So tired of paying for xbox live
The Farter
a sp gamer so you might ask why I make such a big deal out of it. Why
can't I just stay with a silver membership? Because I would still like
the option there if a game comes up me and some friends want to play.
I don't use it enough to justfiy 50$ a year. I looked into paying a
few months at a time. They punish you with the price for not paying up
a whole year. Also it just seems silly when there are free
alternatives.
I do have a lot of work friends on xbox but my buddy that usually
games with me has less of a budget. So we have been getting games for
other systems just because we didn't feel like renewing gold. Between
the pc and ps3 I can still play most games and I don't have to worry
about subbing for something I rarely use. Steam is so awesome compared
to any of the consoles online features but the ps3 works fine for me
when I need it.
Live may be worth it to most of you but you are already paying your
broadband provider so why keep paying again? We could get this fee to
go away by simply not using xbox live.
--
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------------------- ----- ---- -- -
AGENT47
> ------------------- ----- ---- -- -
I've never paid $50 for LIVE
Amazon right now is $40
NewEgg is $40
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16874103129
Mitch
The alMIGHTY N
> a sp gamer so you might ask why I make such a big deal out of it. Why
> can't I just stay with a silver membership? Because I would still like
> the option there if a game comes up me and some friends want to play.
> I don't use it enough to justfiy 50$ a year. I looked into paying a
> few months at a time. They punish you with the price for not paying up
> a whole year. Also it just seems silly when there are free
> alternatives.
>
> I do have a lot of work friends on xbox but my buddy that usually
> games with me has less of a budget. So we have been getting games for
> other systems just because we didn't feel like renewing gold. Between
> the pc and ps3 I can still play most games and I don't have to worry
> about subbing for something I rarely use. Steam is so awesome compared
> to any of the consoles online features but the ps3 works fine for me
> when I need it.
>
> Live may be worth it to most of you but you are already paying your
> broadband provider so why keep paying again? We could get this fee to
> go away by simply not using xbox live.
Life is full of choices.
If you don't want to pay for the ability to play Xbox 360 games
online, then don't pay - just don't complain about not being able to
play the games for free afterwards.
If I don't feel like paying $2 for a soda at McDonald's because I can
just drink water at home or my company provides free beverages, I
won't... and I won't bitch and moan about McDonald's not giving me
that soda for free.
When you pay your broadband provider, you're not paying for usage of
the Xbox Live network - you're simply paying for the privilege to use
the provided Internet connection. What a company that provides a
service that also works on said Internet connection charges you is a
wholly separate matter.
Sony was "nice" enough to offer their gaming network for free. That
doesn't mean Microsoft needs to especially when it can justify
charging a price for a better experience and a more solid network.
Tomcat
>
> Life is full of choices.
>
> If you don't want to pay for the ability to play Xbox 360 games
> online, then don't pay - just don't complain about not being able to
> play the games for free afterwards.
>
> If I don't feel like paying $2 for a soda at McDonald's because I can
> just drink water at home or my company provides free beverages, I
> won't... and I won't bitch and moan about McDonald's not giving me
> that soda for free.
I wouldn't go so far as the lecture him about complaining about the
fee. He was just suggesting some alternative for the very casual mp
gamer, not complaining that Gold should be free to everybody.
For the record I think Gold is a great value at only $3-$4 a month for
what you get, but at the same time it would be nice if Silver could
have a limited amount of annual online playtime built into it. Enough
to at least try out multiplayer for games you buy beyond the couple
days of Gold you can get from the trial codes that come with most
games. I think this would benefit the gamer and also MS because many
gamers that otherwise wouldn't be interested in Gold would find
themselves enjoying mp more than they expected and signing up for Gold
when they used up their Silver quota.
Adam Xavier
"The Farter" <as...@goaway.com> wrote in message
news:012b8e86$0$11355$c3e...@news.astraweb.com...
