Why is Microsoft not giving Xbox Live free?

[Fwee]

Because they can, and it's boatloads of overcharge for almost no work.

 

[Smagmuck_]

It's called business, they need to make money. Sony has made enough money to where they don't need to charge for Online services because they've made enough from their computer industry to do so, and those said computers usually *GASP* Windows. Microsoft likes to keep a good amount of cushion money so if the economy takes a really bad tumble, they'll still be afloat. And for the idiots who go "Hurr Durr $50 too expensive." It's fifty dollars a YEAR. And they have a choice of payment options, ranging from a monthly fee, to a three month fee, to yearly. Yearly is the cheapest because saving $5 a month isn't too bad...

The sooner some people get over the fact Microsoft wants to keep itself alive so they charge a measly yearly fee, and just accept it, the sooner we can move on as a gaming culture...

 

[Paragon Fury]

Because you get what you pay for.

Xbox Live is arguably the best entertainment network right now. It has many features other networks don't, much of its content is easily accessed and usable, it gets many exclusives and early content, and has an extensive, efficient and often very effective tech/customer support network.

Compare this with the PS3, the Wii or even the PC, and its only 16 cents a day.

Its a damn good deal.

 

[neonsword13-ops]

This is funny if you ask me. I got a 360 for my 13th birthday. I enjoyed it untill I discovered live. Then I lost interest. I got a ps3 the next christmas. I can't put it down. Why pay for something you can get for free? Sure my ps3 freezes from time to time but it didn't produce the red ring like my 360. I say that ps3 has better quality, better power, and all around better design. Haters gonna hate but that's my opinion.

 

[gigastrike]

Because people pay for it. People always say "stuff should be free!", but why would Microsoft pay any attention if the same people are shelling out for it on a regular basis?

 

[DanteVX]

The fact I have to pay for the Live service was the reason I stopped playing on Xbox really. It's very rare that I actually want to play online, but when I did for a few games with friends a couple of years back it meant we had to go out and spend £60 on a subscription. Which I stopped using after 3 months.

I just feel that if I have bought a game with online multiplayer, then I should be able to use the feature without hindrance from those who make my system. I agree with the PSN way of doing things, with their recently released subscription service. You can, if you want, pay for extra content, exclusive games, earlier release times etc, but you don't have to pay just to play the games you have already bought.

For me, what the gold membership should be if you want the extra's like facebook, netflix, pointless avatars etc. These are not what I bought the system for. I bought it to play games, and after paying for the system, the game and hell even the internet itself, I then have to subscribe to play my game.

In summary: On a game system, games should come first. Social networking and interconnectivity come second.

 

[Hellblazer12]

I own a Xbox 360 and repeatedly having to pay for a Xbox Live Gold Membership is quite annoying. After a while i started thinking about why Microsoft isn't giving Xbox Live free. Surely its to make more money and the Xbox Live service and benefits is quite worth it but surely they must realize that they lost many costumers to Sony's PS3 due to this and that this is always a major disadvantageous point when used in console wars. I am open to all views and opinions.

Cause servers, bandwith, updates, and the staff to take care of it all costs money? And Microsoft is not going to do something that actively loses money. Especially when there is a large fanbase willing to pay for it.


Companies exist to sell people a product, in this case entertainment is the product, and make a profit. Sony loses money on PSN; they only made PSN free to try to take some of Live's consumer base. Sony would charge if they could. Blizzard charges for WoW for the same reason: there is no such thing as a free lunch.

If no one would pay for it and the service drained more money that it brought in, why in the world would Microsoft offer Live? That would be stupid. The gerbils in accounting at Microsoft probably have done a lot of analysis, balancing the cost of Live and the profit it brings. They probably determined that charging for live brought in more money than offering Live for free would generate in increased 360 sales.

Does that sum my opinion up for you, OP?

To pose my own question to this forum, why do people feel that they are entitled to services they did not pay for? I mean, I can't go to the supermarket and say "I bought your milk, now give me a free glass and free cookies to go with it." I don't think anyone would.

Online multiplayer is a service above and beyond the primary purchase price of a console. Companies are well within their rights to charge consumers for it.

