If MS could drop GFW Live's subscription fee, why do they still charge for XBL?

Just curious.... but which service has more advertisements, Xbox Live or PSN....

Its crazy that you have to pay for Live....and there are still ADs:roll:

Afrikanxl

[QUOTE="Cherokee_Jack"][QUOTE="lantus"]Because 360 owners have proven they're willing to pay money, while PC owners said Hell no.lantus

[QUOTE="Nedemis"][QUOTE="InternetKraken"]

It probably has to do with GFWL not supporting as many games as Xbox Live does.

I don't see why people make such a big deal out of paying for Xbox Live.

channtheman1

[QUOTE="Cherokee_Jack"][QUOTE="lantus"]Because 360 owners have proven they're willing to pay money, while PC owners said Hell no.lantus

Unless people stop paying, MS will keep ripping 360 gamers off.

Personally I dont bother with love gold, i just use PSN, anyway its generally better as the bigger games use dedicated servers. Theres more reason to pay for PSN really since 360 exclusives use P2P which is why we always have people moaning about host advantage on gears games...

[QUOTE="Eddie-Vedder"]I'm a Gold member and it severly pisses me off, pure greed.InternetKraken

Does no one else understand how much it takes to constantly keep Xbox live reliable and up to date? They have to plunge a lot of resources into it. I think it's personally reasonable for them to make some profit off of it. At least it is worth the money, unlike most DLC.

You know, MS should adopt a ps3-like system, where you can play online for free, but you have to pay for exclusive demos and themes and such, that'd be much better.Andrew_Xavier

Halo has lost its appeal to me so if killzone 2 is good as it look then im making the switch to a ps3.

I didnt choose XBL because it had such "great service", i choose it because it had the games i want on it and i didn't have much of a choose but to pay for it.

[QUOTE="Nedemis"][QUOTE="channtheman1"] No what you are getting for paying is the ability to play online. That's it. A silver user can do everything you can do except play online and he doesn't pay anything. How does it feel knowing you are paying for someone else to use those features?channtheman1

lol these xbots think that cross games invite and a chatroom is worth 50 dollars.

they think when it lags on xbox live, its the players connection fault but not XBL fault. but if it lags on PSN, its PSN fault and its never the player connection. lmao

[QUOTE="comstrikeiscool"][QUOTE="Nedemis"] there are perks to being a gold member on XBL but you obviously don't know what they are. I don't mind paying only $4.17 a month to have the best online setup for a console and I know many more that don't care either. You see, we're not gonna gripe over something so trivial and affordable. How is it being cheap? :lol:Nedemis

LMAO

silver members used to get demos at the same time as gold member but M$ decide to be shiesty and delay it for the silver members. The gold member do not get any sooner than other outlets.

Because people are still prepared to pay for it.bethwo

Xbox owners have simply no choice, it was easy to decide to not pay for Live on PC, there were other much better alternatives and Live didn't have any worthwhile games anyway, 360 users can't do that, there are no alternatives, you want online you need XBLAdrianWerner

I'm guessing it's because PC user's weren't dumb enough to pay for it.:lol:
And, MS aren't just going to not take money people are willingly handing over.

I guess if LIVE users stopped paying, it would become free.
But, they aren't, so it won't.violent_spinal

I always laugh at these threads about people whining for XBL to be free.

There is one simple reason why XBL Gold is worth the subscription fee: MORE ONLINE GAMES with BETTER ONLINE FEATURES. Period. On XBL, the vast, vast majority of multiplayer games have an online multiplayer mode. Beyond that, the vast majority of XBL online games have premium online features like trueskill matchmaking and robust leaderboards. Only the top-tier PSN games from large publishers get that kind of online support, but with XBL, even the tiniest games with the smallest budgets from tiny developers can offer premium online features.

I always go to one example: Pinball FX. Nobody plays pinball anymore... if you think the arcade industry is dead, well the pinball industry is deader than dead. Worse, no-one makes pinball games for home consoles anymore. Pinball fans get maybe 1 or 2 games per generation, and they don't get online modes because it usually isn't worth it to put them in, even for a full-price $60 title. I don't know how much it cost to make Pinball FX or how much it sold, but what I do know is it only cost me $10 to purchase. And yet it has the best online mode of any pinball game ever, with voice, video, trueskill, leaderboards and DLC.

That's only possible because we pay subscription fees that go into developing, maintaining and supporting the features game developers can then implement in their games.