> The reason I want to avoid owning a xbox is the gold fee. I am mostly
> a sp gamer so you might ask why I make such a big deal out of it. Why
> can't I just stay with a silver membership? Because I would still like
> the option there if a game comes up me and some friends want to play.
> I don't use it enough to justfiy 50$ a year. I looked into paying a
> few months at a time. They punish you with the price for not paying up
> a whole year. Also it just seems silly when there are free
> alternatives.
>
> I do have a lot of work friends on xbox but my buddy that usually
> games with me has less of a budget. So we have been getting games for
> other systems just because we didn't feel like renewing gold. Between
> the pc and ps3 I can still play most games and I don't have to worry
> about subbing for something I rarely use. Steam is so awesome compared
> to any of the consoles online features but the ps3 works fine for me
> when I need it.
>
> Live may be worth it to most of you but you are already paying your
> broadband provider so why keep paying again? We could get this fee to
> go away by simply not using xbox live.
>
Really? Complaining about something that costs a little less than a dime a
day? A person wastes that much in electricity by not unplugging power strips
when they leave home.
Xbox Live is a tremendous value, even at $50 a year (I've never paid that
much though. I renewed back in September for $39.99 for 13 months) when you
consider everything you get.
Sony's network is perfectly acceptable, but if they were to charge $3 a
month for it, there's no way I'd pay that vs. Xbox Live when XBL is far
better.
Mitch
XBox live is great, and it's great because it's funded. By us.
So the issue is, if someone wants to play casually, they can't. I can
see the poster's point. And it's not easy to resolve.
PSN sucks. Because it's free. I tried it, and compared to XBL, it's a
joke. Dropped games. Horrible matchmaking. But it's free, so that's
the way it goes.
But what can you do? Ala carte? Fifty cents per game? Not gonna happen.
"I lost my connection...I want my fifty cents back."
jessica_smith_nyc
--
http://www.moviesitearchive.com
> Web @http://www.newsleecher.com/?usenet
John Bigbooty
<uwalu...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>I think they should have a pay as you go plan..
With all the micro transactions already being handled, there should be
no reason why Microsoft couldn't at least offer a 6, 24 or 72 hour
option. Since they would probably charge $2, $5 and $10 for those
options it could be another money maker,
How about an option that just allows only weekend play for $30/year?
I have no problem paying $50/yr. I definitely get my moneys worth.
It's bargain compared to many of my other entertainment expenses.
Mark
Atlanta GA
BoodyBandit
>
> - Show quoted text -
"and a more solid network.?"
Please explain what you mean by that. My friend sums XBL as a more
connected community. You turn on your 360, if you have a Gold XBL
account, and you are instantly connected to every XBL has to offer.
"But" a better network for gaming over PSN? No.
Sony has way more games with way higher number of players on dedicated
servers. Almost ALL XBL games are P2P. No game on the 360 even comes
close to running as smoothly as Warhawk, Resistance, Killzone 2 and
other games like them. UC2 online is silk and the voice comunication
is excellent as well. I agree with the OP and I would not be a gold
member today if not for the special deal I found last year for my
renewals. 2 XBL account for $30 dollars. My sons account an out and I
am mad dash scrambling trying to find a deal. I prefer not to pay more
than $30 bucks for it any more.
Morgan
> When you pay your broadband provider, you're not paying for usage of
> the Xbox Live network - you're simply paying for the privilege to use
> the provided Internet connection. What a company that provides a
> service that also works on said Internet connection charges you is a
> wholly separate matter.
>
> Sony was "nice" enough to offer their gaming network for free. That
> doesn't mean Microsoft needs to especially when it can justify
> charging a price for a better experience and a more solid network.
Aren't the majority (if not all) of XBL games user hosted? They
certainly appear to be when playing. Assuming they are then MS servers
aren't involved at all once the game is up and running. People talk
about the PSN and the XBox live network like they use exclusive cables
or something, they don't, they both use TCP/IP over the same network,
the internet. As far as I can tell all a gold account does is provide
some matchmaking, account tracking and a very poor quality audio chat
service.