Hey,Thanks for your post,actually,I'm not saying that I'm opposed to it (although it says that in my previous post). XBL is much worth the money and effort spent on it.I just created that post so that I could have other people's opinions and views on the topic in addition to mine.I am aware that Sony loses money by offering PSN free.Your post(essay) is quite a convincing argument and it would do well to put things in perspective for other people too.So Thanks for replying

 

[Jezzascmezza]

I guess because the Live online service as a whole is slightly better than the PSN, but perhaps not enough to warrant that much of a yearly fee...

 

[Hellblazer12]

The fact I have to pay for the Live service was the reason I stopped playing on Xbox really. It's very rare that I actually want to play online, but when I did for a few games with friends a couple of years back it meant we had to go out and spend £60 on a subscription. Which I stopped using after 3 months.

I just feel that if I have bought a game with online multiplayer, then I should be able to use the feature without hindrance from those who make my system. I agree with the PSN way of doing things, with their recently released subscription service. You can, if you want, pay for extra content, exclusive games, earlier release times etc, but you don't have to pay just to play the games you have already bought.

For me, what the gold membership should be if you want the extra's like facebook, netflix, pointless avatars etc. These are not what I bought the system for. I bought it to play games, and after paying for the system, the game and hell even the internet itself, I then have to subscribe to play my game.

In summary: On a game system, games should come first. Social networking and interconnectivity come second.

Thats a good point of perspective,Thanks for replying

 

[DarthFennec]

Because people are willing to pay for it. If you provide a service, why not make some money from it? Also, most people subconsciously believe that free services are generally not as high quality as paid services, so the fact that XBL costs money makes it seem better than PSN to a lot of people.

Not that I agree with any of this, I think Microsoft is scamming us to charge us for XBL. But as long as people are willing to pay for XBL, Microsoft will continue to charge for it.

 

[Hellblazer12]

This is funny if you ask me. I got a 360 for my 13th birthday. I enjoyed it untill I discovered live. Then I lost interest. I got a ps3 the next christmas. I can't put it down. Why pay for something you can get for free? Sure my ps3 freezes from time to time but it didn't produce the red ring like my 360. I say that ps3 has better quality, better power, and all around better design. Haters gonna hate but that's my opinion.

Thanks for sharing and NOT being a sony fanboy (no offence)

 

[Hellblazer12]

This is funny if you ask me. I got a 360 for my 13th birthday. I enjoyed it untill I discovered live. Then I lost interest. I got a ps3 the next christmas. I can't put it down. Why pay for something you can get for free? Sure my ps3 freezes from time to time but it didn't produce the red ring like my 360. I say that ps3 has better quality, better power, and all around better design. Haters gonna hate but that's my opinion.

Thanks for sharing and NOT being a sony fanboy (no offence)

Because you get what you pay for.

Xbox Live is arguably the best entertainment network right now. It has many features other networks don't, much of its content is easily accessed and usable, it gets many exclusives and early content, and has an extensive, efficient and often very effective tech/customer support network.

Compare this with the PS3, the Wii or even the PC, and its only 16 cents a day.

Its a damn good deal.

AGREED :-]

 

[Hellblazer12]

having to pay for something free on other consoles is a waste but xbox live has just too many features from better multiplayer to nice social networking options

Excuse me? Multiplayer is in no way better. Also, the social experience is shit due to the fact that 50% of the community is comprised of pre-teen boys screaming "******," among other things.

The PSN is like omegle, occasional trolls, but an overall clean and a decent experience. Xbox Live is like Chatroulette, you may be more "social", but half of the time you stare at some asshole's dick.



Answer to OP: Because they [Microsoft] can, and because people are too dumb to say "To hell with this shit."

Excuse me, I may have said that I was open to all opinions but let me make one edit: I don't want any Sony fanboys coming just to troll and give their close-minded "opinions" about how much better their precious PS3 is than the Xbox 360. So a suggestion might be to GTFO

 

[Hellblazer12]

I own a Xbox 360 and repeatedly having to pay for a Xbox Live Gold Membership is quite annoying. After a while i started thinking about why Microsoft isn't giving Xbox Live free. Surely its to make more money and the Xbox Live service and benefits is quite worth it but surely they must realize that they lost many costumers to Sony's PS3 due to this and that this is always a major disadvantageous point when used in console wars. I am open to all views and opinions.

servers aren't free. microsoft supports it's XBL a lot better then sony supports the PSN. and both demand money. but microsoft asks it from you, while sony asks it from the developers- thus making it so less developers will be interested in putting stuff up on PSN.
for example, on PSN devs pay for bandwidth. every downloaded file from them counts toward that bandwidth. once that bandwidth is up, they have to cough up more money. so a lot of developers don't put out any free demos, because it adds up on the bandwidth.

for the small fee, you get a bigger library of games, more demos and a better service.
it's not a perfect system, but it works well enough.

