 400, 800, 1600, 4000, or 7200. So that basically means in order me to get something that's only $2.00, I have to spend $5.

 

[Yopaz]

*tilts head* Now, maybe its all the F2P MMOs I play, and my general lack of first hand knowledge of XBL, but what was so bad about a 'points' system, exactly?

Well, there is a few things wrong with the point system Microsoft used at least.

One of the things is the prices on DLC matched with the amount of points you could buy. A costume could often cost 80 and a new level might have cost 240. That pricing structure made it really difficult to spend all your points if you had ever purchased DLC which is why I didn't buy any (silly reason, but still).

OT: I much prefer the way Nintendo has chosen to do it by adding the option of paying with the money loaded on your account while using a credit/debit card to pay the remainder (or the entire game) so you'll never actually have a problem spending all of your money in the store. It's good to see Microsoft abandoning the point system and hopefully they will let us pay only what the game costs rather than set amounts that will be loaded on to the account. Still, I hope they wont abandon the cards that allows us to load money on to your account since that's a great way for parents to keep track of the money spent (they won't get those nasty surprises that have been reported what seems like a million times) and it also allows people without cards to purchase digital content.

Regardless I think this is good news.

 

[Zeckt]

So I'll just forgive them for years and years of being gouged as a canadian for NO REASON. How about no microsoft, fuck you too.

 

[Johnny Wishbone]

Didn't this happen a month ago?

That's what I was thinking. I bought Skyrim a couple of days ago on the XBLM and the transaction was with straightforward currency.

Xbox Live stuff (like Arcade or DLC) has been in points. Xbox Live Digital Download (full games like Skyrim) always showed up in actual money. I have no clue why Microsoft did it that way...

So what happens to any left over points already currently on our accounts?

According to Microsoft's Xbox Reward's FAQ:

"To make this a seamless and positive experience for our customers, we have considered many factors to help ensure that the amount added to your Microsoft account will be of equal or greater Marketplace value than your Microsoft Points. Marketplace value may not always be equivalent to retail price. Retail price is determined by the Retailer, whereas Marketplace value reflects the value of Points throughout Microsoft stores."

In English: They're changing your Xbox Live points to real currency

No. In English: They're changing your Xbox Live points to real currency at an unspecified exchange rate that will be best for them (Microsoft) while claiming it is the best for you (the consumer). Remember who you are dealing with, people.

I actually liked the points system. First off, I never had to give a company like Microsoft any of my personal information, especially a credit card number. Second, if you paid attention and applied a little common sense, the points system was the only place you could actually game the system in your favor. Paying retail prices for points cards is for suckers and idiots. I always waited until points cards went on sale on Amazon or Ebay, and always bought them at a price equivalent to 1 cent per point. IE: buy a 1200 point card for no more than $12 or a 4000 point card for no more than $40. Anyone who went to Best Buy and paid $19.99 for a 1200 point card is a moron and paid 1.66 cents per point. Therefore, anything they purchased with those points, they paid more for it than I did. An 800 point DLC would cost them $13.28 (800 x 1.66) whereas it only cost me $8. That's a big difference in price for two people using the same currency model (dollars). I suspect this is a big reason why Microsoft wants to get rid of points.

 

[tippy2k2]

Didn't you win "points" from playing games on the Xbox though? Just like you get points for smoking cigarettes. If not why were they called points in the first place? If so, that seems like kind of a loss, if you are addicted to Xbox games.

Nopes

Achievement points are pointless e-penis scores what make my life worth living while Live points is your currency (like a poker chip at a casino or carnival tickets). Achievement points are worth absolutely nothing except for rubbing in your noob friends face for not having as much time as you do

No. In English: They're changing your Xbox Live points to real currency at an unspecified exchange rate that will be best for them (Microsoft) while claiming it is the best for you (the consumer). Remember who you are dealing with, people.

I actually liked the points system. First off, I never had to give a company like Microsoft any of my personal information, especially a credit card number. Second, if you paid attention and applied a little common sense, the points system was the only place you could actually game the system in your favor. Paying retail prices for points cards is for suckers and idiots. I always waited until points cards went on sale on Amazon or Ebay, and always bought them at a price equivalent to 1 cent per point. IE: buy a 1200 point card for no more than $12 or a 4000 point card for no more than $40. Anyone who went to Best Buy and paid $19.99 for a 1200 point card is a moron and paid 1.66 cents per point. Therefore, anything they purchased with those points, they paid more for it than I did. An 800 point DLC would cost them $13.28 (800 x 1.66) whereas it only cost me $8. That's a big difference in price for two people using the same currency model (dollars). I suspect this is a big reason why Microsoft wants to get rid of points.

Corporate conspiracy aside, I don't see any actual changes besides the points will look like dollars. You'll still be able to get "Xbox Live Gift Cards" instead of "Xbox Live Points" and I'm guessing that Best Buy or your favored retailer will still have deals on points every so often.

Time will tell for sure but it looks to just be a name change; nothing more.

 

[comando0110]

I like points because you dont have to put a credit card on your account and get hacked by the wrong person. sure you could remove the card from the account every time you pay, but its tedious to put it on and back on. also the mind trick think that somebody was talking about is easy to solve. 16000 is 20 dollars half is 10 and 80 points is a dollar. wort wort wort.

 

[TomWiley]

FINALLY some reasonably good news from Microsoft. Sure took them a while.

Hell yeah. I mean, removing DRM after consumer feedback, enabling indie self-publishing, including an extra headset and all that just doesn't count.

 

[Not Lord Atkin]

FINALLY some reasonably good news from Microsoft. Sure took them a while.

Hell yeah. I mean, removing DRM after consumer feedback, enabling indie self-publishing, including an extra headset and all that just doesn't count.

Backpedalling from bad news doesn't count