Why do people pay for Xbox Live?

[dogenzakaminion]

Well, we pay to not have our information stolen >.>

<..>

HEYOOO!!

But seriously, I pay 25 euros each year for a good service, with access to a good Arcade store and other features. PlayStation Plus also costs money, btw, and gives you access to demos, downloadable games and more not otherwise available to the non-paying customer. Just saying...

 

[LaughingJester]

The simple answer to this is I pay for the service because:
I feel I get value from it equal to the $5 a month I pay.
All my mates have an Xbox...
Given the technology I am not going to argue the extra fidelity of Blueray over DVD... It's still pretty good

 

[Paragon Fury]

Why?

Because for $60 a year ($5 a month/.16 cents a day) I get a service that:

1 - Has integrated, reliable cross-game and cross-media chat/services with multiple people.

2 - Provides free matchmaking services to a variety of games, and a (fairly) reliable TruSkill system to ensure fair matches, as opposed to the terrible server systems of the PC and most PS3 games.

3 - Provides a number of content exclusives/early releases, like the Call of Duty map packs, game betas (Endwar, Crysis 2, etc.) and has an easier to use system than the PSN.

4 - Good customer support. As annoying as the people can be sometimes, Microsoft and Xbox Live easily have the best customer support in the business. They have answers and can help, and are actually reachable by normal people, unlike say, Steam or PSN services.

5 - Good technical support. Yes, Xbox Live has gone down before. But never for as the long as the PS3 (longest was less than a week, due to a mess-up with the Dashboard Update), they keep you constantly up to date, and have yet to have a serious breach in security that wasn't related to their own users being stupid (such as that Modern Warfare 2 incident).

6 - Better community interaction. We get free programing/updates with Major Nelson, the Tech Lady, IGN's Tip Service and other services. PSN gets none of that, and most other services don't either.

And to clear up some of the BS: no, you don't pay anything for XBL except the yearly/monthly fee. The only game you have to pay to play online in addition to the XBL fee is Phantasy Star Universe, which is an MMO. Silver Accounts also don't get deals of the week, can't play games online, choose their own Gamertags and don't get a lot of the community updates.

 

[Tdc2182]

Because they charge for it.

But in all seriousness, Online is about 90% of my time gaming. PSN doesn't cost as much money, but when you think that a PS3 cost about 50 dollars more (from the last time I checked) and doesn't have the same amount of support and a faulty wireless adaptor, you are in essence paying about the same.

I just want to point out that for the longest time, 360's did not have any built-in wireless adapters whatsoever. So if you had a wireless connection, you needed to buy a router specifically for the console. Considering that you can typically get third party routers for somewhere between between $20-$30 it wasn't that big a deal. But guess what Microsoft was charging for their "official" wireless router at the time?

$100.

I mean good god, that was at least $70 overpriced. For me, that cemented Xbox Live as a bit of a scam, price-wise. I mean if Microsoft was willing to cheat their customers that much just so they could access the service in the first place, then it was hard for me to think Live could be worth $60 a year. That's a good chunk of the reason I opted for a PS3 once the price went down.

I'm not doubting that Live is a good service, I just don't see anything that drastically different between Live and PSN that makes me thing the former is worth paying extra for. The same goes for PSN Plus, so don't go thinking I'm a fanboy or anything here.

P.S It appears the official adapter is now typically listed at $80, which is still way too god damned much. [http://www.amazon.com/Xbox-360-Wireless-Network-Adapter-Networks/dp/B000B6MLV4]

Agreed. I paid for the adaptor at about 60 dollars, and I got mine befoer they built them in. There are places where they really overpay for them, you have to sorta weed out the good stores.

Then again, unless I am mistaken, there isn't any cable connections for the PS3, meaning you will rarely have the best connections to online.

My post seems like it was attacking PSN, but that is literally all that is wrong with PSN (You know, besides the whole credit card thing).

You've got better graphics, arguably better exclusive titles, and it doesn't bullshit around with the Microsoft point system that is really only there to get you to pay extra for the Downloadable content it produces.