Wow I never thought of that,lol. Thanks for your post

 

[barbzilla]

Because unlike sony, MS does things like having all of their Live tech support agents in local countries. They try (note the word try) to provide better service, as well as making sure games/systems get updated. This may not be for everyone, hell I mainly play on my PC if I want multiplayer as I dislike multiplayer on all of the consoles.

 

[Hellblazer12]

I own a Xbox 360 and repeatedly having to pay for a Xbox Live Gold Membership is quite annoying. After a while i started thinking about why Microsoft isn't giving Xbox Live free. Surely its to make more money and the Xbox Live service and benefits is quite worth it but surely they must realize that they lost many costumers to Sony's PS3 due to this and that this is always a major disadvantageous point when used in console wars. I am open to all views and opinions.

If you want to compare Sony and Microsoft's online offerings it's no contest. As an example, nothing on the playstation store has a demo, everything on the LIVE store does. That's because demos would cost the companies selling their games online money to host, microsoft handles those fees, thanks to you on live. More over you have incidents like in Super Street Fighter IV where capcom just couldn't afford to distribute costume data to all customers on Playstation network but could on live. Your money has a real, palpable outlet on live. This isn't to say there's no value in playstation plus either though, the "Free" games they have available make it pretty tempting. Ultimately, whether you're willing to pay for a service or not is related to how much value you derive from it.

Thank you for you view, what you said is true and you don't seem to lean towards neither xbox or ps3 in your argument

 

[Hellblazer12]

I own a Xbox 360 and repeatedly having to pay for a Xbox Live Gold Membership is quite annoying. After a while i started thinking about why Microsoft isn't giving Xbox Live free. Surely its to make more money and the Xbox Live service and benefits is quite worth it but surely they must realize that they lost many costumers to Sony's PS3 due to this and that this is always a major disadvantageous point when used in console wars. I am open to all views and opinions.

Why stop charging money when people are already throwing millions at you? Seriously, why is this thread even in existence?

It exists because I was wondering why they keep charging although,even if they're making millions, they know that people tend to lean more towards the PS3 due to their fee

 

[GraveeKing]

I'm not going to defend or make it seem nice - fact is they do it so they can make money. Heck we all make money, this is their way of making a constant stream of it. More golden mansions for them, less money for the poor which is us - nobody loses right? Yeah...
It's why I stick to PC - I can even get the majority of most games free or from a torrent if i REALLY want them that badly - Not that I would do that of course *cough cough* - I think I'll stick to my free sandvich on tf2 PC than a paid for Halo 3 kid on xbox 360.
(not to be rude or anything, but Xbox Live SHOULD be free in my opinion)

 

[Hellblazer12]

Surely its to make more money and the Xbox Live service and benefits is quite worth it but surely they must realize that they lost many costumers to Sony's PS3 due to this and that this is always a major disadvantageous point when used in console wars. I am open to all views and opinions.

Yes

Yes

No

and No.

To explain:

Yes it is a money-making venture, but you are right in that at least part of that money goes into ensuring it is a better service, runs smoothly, and has good content. In all honesty, having played several MMOs where you are paying a much higher subscription rate just for that one game, paying a yearly fee to play any Xbox Live multiplayer title is, in the grand scheme of things, great value for money.

Yes, having compared PSN to Live on my PS3 and my Xbox I can say that I am happy to pay for the (much better) service. I'm not saying PSN is crappy, and I'm not going to go into the (European) server stability issues on PS3 compared to Xbox versions of games like CoDBlops and B:BC2. The discounted rates for download games, and the content you get as a Gold subscriber I can happily say is 'worth it' in my opinion, especially for something that is cheaper than a years subscription to a games magazine and has articles and features (and videos) that are almost more informative more often and often less biased than many format specific magazines.