Most of what XBL does has been free in PC gaming for many many years.
AGENT47
Depends on the game , L4D1-2 uses dedicated servers, they've now added
a local server option from the list in the L4D2 demo.
Having experience with both PSN and XboxLive, they're both about
even , with voice chat going to XboxLive. It just seems like PSN
users don't use mic's compared to XboxLive users.
I'd say the edge going to XboxLive for myself personally, its just a
better overall system.
Robert P Holley
> a sp gamer so you might ask why I make such a big deal out of it. Why
> can't I just stay with a silver membership? Because I would still like
> the option there if a game comes up me and some friends want to play.
> I don't use it enough to justfiy 50$ a year. I looked into paying a
> few months at a time. They punish you with the price for not paying up
> a whole year. Also it just seems silly when there are free
> alternatives.
>
> I do have a lot of work friends on xbox but my buddy that usually
> games with me has less of a budget. So we have been getting games for
> other systems just because we didn't feel like renewing gold. Between
> the pc and ps3 I can still play most games and I don't have to worry
> about subbing for something I rarely use. Steam is so awesome compared
> to any of the consoles online features but the ps3 works fine for me
> when I need it.
>
> Live may be worth it to most of you but you are already paying your
> broadband provider so why keep paying again? We could get this fee to
> go away by simply not using xbox live.
There are free 48 hour cards included in many online games, so you can
always try out XBL using those.
As for the price, what we needed to happen was for PSN to match XBL in
terms of quality for MS to bring down the price but that hasn't
happened. PSN is a poor substitute for XBL and Home is a big joke. If
Sony could have matched them quality-wise, more and more people would
have switched to PSN and perhaps force MS into making XBL cheaper (or
free).
The alMIGHTY N
What I meant to write was that Xbox Live offers a more consistently
good online service. Microsoft has already dealt with all the details
of networking for game developers whereas Sony leaves it to the
developers to figure that out. What this results in is some
experiences being great but probably many more experiences being worse
across the whole user base.
You're correct that there are many more games on the PlayStation
Network side that utilize dedicated servers, but the use of a
dedicated server is not an automatic bye to a better gaming
experience. There are enough games that use dedicated servers that are
still crappy, e.g. anything by 2K Sports.
Microsoft, of course, has a leg up on Sony in that they've been
closely involved with the networking side of things for a long time
and their Xbox Live service has had more time to mature and evolve
into something that provides an overall better online gaming experienc
to most users.
The alMIGHTY N
Actually, I'm not quite sure how to take the original poster's
comments. There's a mild air of "troll" or "fanboy" about it but I
can't be sure.
First off, he starts by saying he wants to avoid owning an Xbox 360,
implying that he does not own one, but then talks about having had
paid for Gold in the past and getting games for other systems instead,
which implies that he *is* an Xbox 360 owner.
Also, contrary to your interpretation, he actually does say that Gold
should be free for everybody. He says that "Live may be worth it to
most of you" but then tries to convince those of us who are willing to
pay for Live because we feel it's worth it to not pay for it so he and
everyone else can get it for free.
You're right that he did mention the need for an alternative to a
year's subscription. In fact, he outright names that existing
alternative in his post - it's the 1-month or 3-month card. Of course,
he then complains that it costs more per month which is not really
trollish or fanboyish but just plain silly since many memberships,
subscription services and even just plain products are more cost
efficient when you purchase more.
Ultimately, he's welcome to his opinion.
I think your suggestion about a small amount of playtime included with
the Silver membership is a good one. In fact, I think they should get
rid of all those "Play for a weekend" cards in games and just go with
something like your suggestion - maybe a weekend a month or every
other month to get a little bit of gaming time in.
Mitch
> I think your suggestion about a small amount of playtime included with
> the Silver membership is a good one.
