Microsoft Points "Never Intended to Mislead People"

[Gildan Bladeborn]

They are probably lying about not wanting to mislead people.

Even if they weren't, they DEFINITELY wanted to make people spend more money by forcing them to buy more points than were needed to make the purchase they wanted. I call it the "gift card scam."

As well you should! Gift cards are a colossal scam - if they don't have all sorts of hidden fees buried deep within impenetrable tracts of legalese, you'll forget you have them and then they'll expire. Companies freaking love them because it's an easy way to get 100% profit - wouldn't you love it if people just paid you money to do nothing? I know I would, but there's this niggling little issue of my still intact conscience in the way.

 

[Rect Pola]

800 points for $10? Why the weird exchange rate? I think they wouldn't have irked people so much if the factor was a easily realized value, but instead they wanted a value that equated to people paying roughly the same worldwide.

 

[trebach]

While I understand that with a worldwide service it is difficult to adjust currency values, this is Microsoft we are talking about. I'm sure they have a few computers to throw at the problem...

Or more simply charge a set price and charge according to the exchange rate.

i.e. Game A = $10, factor appropriately to the value of the dollar. So £12 in UK, etc etc

The conversion rate works in the Briton's favor. $10 is closer to £6 than £12.

 

[Sixties Spidey]

Well if Nintendo can use points without making it seem or sound confusing (800 Wii Points = 8 Dollars), and if Sony and Steam can use real currency, why not MS?

IMHO, the MS Points system is fucking awful. I've had a hell of a time fighting with MS about credit card authentication bullshit and managing the currency as a whole. It's just a way to cover up the actual value.

 

[IckleMissMayhem]

The fact is that you've got to think that we have one service that we're offering around the world. The nice thing about points is that no matter if you're on the yen or the euro or the dollar -- something that's 200 points is 200 points everywhere around the world.

Well colour me sceptical. Surely inventing your own currency system is more complicated than just using RL monies in the first place? They manage to come up with RRPs for a range of products all the freaking time, why not for DLC?!

 

[BaldursBananaSoap]

That's bullshit, they were put in place so you have to pay more than you actully need to by buying set amounts, and to confuse people of the real amounts.

 

[z0nbie]

Yeah they do this so you always spend more then you want to. It's 800 MSP , you can only buy in increments of 500, you're always going to have points left over. Its like going into a store and buying a product for 8 dollars, giving the cashier a 10 ... and them telling you that you have 2 dollars left over to spend instead of giving you change back ... and there's never anything good in that store for 2 dollars :/

 

[CincoDeMayo]

I don't care what they have as defense, Microsoft points still have different prices depending on where you live in the world, same as game prices and such. While American gamers complain about $60 games we have to pay roughly $95 for the same game.

The same way goes with the MS point system, costs vary with country and it's an excellent concept for scamming people on more money.

200 American MS Points is NOT the same as 200 Swedish MS points, as a matter of fact we pay 144% of the US price, which means that 100 Swedish MS points translates to 144 US MS points.

Also, as probably mentioned already the values on points you buy never add up to exactly what a game or DLC will cost in MS points, which means that you'll always pay them for more than they'll give you back.

Think about it, if you want to download one of the Xbox Original games you'll find that the price on those are 1200 MS points (unless other mentioned (at least acc. to Wikipedia)), but you are forced to buy 2000 points for $25, or 1000 + 2*100 points for a total of $15, which means that you'll always have points over that you probably won't use or pay more per point in order to get that old classic.

It's a system that nobody seems to question, which I find very odd.

 

[Mako SOLDIER]

While I agree that it would be good to be able to pay using real currency, there is one problem. At the moment, if you don't have (or don't want) a credit card then you have to buy points top up cards etc, because you have no other payment options. Sure, some debit cards work, but I can tell you now that mine certainly isn't one of them. If they switch to real currency I'd imagine it would be highly unlikely that you could still buy prepaid cards to top up your balance.

So, if they do switch then they'd better darn well start accepting all debit cards as payment options or they'll never get another penny from me (well, for buying stuff off Xbox live anyway, I'd obviously still buy games in store). Not by my choice of course, I just won't be able to pay as I refuse to get a credit card (there's no way I'm setting myself up for that kind of debt).

