Xbox Live to cost $100?

[Arnwulf]

So I just read this, don't really know what to make of it, would like to think it was BS. But if it's not, good luck getting people to pony up that much money when PSN is still free.

That VideoGame Blog � Xbox Live will be $100 per year, Pachter believes

Wedbush analyst Michael Pachter expects Microsoft to raise the price of Xbox Live Gold membership from the current $50 to $100 per year in the next few years.

“You can’t hook a guy into Xbox Live Gold if he’s playing on a PC,” Pachter said in a GTTV discussion talking about how Microsoft has seemingly given up on the PC gamer market. “… that’s the other problem — you really want to hook every gamer who has a 360, you want them to buy all their games on 360, play everything multiplayer, pay you 50 bucks a year so that, in a couple years, it’s a 100 bucks a year.”

“And that’s going up, we all know that … it’s a profit deal,” he concluded.

Thoughts?

[Kiarax]

Michael Pachter is a dumb fuck.

[Hiryo]

A lot of people are going to say that 100 a year isnt that big of a deal seeing as how its like buying 2 games (instead of the current Live price which is one game a year). Either way, is it possible to buy multiple 12 month gold cards and keep them until the time comes to use them? lol Might have to stock up if it were true

[Chen]

in UK we were paying roughly 70$(£40) for ours a couple of years ago, don't know how exchange rates make that now.

so NYA!

[Brill Weave]

I won't be renewing it if that is the case. With how much money I've already sunk into DLC it's kind of insulting that they would double the price of it.

[Qalbert]

but it provides invaluable humor like this!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jJVEpPc89NQ
yeah I could live without Live. Might have to upgrade my PC so it'll actually run shit though.

[Dymlos]

Fuck.that. If this is true, I'm stocking up on 3-years worth.

[Akucaen]

Fuck.that. If this is true, I'm stocking up on 3-years worth.

They'd probably cite some tiny little legal clause in the EULA stating that voucher was only good for the $50 year's worth, and doesn't pertain to the $100 year's worth. You'd get 6-months out of it if they decided to be nice about it.

[Qalbert]

redeem them all now, and I think they'd have no legal ground to rip you off

[BadKarma]

Michael Pachter is a dumb fuck.

Michael Pachter also said the ps3 would be discontinued by by 2008 so....

[Arnwulf]

Yeah I'm not sure the credibility of the source, it looks like he's wrong about a lot of things, but he needs to not be giving Microsoft ideas lol.

[Kiarax]

Microsoft aren't dumb enough to do this. The only way they'd ever be able to pull this off is if they practically ran the entire market. This guy makes some retarded ass predictions about all sorts of shit and if it's not something that's immediately obvious to anyone who isn't braindead he's usually dead wrong.

[Darus Grey]

Live is a gigantic rip-off as is..."Live Servers" for the most part is a myth. It's pretty much a matchmaking service *and that's it*.

The vast majority of games with an online component use one of the consoles as the server host, not a dedicated server.

I doubt this is true anyways, but a price increase on a non-service is just assanine, I'm already planning to not renew live just cause it's such a rip-off.

[kuronosan]

XBox Live is the biggest joke of an online gaming system there is. What are they charging you for?

He did get one thing right though - it seems like they're giving up on PC gaming (probably because it's "free").

[BadKarma]

XBox Live is the biggest joke of an online gaming system there is. What are they charging you for?

He did get one thing right though - it seems like they're giving up on PC gaming (probably because it's "free").

How is it a joke?

[Deejay]

XBox Live is the biggest joke of an online gaming system there is. What are they charging you for?

He did get one thing right though - it seems like they're giving up on PC gaming (probably because it's "free").

Play a game like street fighter HD, IV, or BB on live and compare it to the shitcity known as PSN and then come say that.

anyways, done posting in a troll thread

[Darus Grey]

Play a game like street fighter HD, IV, or BB on live and compare it to the shitcity known as PSN and then come say that.

anyways, done posting in a troll thread

Exactly the same.

Same net-code, same client-host (host being *one of the players*).

The only difference between live and PSN is that on live you're pretty much guaranteed to only be matched against US/Can players cause they make up 99% of the userbase, this is why "connections are better" on live, THIS IS THE ONLY REASON. where on PSN you'll be matched up to a larger base since it's more popular globally.

If you think live is somehow better "because it's live!" you deserve to be ripped off.

[Insanecyclone]

The 3 month and 1 year + a month sub cards help...

[Merovingian]

Play a game like street fighter HD, IV, or BB on live and compare it to the shitcity known as PSN and then come say that.

anyways, done posting in a troll thread

on street fighter 4 i can agree with you at least that the PS3 version online is crappy, but BB is not, i find no lag whatsoever in it and i usually play with wireless connection(on BB that is).

[kuronosan]

How is it a joke?

You're paying $100/yr for a non-hosted service that is a glorified P2P network and isn't a dedicated server. That, to me, is a god-damned joke.

Yes, power-hungry assholes running dedicated servers that have shitty rules are stupid... but you can always join another server. Likewise, I suppose you can just leave a host's game (since host exiting is now moot) and find another one, but why pay $50/yr for that?

Anyone paying for Live! content is essentially paying for what they already can get for free. Maybe the PSN sucks to you, but at least you're not paying for glorified internet access.