I wonder how difficult it would be for them to tie playtime to a
specific game. For example, you buy Modern Warfare 2 and it comes with
10 hours of online play. You get hooked and decide it's worth it to pay
for XBL, or you decide it's not your thing. You use up your 10 hours
(or whatever), and the game can no longer go online.
Mattinglyfan
<axav...@funnypeoplethemovieisntthatfunny.com> wrote:
> "The Farter" <a...@goaway.com> wrote in message
Are you f'in kidding me? You wouldn't pay $3/month for PSN? XBL is
not 3 times better than PSN for someone who just wants to game
online. That is a fanboyish view if I've ever heard one.
Tomcat
>
> Actually, I'm not quite sure how to take the original poster's
> comments. There's a mild air of "troll" or "fanboy" about it but I
> can't be sure.
I guess with a name like "The Farter" that's an easy first impression
to make.
>
> I think your suggestion about a small amount of playtime included with
> the Silver membership is a good one. In fact, I think they should get
> rid of all those "Play for a weekend" cards in games and just go with
> something like your suggestion - maybe a weekend a month or every
> other month to get a little bit of gaming time in.
I made the suggestion because it sounds like a good idea but I'm not
really sure the best way they could implement it. They could just
give you a certain number of hours per month you could use throughout
the month, but that might not work if MS doesn't have a way to keep up
with the number of minutes you're online. Or perhaps they let you
start a 48-hour free period whenever you wanted anytime in the month,
similiar to the codes that come with games. That wouldn't allow you
the flexibility to play whenever you choose throughout the month
though.
But really, my biggest complaint is that Gold is account specific
instead of console specific. I could probably justify buying a Gold
account for both my daughter and I combined but there is no way we do
enough gaming, let alone online gaming, to justify a household cost of
around $100.
Joe Phillips
> ------------------- ----- ---- -- -
This is such a PS3 fanboy troll post!
Go play with the free alternatives, we've all tried gamespy arcade,
xlink kai, whatever, and we've all come back to the real deal after
playing around with those options. If you don't like Xbox Live than
good riddance!
The alMIGHTY N
I can't say for sure without seeing how the database is designed but
assuming Microsoft's database design is solid this should be very easy
to do.
Joe Phillips
Personally I don't mind paying for Xbox Live. I've been doing it
since Halo 2 debuted on the original Xbox. Even when I don't play for
a month or more I don't bitch and scream that I'm being overcharged.
Last month I gave my tv stand to my sister for her new tv so my 360
and tv have been sitting unused on my bedroom floor till I get a new
one. My live sub will auto-renew at the end of November so when I do
hook it back up again I'll be all set.
The alMIGHTY N
I can see your point. "Gold" should be a status assigned to all
accounts on a single console rather than a status assigned to an
individual console. Of course, things get a little tricky when you
decide to log in from your friend's house to show him/her something
and you can no longer access Gold privileges because you're not on
your own console...
The alMIGHTY N
Why is it more fanboyish to say that PSN isn't worth $3 per month than
to say Xbox Live isn't worth $4 per month?
Tomcat
I think in that case it should be reasonable that the friend should
have Gold account privledges on his/her console which would allow
anybody using that console access to online play.
Now what gets difficult is for the people that have a console in the
bedroom and one in the gameroom and now they find themselves having to
buy multiple Gold accounts. And then there is the issue of
transferring a Gold membership to a new console if you have to replace
the one you have. So far MS has kept everything simple by tying
membership levels to accounts. Perhaps MS could give the best of both
worlds and still tie Gold membership privledges to accounts but allow
you to add a certain number of accounts (say a max of 3) to one Gold
account so you could have Gold privileges for those 3 accounts but
only a single account at a time could log into a multiplayer session.