 

[Phoenixmgs_v1legacy]

Not to troll here, but you asked us a question, we are giving you answers and you are basically arguing with everyone's answers. You knew that people would say
- to play multiplayer
- to be secure
- or because we have to

why didn't you just name the thread "PSN is FREE and XBL is not" instead of asking a question.

just saying

I'm trying to show people Microsoft is not a required element to play multiplayer. Microsoft literally withholds your access to game content you bought, then charges you to access that already paid for content. If you bought COD or Halo for $60 and only have Silver, then you just basically flushed $30 down the toilet. Why would you pay somebody for something they aren't doing? It would be like buying a PC game and then Microsoft (or Apple if you have a Mac) not allowing you to install the game on their OS unless you gave them money. Do you not see how this doesn't make sense; you bought the PC hardware, you bought the OS, you bought the game, and you still gotta pay more?!?!

Security? No PSN users had their identity stolen or their credit cards used by unauthorized individuals. That's secure enough for me. Nothing negative has happened to any PSN users outside of having PSN down. Sony should've had better security in place (and they will now) but nothing important got stolen, they shut down the network to protect anything bad happening to any PSN accounts.

Why would you have to pay? If Xbox users just didn't give Microsoft free money, then multiplayer would be free.

It's only like 60 bucks, who cares?

Then give me $60/year for doing nothing, it's only $60, who cares? I'll gladly take your money for doing nothing.

Why?

Because for $60 a year ($5 a month/.16 cents a day) I get a service that:

1 - Has integrated, reliable cross-game and cross-media chat/services with multiple people.

That's a feature most PSN users want, I wouldn't use it but it's nice to have. However, Microsoft really incurs no costs when people use those features. If you have a Netflix party, the movie is being streamed from Netflix servers to you and your friends (no Microsoft involvement), and the party chat uses peer-to-pear networking (again no Microsoft involvement). Party chat is the equivalent to a program on your PC, and you don't pay a yearly fee to use PC programs you bought unless they constantly update (like a anti-virus). You don't even have to pay money to get Windows updates.

2 - Provides free matchmaking services to a variety of games, and a (fairly) reliable TruSkill system to ensure fair matches, as opposed to the terrible server systems of the PC and most PS3 games.

I really don't know much about TrueSkill but from what I can tell it seems like a good feature for games with matchmaking. I'll give you that, but again that doesn't cost much to run; the algorithm was developed years ago and the TrueSkill servers just have to track some stats. But there is some cost so I'll give you this one. I think you're the first to actually mention this feature and the thread is over 10 pages.

Personally, I really don't like matchmaking, I much prefer a lobby/room system even over a good matchmaking system. I love Metal Gear Online because the gameplay is really the best of any online shooter I've played and finding a good room is great and you can stay there for hours with great games throughout. Metal Gear Online has a level system and it's pretty damn good as a team of level 15s will almost always beat a team of level 14s.

3 - Provides a number of content exclusives/early releases, like the Call of Duty map packs, game betas (Endwar, Crysis 2, etc.) and has an easier to use system than the PSN.

I really hate timed exclusives because no one actually wins, or there's only a winner because somebody loses. If Microsoft or Sony sends a truck of money to whoever to get content early, then nobody is actually getting the content sooner, some people are just getting the content later. Timed exclusives only screw customers and nothing else. PS3 users get exclusive/timed exclusive content as well, we got Red Dead content and Assassin's Creed content. Sony has more exclusive disc games like Metal Gear Solid 4 and Valkyria Chronicles plus all of the Sony 1st-party games, and Sony has more 1st-party games than Microsoft because Sony owns more developers.

4 - Good customer support. As annoying as the people can be sometimes, Microsoft and Xbox Live easily have the best customer support in the business. They have answers and can help, and are actually reachable by normal people, unlike say, Steam or PSN services.

5 - Good technical support. Yes, Xbox Live has gone down before. But never for as the long as the PS3 (longest was less than a week, due to a mess-up with the Dashboard Update), they keep you constantly up to date, and have yet to have a serious breach in security that wasn't related to their own users being stupid (such as that Modern Warfare 2 incident).

I personally don't really get why people value customer service so much as I can google whatever issue I'm having and get a solution faster than calling anybody's customer service, which always will take you through the basic troubleshooting methods that you should've already did before you called until they address your actual problem. I used Sony's customer service due to a YLOD and the guy I had was very nice and answered all of my questions as I had a game stuck in the system and wanted to make sure I got the same model of PS3 back as I have a PS2 BC model.

