Sunday, September 26
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| This might be why Xbox Live's price is increasing... |
Recently Microsoft announced, via Major Nelson’s Blog, that the price of Xbox Live would be increasing. As of right now all the prices for the United States change, 1 month for Canada and the UK changes, and then the 12-month for Mexico changes. Their reasoning behind this is that they have added more content and features without increasing the price, which is random to say, so they decided to increase the price. But this got me thinking about value.
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| Oh Yeah... this might be a reason too... |
As it stands Microsoft considers the value of Xbox Live to be roughly $59.99 dollars worth. But I don’t and I know for sure a lot of others don’t either. Now I don’t want to just rag on Microsoft because I can’t blame them for a price increase and in all honesty they have added a good deal of content. But the problem is that I do not want and I will not use most of the content or features. I have used twitter, facebook, and last.fm once and never plan on trying them again. And I know for a fact I will never use the new ESPN feature they are adding. So why do I have to pay for these if I want Xbox Live?
All I really want is to play games. I have used Netflix and currently have Netflix, but I would be perfectly fine without it. So in reality I am paying, or will have to if I want Xbox Live in the future, $59.99 just to play games on Xbox Live.
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| Lets not forget this too... |
So my question is why are there no tiers? I know the obvious answer… If Microsoft made it tiered and made gaming only Xbox Live for roughly $20 or less then they would stop making so much money. Plus they can’t really do that because of all the flak they will get considering PSN is completely free to play online. But I am the customer and I know for a fact I will not pay $59.99. $49.99 was pushing it to me and even then I used to get cards for $29.99 when they were on sale on sites like Amazon (and they were almost always on sale). But I now for a fact that even if I end up buying cards for $39.99 I will still be supporting Microsoft and from what I can tell that just isn’t something I want to do.
Unfortunately one person say means absolutely nothing and because such there will never be enough individuals that will group together to actually protest things. Seriously when was the last time a large enough groups of people have ever protested something and gotten their way? Civil Rights movement? If that is the case, and I am sure I am completely wrong, then it has been awhile.
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| And finally this too... |
But any way back onto topic. What bothers me more is when people say, “people need to shut up when companies charge the actual value of an item”. Because I reality no company charges the actual value of an item. If that were the case they would be a terrible company. Obviously every company charges more because that is how you make profit. And when Microsoft makes an estimated this much profit just for their gaming division. And repeatedly say it was because of increased Xbox Live income it makes and doesn’t make me wonder why they are increasing prices. It is kind of obvious they don’t need to, but then it is also obvious they want to cash in on the increased profit.
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| Worth $25? |
But again I can’t blame a company for making money where it can be made, just look at Blizzard. It is what they are trying to do. My problem is the fact that so many people don’t care they are being taken for a ride. But more so I am bothered by the fact that Xbox Live doesn’t have tiers….
So what are your thoughts? Do you think Microsoft is smart or dumb and annoying; and what about the price of Xbox Live? I already said it doesn’t necessarily bother me, but does it bother you?