AGENT47
Yeah I noticed that too , looks like a troll to me
>
> Also, contrary to your interpretation, he actually does say that Gold
> should be free for everybody. He says that "Live may be worth it to
> most of you" but then tries to convince those of us who are willing to
> pay for Live because we feel it's worth it to not pay for it so he and
> everyone else can get it for free.
>
> You're right that he did mention the need for an alternative to a
> year's subscription. In fact, he outright names that existing
> alternative in his post - it's the 1-month or 3-month card. Of course,
> he then complains that it costs more per month which is not really
> trollish or fanboyish but just plain silly since many memberships,
> subscription services and even just plain products are more cost
> efficient when you purchase more.
>
> Ultimately, he's welcome to his opinion.
>
> I think your suggestion about a small amount of playtime included with
> the Silver membership is a good one. In fact, I think they should get
> rid of all those "Play for a weekend" cards in games and just go with
> something like your suggestion - maybe a weekend a month or every
> other month to get a little bit of gaming time in.- Hide quoted text -
Jordan
Subject: So tired of paying for xbox live
> The reason I want to avoid owning a xbox is the gold fee.
So let me get this straight... you're tired of paying for something
that you aren't actually paying for? Is that about it? How does that
work, exactly?
Quite a few of the big games come with coupons for Gold access, no
need to pay anything. But then if you weren't a troll you'd know
that...
As for me, I've had a Live account since it launched in, what? 2002?
Upgraded to Gold for the 360 in 2005 and am letting it drop next
month. I just don't use it. A silver account will be fine.
- Jordan
The alMIGHTY N
> On Nov 9, 2:35 pm, The alMIGHTY N <natle...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> > On Nov 9, 3:18 pm, Tomcat <tom_overton_1...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> > > But really, my biggest complaint is that Gold is account specific
> > > instead of console specific. I could probably justify buying a Gold
> > > account for both my daughter and I combined but there is no way we do
> > > enough gaming, let alone online gaming, to justify a household cost of
> > > around $100.
>
> > I can see your point. "Gold" should be a status assigned to all
> > accounts on a single console rather than a status assigned to an
> > individual console. Of course, things get a little tricky when you
> > decide to log in from your friend's house to show him/her something
> > and you can no longer access Gold privileges because you're not on
> > your own console.
>
> I think in that case it should be reasonable that the friend should
> have Gold account privledges on his/her console which would allow
> anybody using that console access to online play.
You misunderstood what I was saying. If you have a Gold account and
your friend doesn't, how would Xbox Live be able to reconcile that if
the status was indeed tied to the console? The advantage of having the
status tethered to the account itself is that you can log into any
console and have access to your privileges. It supports the model of
separation of data from the hardware itself.
> Now what gets difficult is for the people that have a console in the
> bedroom and one in the gameroom and now they find themselves having to
> buy multiple Gold accounts.
Ultimately, tying the status to the account is the better solution
most of the time. You're not often going to see an entire family where
each member has their own Xbox Live account on a single Xbox 360
console - most of the time, the console's going to be used by only one
person, whether it's because there's only one person in the household,
one person who games in the household or one person who does most of
the gaming while others log in occasionally.
> And then there is the issue of
> transferring a Gold membership to a new console if you have to replace
> the one you have. So far MS has kept everything simple by tying
> membership levels to accounts. Perhaps MS could give the best of both
> worlds and still tie Gold membership privledges to accounts but allow
> you to add a certain number of accounts (say a max of 3) to one Gold
> account so you could have Gold privileges for those 3 accounts but
> only a single account at a time could log into a multiplayer session.
I would say that's a good idea except that it then opens the doors for
people not related or in the same household to share an account. Sure,
it would be inconvenient if one person was playing when the other
wanted to, but most of the time, you'd be able to split the account.
Tomcat
>
> Ultimately, tying the status to the account is the better solution
> most of the time. You're not often going to see an entire family where
> each member has their own Xbox Live account on a single Xbox 360
> console - most of the time, the console's going to be used by only one
> person, whether it's because there's only one person in the household,
> one person who games in the household or one person who does most of
> the gaming while others log in occasionally.