 

[oppp7]

Those points kept me out of buying Battlefield 1943 (or whatever that Japanese vs US game was back in the summer). I guess they could just have a conversion rate next to it, but then what would be the point?

 

[Hulyen]

While I agree that it would be good to be able to pay using real currency, there is one problem. At the moment, if you don't have (or don't want) a credit card then you have to buy points top up cards etc, because you have no other payment options. Sure, some debit cards work, but I can tell you now that mine certainly isn't one of them. If they switch to real currency I'd imagine it would be highly unlikely that you could still buy prepaid cards to top up your balance.

So, if they do switch then they'd better darn well start accepting all debit cards as payment options or they'll never get another penny from me (well, for buying stuff off Xbox live anyway, I'd obviously still buy games in store). Not by my choice of course, I just won't be able to pay as I refuse to get a credit card (there's no way I'm setting myself up for that kind of debt).

To address this and similar posts: Sony offers PSN cards that are available for purchase at retail in $20 and $50 increments for exactly this reason. There's a gigantic market for a similar thing for online sites that take currency. Microsoft obviously already has such a system in place, it wouldn't be much to change that aspect of it to currency - it wouldn't really be a change at all.

 

[Podunk]

I wouldn'y mind Microsoft Points if they were a reasonable number to a dollar, like the Wii's 100 points= 100 cents setup. Heck, they could even just make it 1 point= 1 dollar. That way they don't have to worry about exchange rates (Which is why, I assume, Nintendo has a point system rather than direct cash.) But no, it's 80 points to the dollar. Math comes before determining wether each purchase is a good deal or bad deal. Maybe it's just from using the Wii shop channel longer than I have the XBox Live Whatever, but it just seems like a silly, needless hassle. The only reason I could think up as to why they were doing it was to confuse or mislead people, draw them in thanks to that odd little instict we have to look for low numbers.(Like how nothing ever costs $3.00, it's all $2.99) It would be alright if you could just buy the points in the most common amounts needed, but even that becomes more confusing than it has to be. I've bought points twice from Xbox- Both times for Borderlands DLC, which I assume to be priced the same as the majority of DLC available, and both time I ended up with this odd little bit of change. Even put together it isn't enough for a meaningful purchase. At the very least, shouldn't points be sold in amounts that are most useful to the average customer?

 

[mrbones228]

I remember when I first got my xbox360 (I didnt have xbox live)I thourgt that gamerscore and mspoints where the same thing... silly me

 

[SantoUno]

You have to do that for every product in very country.

Typo right ?

OT: I seriously don't understand why they didn't do this since day 1. Surely they could have prepared all that worldwide currency adjustments before the Live Marketplace was released.

 

[hypothetical fact]

So charging 800 points per download but setting those cards in multiples of 1500 wasn't meant to mislead anyone...

 

[GamingAwesome1]

So charging 800 points per download but setting those cards in multiples of 1500 wasn't meant to mislead anyone...

I hate that, I hate that so very much. It ruins my calculations.

But other than that, I really don't see what's confusing about Microsoft Points in the first place. You pay money, you get points, you spend points. I always thought it was quite simple.

 

[Revolutionary]

Unless youre a mathematical retard I dont think it matters.

 

[Kellerb]

Microsoft Points "Never Intended to Mislead People"

< Aaron Greenberg, Xbox group product manager, said that Microsoft is working on introducing this to all of Xbox Live and that the Points were never meant to mislead people.



Permalink

never meant to mislead people my ass.

 

[GloatingSwine]

So charging 800 points per download but setting those cards in multiples of 1500 wasn't meant to mislead anyone...

No, it's meant to make you spend the leftover points on themes and avatar items and random crap you don't need just to make the numbers up.

The worst are things priced at 560. ARRRGH!

That said, PSN regularly puts things at £X.99, and only lets you buy a minimum number of points at a time, which is even more annoying, because they pretend that it's real money, when actually it's a points system like the other two.