Even XNA games get the benefits... if you make an XNA game, you don't have to design a networking protocol from scratch. Just use Xbox Live's protocol and send the network packets you want to send. Boom. XBL takes care of all the grunt work... authentication, lobbies, IP addresses. You just take care of sending/receiving the game data.

If you think that isn't worth $4.17 a month, then you really are a cheapskate.

Do you think xbox live is produced and maintained magically with no cost whatsoever? Genuine question.Ninja-Hippo

[QUOTE="Ninja-Hippo"]Do you think xbox live is produced and maintained magically with no cost whatsoever? Genuine question.DevilMightCry

I always laugh at these threads about people whining for XBL to be free.

There is one simple reason why XBL Gold is worth the subscription fee: MORE ONLINE GAMES with BETTER ONLINE FEATURES. Period. On XBL, the vast, vast majority of multiplayer games have an online multiplayer mode. Beyond that, the vast majority of XBL online games have premium online features like trueskill matchmaking and robust leaderboards. Only the top-tier PSN games from large publishers get that kind of online support, but with XBL, even the tiniest games with the smallest budgets from tiny developers can offer premium online features.

I always go to one example: Pinball FX. Nobody plays pinball anymore... if you think the arcade industry is dead, well the pinball industry is deader than dead. Worse, no-one makes pinball games for home consoles anymore. Pinball fans get maybe 1 or 2 games per generation, and they don't get online modes because it usually isn't worth it to put them in, even for a full-price $60 title. I don't know how much it cost to make Pinball FX or how much it sold, but what I do know is it only cost me $10 to purchase. And yet it has the best online mode of any pinball game ever, with voice, video, trueskill, leaderboards and DLC.

That's only possible because we pay subscription fees that go into developing, maintaining and supporting the features game developers can then implement in their games.

Even XNA games get the benefits... if you make an XNA game, you don't have to design a networking protocol from scratch. Just use Xbox Live's protocol and send the network packets you want to send. Boom. XBL takes care of all the grunt work... authentication, lobbies, IP addresses. You just take care of sending/receiving the game data.

If you think that isn't worth $4.17 a month, then you really are a cheapskate.

UnnDunn

worst post ever made

Matchmaking is the worst thing to ever happen to online gaming. Truskill works like poop. I much rather have a true optimatch to choose the exact gametype and the exact map I want to play on.

Halo 3 don't have leaderboards.

Cross game invite, truskill matchmaking, leaderboards and a chatroom is not worth $50/year.

Nobody cares about games like pinbal. only the top titles really matter.

now they are just fleecing Xbox players because they're willing to be fleeced, for no reason at all.

Timstuff

I wouldn't say for no reason at all, since without Live, 360 gamers are screwed for onine gameplay. PC gamers on the other hand, have tons of options in that respect. It was utterly ridiculous of MS to charge PC gamers, so it's not surprising that even they finally came to their senses.

It wouldn't even be an issue if 360 gamers resisted the charge on Live, but instead they payed for it in droves. :/

I would like to implore of anyone who currently is a subscriber to Xbox Live Gold: does it make you at least a tiny bit PO'd that with Games for Windows Live Gold membership, Microsoft was charging players the exact same fee as with Xbox Live's Gold membership, but then they decided to drop the fee altogether? Does that prove that Xbox Live's subscription fee is essentially paying for-- nothing? Microsoft has already proven that they don't need your subscription dollars to keep an online service running, so now they are just fleecing Xbox players because they're willing to be fleeced, for no reason at all.

So basically, nothing is standing in Microsoft's way if they wanted to drop Xbox Live's subscription fee altogether. However, they are not, and it's because they are essentially making millions of dollars for nothing. What I want to know though, is why are XBL subscribers OK with this? Aren't you at least a little irritated that you are being taxed to play online, and the money you pay isn't used for anything but lining MS's wallets?

Timstuff

Its ironic how PC gamers are considered smart because they didn't spend $50. a year on a live subscription that allows you to play all your games online yet PC gamers spend $120. a year to play 1 game online.

Its ironic how PC gamers are considered smart because they didn't spend $50. a year on a live subscription that allows you to play all your games online yet PC gamers spend $120. a year to play 1 game online.

EG101

Its ironic how PC gamers are considered smart because they didn't spend $50. a year on a live subscription that allows you to play all your games online yet PC gamers spend $120. a year to play 1 game online.

EG101

Because everyone plays mmos? :|

microsoft has xbox users by the balls lol, pc gamers can still play online...xbox users have to pay to play online.