I'm not sure if you can really conclude this. I would think numerous
households have multiple siblings where 2 or more are within gaming
age and wanting to play online. They either share a single Gold
account or get multiple Gold accounts. I'd be interested to know what
most families are doing. I know I would have had a hard time sharing
an account with my brother when I was growing up.
The alMIGHTY N
> I started this thread. Yes I do have a 360 but in the process of
> selling it. As for being a ps3 fanboy? Not really. If anything I'm a
> PC fanboy. A lot of these arcade games on xbox live originate on pc
> and some never even make it to xbox. I only want the ps3 for console
> exclusives. Maybe xbl is better than psn. The point is that its there
> when I need it with no extras fee's.
>
> Xbox does not have enough games for me personally to be worth the fee.
> Which limits the console from its full potential of being able to game
> online on the rare occasion that I would like to. And then I loose
> interest in having a xbox all together.
Fair enough. Your opinion is duly noted. :-)
BoodyBandit
My niece and nephews shared one account until they were old enough to
have jobs of their own. Now they each have their own accounts which
they pay for. IMO "that" is how most families do it. My son has his
own account which I pay for because I shared enough as a child and
don't want to now! : ) But wow would our XBL score be impressive if
we shared since we are into different types of games. He is hogging my
PS3 right now playing Ratchet but I'm booting his ass off at 7 so I
can fire up MW2.
Before Jonah runs in saying I thought you had such and such amount of
systems let me add for his viewing pleasure that we both prefer to
play in my gaming room. It has the best display, best sub and
Buttkickers installed under the theater/gaming seats.
The alMIGHTY N
I'm quite confident that most Xbox 360 consoles are used by a single
person rather than a family because of the general demographic the
console appeals to. Couple that with what I believe to be your correct
assessment of how most families will deal with Gold accounts...
One of my buddies has *FOUR* sons and they all share the same Xbox
Live account. That would drive me nuts. The funny thing is that he and
his wife (as well as his parents) spoil the kids rotten yet they won't
let the kids have their own Xbox Live Gold accounts. The kids have a
Wii, an Xbox 360, a Nintendo DSi for each kid, iPhones for each kid
(one who is only like 6 or 7 years old), a PSP for each kid, etc. and
so forth.
alMIGHTY
I arrived at the conclusion based on the core demographic of the Xbox
360 console. Most consoles are owned/used by a single person. While
Microsoft loves for *anyone* to purchase their console, more of their
consumers will be adults rather than families.
I'm sure there are households that have multiple siblings who play
video games on one console or another. I'm sure many of those siblings
will play online. What I don't think is very many will have their very
own accounts. I don't know very many parents who would be willing to
dish out for separate Gold accounts for their kids, who "should be
happy that they have video games to play with. Why, when *I* was a
child..."
And so forth.
Of course, there are families where the parents are well off enough to
just let their kids have whatever they want but most families are not
in this position.
Tomcat
>
> I arrived at the conclusion based on the core demographic of the Xbox
> 360 console. Most consoles are owned/used by a single person. While
> Microsoft loves for *anyone* to purchase their console, more of their
> consumers will be adults rather than families.
>
> I'm sure there are households that have multiple siblings who play
> video games on one console or another. I'm sure many of those siblings
> will play online. What I don't think is very many will have their very
> own accounts. I don't know very many parents who would be willing to
> dish out for separate Gold accounts for their kids, who "should be
> happy that they have video games to play with. Why, when *I* was a
> child..."
>
> And so forth.
>
You're probably right. Most parents already shell out $50+ a game
plus the cost of the console itself.
But geeez, if I had been forced to share a Live account with my bratty
brother it would have been a nightmare: "moooooooom, tom changed the
avatar again...mooooooom tom got an achievement and he said he was
gonna let me get it...."