6 - Better community interaction. We get free programing/updates with Major Nelson, the Tech Lady, IGN's Tip Service and other services. PSN gets none of that, and most other services don't either.

And to clear up some of the BS: no, you don't pay anything for XBL except the yearly/monthly fee. The only game you have to pay to play online in addition to the XBL fee is Phantasy Star Universe, which is an MMO. Silver Accounts also don't get deals of the week, can't play games online, choose their own Gamertags and don't get a lot of the community updates.

I don't really care about getting The Tech Lady or IGN's Tip service, I'll go online and look up stuff if I want to. PSN gets program updates via Pulse bi-weekly (for free) and Core (payed service, free with PSN+).

What if I don't want party-chat, TrueSkill matchmaking (since I like games with a lobby/room system), programming updates, etc. and I just want to play online (the content I already paid for)? Or what if I just play single player games and want to use Netflix?

 

[Phoenixmgs_v1legacy]

Then again, unless I am mistaken, there isn't any cable connections for the PS3, meaning you will rarely have the best connections to online.

Huh, you mean an Ethernet port for a wired connection? All PS3s have an Ethernet port and wireless. The only PS3 SKU that didn't have wireless was the 20GB launch model that was discontinued long ago.

 

[Rocking Thunder]

Wow, this has gotten into a huge debate, let me sum up my opinion on the situation with this.

Can you play Halo, or Gears of War online on the PS3?

I know they are exclusives, and I know the PS3 has those as well. I am not even saying that the xbox ones are better, but really, you can not play those on the PS3, its as simple as that.

Also, people will buy what their friends have, if it is a PS3, you buy a PS3, if it is an xbox, you buy an xbox. People will go with their friends, and the kid who choose between xbox and PS3 in a way chose for all of their friends. It will be hard to change that pattern.

 

[Elamdri]

It's only like 60 bucks, who cares?

Then give me $60/year for doing nothing, it's only $60, who cares? I'll gladly take your money for doing nothing.

1: I could afford to, so don't be a smart alec. It's not my fault 60 dollars is a such a big deal to you.

2: Microsoft does not charge you for "Nothing." Remember that the price you pay goes to support the security system, the upgrades they make to the service, the framework that the service runs on (which all games use), the information about your profile that they store, supporting the social infrastructure (friends list, party chat), attracting services, like Hulu, Netflix, ESPN, Last.FM, and also getting subscribers the DLC first, before PSN.

 

[utopaline]

Not to troll here, but you asked us a question, we are giving you answers and you are basically arguing with everyone's answers. You knew that people would say
- to play multiplayer
- to be secure
- or because we have to

why didn't you just name the thread "PSN is FREE and XBL is not" instead of asking a question.

just saying

I'm trying to show people Microsoft is not a required element to play multiplayer. Microsoft literally withholds your access to game content you bought, then charges you to access that already paid for content. If you bought COD or Halo for $60 and only have Silver, then you just basically flushed $30 down the toilet. Why would you pay somebody for something they aren't doing? It would be like buying a PC game and then Microsoft (or Apple if you have a Mac) not allowing you to install the game on their OS unless you gave them money. Do you not see how this doesn't make sense; you bought the PC hardware, you bought the OS, you bought the game, and you still gotta pay more?!?!

Security? No PSN users had their identity stolen or their credit cards used by unauthorized individuals. That's secure enough for me. Nothing negative has happened to any PSN users outside of having PSN down. Sony should've had better security in place (and they will now) but nothing important got stolen, they shut down the network to protect anything bad happening to any PSN accounts.

Why would you have to pay? If Xbox users just didn't give Microsoft free money, then multiplayer would be free.

It's only like 60 bucks, who cares?

Then give me $60/year for doing nothing, it's only $60, who cares? I'll gladly take your money for doing nothing.

Why?

Because for $60 a year ($5 a month/.16 cents a day) I get a service that:

1 - Has integrated, reliable cross-game and cross-media chat/services with multiple people.

That's a feature most PSN users want, I wouldn't use it but it's nice to have. However, Microsoft really incurs no costs when people use those features. If you have a Netflix party, the movie is being streamed from Netflix servers to you and your friends (no Microsoft involvement), and the party chat uses peer-to-pear networking (again no Microsoft involvement). Party chat is the equivalent to a program on your PC, and you don't pay a yearly fee to use PC programs you bought unless they constantly update (like a anti-virus). You don't even have to pay money to get Windows updates.