Its ironic how PC gamers are considered smart because they didn't spend $50. a year on a live subscription that allows you to play all your games online yet PC gamers spend $120. a year to play 1 game online.

EG101

real pc gamers dont spend any money to play games online except isp cost.

[QUOTE="EG101"]

Its ironic how PC gamers are considered smart because they didn't spend $50. a year on a live subscription that allows you to play all your games online yet PC gamers spend $120. a year to play 1 game online.

Espada12

Because everyone plays mmos? :|

[QUOTE="Espada12"][QUOTE="EG101"]

Its ironic how PC gamers are considered smart because they didn't spend $50. a year on a live subscription that allows you to play all your games online yet PC gamers spend $120. a year to play 1 game online.

Zero5000X

Because everyone plays mmos? :|

I think one of the main reasons for the fee on XBL, but not on GFWL, is because a lot of console gamers are grown men that dont have so much time to lay in gaming anymore. They still want to sit down and game of course, and since most people make a decent amount of cash at that age, they will pay for XBL without a second thaught. This is not so much the case on the PC of course, if you want to game on a PC, you have to put some time in building one yourself. If you don't do that, it will cost you ridiculous amounts, and upgrades are not cheap to make (on prebuilt computers, as these genrally don't follow the ATX case spec, so if you're new GPU is power hungry, a new ATX spec PSU may not fit, and you will need a long list of upgrades). Free online has been the standard on PC for a long time, so devs will try to stay away from soloutions that force users to pay for online. If they dont, it can hurt sales, and people will easily boycott/pirate the game instead of buying it.

[QUOTE="UnnDunn"]

I always laugh at these threads about people whining for XBL to be free.

There is one simple reason why XBL Gold is worth the subscription fee: MORE ONLINE GAMES with BETTER ONLINE FEATURES. Period. On XBL, the vast, vast majority of multiplayer games have an online multiplayer mode. Beyond that, the vast majority of XBL online games have premium online features like trueskill matchmaking and robust leaderboards. Only the top-tier PSN games from large publishers get that kind of online support, but with XBL, even the tiniest games with the smallest budgets from tiny developers can offer premium online features.

I always go to one example: Pinball FX. Nobody plays pinball anymore... if you think the arcade industry is dead, well the pinball industry is deader than dead. Worse, no-one makes pinball games for home consoles anymore. Pinball fans get maybe 1 or 2 games per generation, and they don't get online modes because it usually isn't worth it to put them in, even for a full-price $60 title. I don't know how much it cost to make Pinball FX or how much it sold, but what I do know is it only cost me $10 to purchase. And yet it has the best online mode of any pinball game ever, with voice, video, trueskill, leaderboards and DLC.

That's only possible because we pay subscription fees that go into developing, maintaining and supporting the features game developers can then implement in their games.

Even XNA games get the benefits... if you make an XNA game, you don't have to design a networking protocol from scratch. Just use Xbox Live's protocol and send the network packets you want to send. Boom. XBL takes care of all the grunt work... authentication, lobbies, IP addresses. You just take care of sending/receiving the game data.

If you think that isn't worth $4.17 a month, then you really are a cheapskate.

dthach614

worst post ever made

Matchmaking is the worst thing to ever happen to online gaming. Truskill works like poop. I much rather have a true optimatch to choose the exact gametype and the exact map I want to play on.

Halo 3 don't have leaderboards.

Cross game invite, truskill matchmaking, leaderboards and a chatroom is not worth $50/year.

Nobody cares about games like pinbal. only the top titles really matter.

[QUOTE="Zero5000X"][QUOTE="Espada12"]

Because everyone plays mmos? :|

comstrikeiscool

[QUOTE="comstrikeiscool"][QUOTE="Zero5000X"] no, but if you want to play an MMO you have to pay whatever fee is attached to it. kind of like if you wanna play your 360 online you have to pay the fee attached to it.Eddie-Vedder

All MMOs can be played on Silver accounts, so you don't have to pay for Live fees on top of the MMO fees.

Talk about being misinformed. :|

[QUOTE="Espada12"][QUOTE="EG101"]

Its ironic how PC gamers are considered smart because they didn't spend $50. a year on a live subscription that allows you to play all your games online yet PC gamers spend $120. a year to play 1 game online.

Zero5000X

Because everyone plays mmos? :|

[QUOTE="Zero5000X"][QUOTE="Espada12"]

Because everyone plays mmos? :|

mo0ksi

My point is if you believe its worth the $50. to play on live you will pay for it just like the MMO players that pay $120. a year to play.

Because people are still prepared to pay for it.bethwo