However, saying Xbox 'lost customers' to PS3 because PSN doesn't cost is a statement that may hold true for a very tiny minority, but it doesn't hold true for many dedicated gamers, especially online ones. To be honest, given the price-tag differences for the consoles, the added extra of Live doesn't even make the 250GB Xbox more than a 160GB PS3 (at least, in Europe, if they have closer parity in the US, discount this, and yes, that is for a console WITHOUT kinect included in the box), so it doesn't even boil down to cost and being able to afford the service. When a year's subscription costs as much, or sometimes less, than 1 full-price game, most hardcore gamers eat the cost up without blinking.
So maybe a few kids or younger teenagers without jobs or low allowances might miss-out on Live because they can't afford it (I see more than enough in my shop asking for the 3 month pre-pay cards to know this does happen), but you have to realise that the main thing that will make them choose one service over the other is peer pressure. Most younger consumers play what their friends play, so if two or three kids in a school year jump ship to PSN from Live and are up the social ladder enough, then sure, they will influence others to do the same, and they are just as likely to switch back later on too, usually influenced by what games come out on what console.
Saying this though, flying in the face of 'anti-payment' protestors, Xbox has talked and rumoured a few times about reviewing Live and how much it costs the customer. These days it is much cheaper to get online than it was when the console first launched, and with the service well established, Microsoft could possibly turn around and start discounting the Live service subscription as they no longer need as much to keep it running to the same standard. We've already seen many deals and packages for renewing your subscription cheaper, especially aimed at families post Kinect launch, where you get more for your money such as full download games or MS Points, or 20% off a year. Similar in many ways to the kind of deals and offers mobile phone companies advertise for their services.


Lastly, again, I disagree with the 'cost' of Live being a NEGATIVE when discussing console wars, but only because the service is, on the whole, better. Yes, cost is a factor for actually weighing up which one to buy personally, but when comparing the experience of a game, or games machine, as a whole, cost doesn't factor in. World of Warcraft is enjoyed by millions, but in order to play Cataclysm you have to buy ALL the expansions, so do you turn around and say that Cataclysm is bad because it costs the most? Or do you instead take it for its content, leaving individuals to decide if they can afford to buy it and play it? Naturally you look at Cataclysm for what it brings to the world, be you a new player or one well versed with the WoW game world.

Basically, PSN basic is as good a game download platform as Steam, or iTunes App store or Live, but in order to get a lot of what Live offers you have to subscribe to the premium service. Likewise, Steam and App store are little more than catalogues, App store especially. In terms of play-support and communication, and even just the front-end for it, Live trumps PSN and has done for a few years now, based on ease of use and seemlessness. One only needs to listen in to the amount of people talking on a PS3 online game versus the amount of chat on a 360 one on average to know that one system is much more integrated with its online features than the other. From personal experience (i.e, selling them to customers) more people who want good online matches and games go Xbox, while those who want to play 3D and Blu-ray go PS3.

Of course, those peope who can easily afford a 3D TV and the movies and the glasses and the rest, likely have an Xbox on a different telly that they use to massacre their mates on MW2 with!


-Tzatziki: Voice of the Specialist Games Retailer-

Wow,Honestly,thank you for your enormous opinion on this topic and thanks for taking the time to type all of that. Also I am now sure this view as it has been(somewhat partially) expressed by a few others because its coming from a game retailer of course .But, let me explain my troubles involving the cost issue.Where I live,things tend to be a highly overpriced, especially games and electronics. For example: A Xbox 360 60GB Pro console costs $2000. Based on my example, you would expect games to be Largely overpriced too.Well,you would be right,a single game in my country costs $500 and a 1 month Live membership - $60,3 month Live membership - $120 and a 12 month membership - $300. If you don't believe me then so be it, its the truth anyway. So if I were to buy a Xbox 360 60GB Pro console,three games and an additional controller (this is my current situation), the total cost would be $3800 (a controller costs $300). After this,because I am still attending school and have to pay for all of this with savings,I would not want to spend an Additional $300 a year.All of this plus the additional hassle of buying and shipping it from the US to try to get it at a cheaper price.You of course had no way of knowing all of this but I hope my explanation partially clears up why my thread was made because having free internet service would also be a huge relief(PS3). Though I still like my Xbox more

 

[Hellblazer12]

I own a Xbox 360 and repeatedly ... pay for a Xbox Live Gold Membership

I believe that the fact that you're paying for it is example enough.

hmmm You have a fitting username