2 - Provides free matchmaking services to a variety of games, and a (fairly) reliable TruSkill system to ensure fair matches, as opposed to the terrible server systems of the PC and most PS3 games.

I really don't know much about TrueSkill but from what I can tell it seems like a good feature for games with matchmaking. I'll give you that, but again that doesn't cost much to run; the algorithm was developed years ago and the TrueSkill servers just have to track some stats. But there is some cost so I'll give you this one. I think you're the first to actually mention this feature and the thread is over 10 pages.

Personally, I really don't like matchmaking, I much prefer a lobby/room system even over a good matchmaking system. I love Metal Gear Online because the gameplay is really the best of any online shooter I've played and finding a good room is great and you can stay there for hours with great games throughout. Metal Gear Online has a level system and it's pretty damn good as a team of level 15s will almost always beat a team of level 14s.

3 - Provides a number of content exclusives/early releases, like the Call of Duty map packs, game betas (Endwar, Crysis 2, etc.) and has an easier to use system than the PSN.

I really hate timed exclusives because no one actually wins, or there's only a winner because somebody loses. If Microsoft or Sony sends a truck of money to whoever to get content early, then nobody is actually getting the content sooner, some people are just getting the content later. Timed exclusives only screw customers and nothing else. PS3 users get exclusive/timed exclusive content as well, we got Red Dead content and Assassin's Creed content. Sony has more exclusive disc games like Metal Gear Solid 4 and Valkyria Chronicles plus all of the Sony 1st-party games, and Sony has more 1st-party games than Microsoft because Sony owns more developers.

4 - Good customer support. As annoying as the people can be sometimes, Microsoft and Xbox Live easily have the best customer support in the business. They have answers and can help, and are actually reachable by normal people, unlike say, Steam or PSN services.

5 - Good technical support. Yes, Xbox Live has gone down before. But never for as the long as the PS3 (longest was less than a week, due to a mess-up with the Dashboard Update), they keep you constantly up to date, and have yet to have a serious breach in security that wasn't related to their own users being stupid (such as that Modern Warfare 2 incident).

I personally don't really get why people value customer service so much as I can google whatever issue I'm having and get a solution faster than calling anybody's customer service, which always will take you through the basic troubleshooting methods that you should've already did before you called until they address your actual problem. I used Sony's customer service due to a YLOD and the guy I had was very nice and answered all of my questions as I had a game stuck in the system and wanted to make sure I got the same model of PS3 back as I have a PS2 BC model.

6 - Better community interaction. We get free programing/updates with Major Nelson, the Tech Lady, IGN's Tip Service and other services. PSN gets none of that, and most other services don't either.

And to clear up some of the BS: no, you don't pay anything for XBL except the yearly/monthly fee. The only game you have to pay to play online in addition to the XBL fee is Phantasy Star Universe, which is an MMO. Silver Accounts also don't get deals of the week, can't play games online, choose their own Gamertags and don't get a lot of the community updates.

I don't really care about getting The Tech Lady or IGN's Tip service, I'll go online and look up stuff if I want to. PSN gets program updates via Pulse bi-weekly (for free) and Core (payed service, free with PSN+).

What if I don't want party-chat, TrueSkill matchmaking (since I like games with a lobby/room system), programming updates, etc. and I just want to play online (the content I already paid for)? Or what if I just play single player games and want to use Netflix?

ONCE AGAIN!!!!!! If you thought it was a rip off, or we are wasting our money, then you should not have posted this thread as a QUESTION!!!!! You seem to know the answer (YOUR ANSWER) and no matter what anyone says you are just going to argue.

I'm cool with you having your opinion, but then just post your opinion and have this discussion. buy YOU asked US why we pay for it, we tell you and you just become an uber troll that disagrees with whatever anyone says.

I pay because I like Live more than the shitty PSN. that is why. I enjoy being able to use my Kinect to talk to friends all over the world for free without using my PC. I like the marketplace better, I enjoy the quality of service that they deliver, I enjoy it cause it pisses off Sony fanboys that I pay for something they think they are getting for free. They are not the same service.

I pay my car dealer more money to fix my car because I like the service they deliver. I eat at nice restaurants because I enjoy it more than crappy McDonalds. I rent movies and purchase DVD's instead of always downloading for free because I choose to. I eat organic food because I choose to. MY MONEY, my decision.

I have no problem with you answering (I use that VERY lightly) our responses, but it's your thread title that I have a problem with.
"Why do people pay for Xbox Live?" is a question. the title should have been "I'm gonna tell you why you shouldn't pay for Live"

uto

 

[Mute52]

Party chat, and it seems that since you have to pay to play online. A lot less people hack and risk losing their account that was payed for.

 

[Elamdri]

I pay because I like Live more than the shitty PSN. that is why. I enjoy being able to use my Kinect to talk to friends all over the world for free without using my PC. I like the marketplace better, I enjoy the quality of service that they deliver, I enjoy it cause it pisses off Sony fanboys that I pay for something they think they are getting for free. They are not the same service.

I enjoy the PSN/Live ****waving contests; I have both systems so it's irrelevant to me.

 

[Phoenixmgs_v1legacy]

This is the part where you're mistaken. It isn't also supply and demand, it is just supply and demand. Cost of resources has essentially nothing to do with the price of a service. Many times a good is easy to supply and thus prices are driven down to nearer resource costs, but in this case the good is not easy to supply since only Microsoft has the right to license things.

I meant that supply and demand is a factor in how you can price stuff. If something is easy to make and lots of people are making said product, consumers are not going to buy that item for much above its cost as if one company is trying to get $5 profit for each sale, then another company can step in and sell the product for less while only getting $4 profit of each sale.

Services have resources too. If you pay company to clean your PC from viruses/spyware, the technician earns a salary, you need to have phone service so people can call you, you need electricity at the shop, etc. Live and PSN require servers running on electricity, technicians working to maintain them, some kind of physical location where the servers are, bandwidth costs, etc. The service needs to bring in more money than the resources required to run it to make profit.

It's like a kid buying a bad of candy with his/her own money, then a parent taking the bad of candy (controlling access) and charging the kid a nickle for every piece he/she takes out of the bag.

Except in that case the parent has no justification for taking the bag. Microsoft is justified by its properties that you're using to play the games.

The parent doesn't want the kid eating a whole bag of candy in a day. Plus, parents have the authority to do that kind of stuff to their kids that are under the age of 18. A 12 year old can't go to the cops if their parents take away their game console (assuming the kid bought the system with their own money) for a week or 2 and get their game system back.

I can see a parent not wanting the kid to eat that bag of candy all in one day but charging the kid money for something he/she already paid for is ridiculous.

I sort of lose the point of your analogy here. Does Microsoft have some independent interest in trying to prevent you from accessing too many games online?

The point is not accessing too many games, it's that Microsoft charges you to access game content you already bought; the kid already bought the candy just like you bought the game and the price of the game includes the cost of the multiplayer. Just change the analogy to 1 piece of candy, the parent takes it, and charges the kid a nickel for it. The amount of candy (or games) doesn't matter, it's that kid bought the candy (you bought the game) and you have to pay more money to access it.

If you think that's dickly, that's fine (in many ways, I agree ethically). My point was never about feelings toward the practice, only about how it's pretty normal business practice. Virtually every business tries to put themselves into as near as possible the situation that Microsoft is in with Live. As you say, they have very low operating costs and get others to provide the resources for them while keeping all of the profit. That said, I suppose this is actually best thought of as a result of the legal system's attitudes toward intellectual property - that intellectual ownership justifies licensing requirements for derivative products. But again, virtually every business tries to do this, so refusing to support businesses based on this is going to get very tiring. If you want to blame someone, it's not really the fault of Microsoft so much as it is IP law.

I agree it's not Microsoft's fault, it's the consumers' fault for letting Microsoft take their money for nothing. I would take free money too. I think the main issue is that most consumers are uninformed. Microsoft is a dick IMO because they are holding stuff you paid for hostage. If they were say asking people to donate $50/year to "improve" online gaming and people decided to pay them, then that wouldn't be dickish because then Microsoft wouldn't be withholding anything while getting free money.

 

[YunikoYokai5]

snip

The *Lottery for fail* joke implied that he'd won the lottery for bad luck.

I.E. He was extremely unlucky.

After your story though, I'm thinking it the same Xbox, and Microsoft just kept "fixing" it and sending it back instead of replacing it.

That's honestly the only way I can imagine it.

Regardless, I don't know why I'm arguing in the first place, I like all my consoles equally.

I'm notorious for not picking up on jokes and the like. Just my way of thinking XD

But it was different Xboxes, he told me the serial code was different on all of them.

 

[Adam Galli]

Well, we pay to not have our information stolen >.>

<..>

Discussion over.

 

[Blood Countess]

I don't pay it cause I don't play any games online on my 360 or my PS3 so it's a moot point but PSN did have it nice where you didn't have to pay to play your games online but in light of recent events, yeah maybe the money is helping for a bit more protection thought yeah Microsoft isn't hack proof either

 

[SeriousIssues]

I tried PSN...
Not nearly as good in my oppinion.
The headset alone was a hassel just putting in, not to mention it just doesn't appeal to me at all.
The lack of social connection, it's marketplace, even the slow and grating updates for games all just makes Live look so much easier. It's never fun paying for another year when the time rolls around, but overall it works much better than the PSN for me and it ends up being worth it.

 

[crazyfoxdemon]

I pay because I like to play.. Simple as that.. Sure I'd love for it to be free.. But I love playing online more then I love $69 a year..

 

[nebtheslayer95]

I pay for the multiplayer bonuses (getting content early, beta codes, etc) and for the superior(in my opinion) setup as far as navigation is concerned. the xbox is just easier to use than the ps3, so im ok paying a little for it. also xbox has pretty good security, not just in terms of not being hacked but also being able to avoid players and give negative rep to those that deserve it. the final reason is netflix streaming. yes i know that i pay for netflix anyways but its easier than buying a separate streaming component for my upstairs room.

 

[VanityGirl]

I own a PS3, 360 and a Wii and the online services are in this order:
1)Xbox360
2)Ps3
3)Wii

Why is the one that you have to pay a whopping $60 a year for the best?
-Simply put, 360 has had a better track record for its online services. Its servers rarely go down and when they do, xbox makes sure you know it. Even during major releases with millions of people online, the servers stay up.
-If I had to rate them, I would also give the better user interface to the 360 as well. It's very easy to navigate, even to my technologically challenged future mother-in-law.
-The tech support, though annoying, have always helped me out quickly and reliably. Sony's can be hit or miss, in my personal opinion. (My PS3 yellow lighted on me -_-)
-I really enjoy 360's play feedback system. Occasionally you'll get a doucher who will give you negative rep for no reason, but those are few and far between. This system allows people who are being cheaters, asshats, or people who have very offensive names to get suspended or banned. This is a good thing and I wish more consoles and PC services would do this.
-The chat system. This is huge for me. I have friends I went to school with and I enjoy being able to talk to them while we're all on different games. Sadly we have different tastes in games, but thankfully we have a way to cross chat while playing our flavor of the week. Also, sending a quick voice message to a buddy is ideal if you get a quick break between rounds in a game.
-Microsoft, though a devil corporation, does give its customers deals of the week for various arcade games. Paying for the service also allows users to get betas and some DLC sooner than PSN.

I enjoyed PSN when it was up, but I spent most of my time on XBL because of my friends and my family I have on there.

I think you'll have the community split on this subject. Some can easily understand why people will pay, others will say "OMG $60 is a fortune!"

 

[FalloutJack]

Well well well now...

Eight warnings, a multitude of jokes lacking in taste, and a massively pointless argument which is that godless abomination, the console war. Watching you guys in action, I realize that sometimes...people have way too much free time on their hands.

Sony fans, X-Box fans...simmer down. You're spinning your wheels inside a swamp, going nowhere fast.

This argument doesn't even have anything to do with the OP's real question. He asked you...why do people pay money into X-Box Live when you get decent service from it for free? Your pages and pages of argument missed the point entirely because some people want to rag on each other over the Sony-getting-hacked issue, which was never a subject of the original post AT ALL.

The answer is simple: X-Box Live users pay money merely because they want it all, regardless of whether anyone thinks it's a waste or not. They want ALL the features, the WHOLE nine yards, period.

Now, that wasn't so hard, was it?