Matt

"When it comes to XBL, $10 might as well be $10,000 to some folks."

Michael Corvin

pinata242

Wow. Nice callback.

Supermallet

I'm paid up through March 2012. That's good enough for my purposes. I've been playing online less and less, so who knows if I'll renew at that point.

dvdjunkie32

I rarely get my money's worth either. I don't like COD online because so many people are super pros and a noob doesn't stand a chance. And with so many multi games out there, it is hard to find a match on older titles. M$ greed is the reason why a MMO can not come to Xbox.

PS3 will definitely get a leg up when DC universe comes out. I miss the days when PC was king of FPS and you could play tons of mods for free. Fond memories of Desert Combat for Battlefield 1942.

Giantrobo

Any price increase sucks but I get my money's worth on LIVE. I play almost every day and for all of the many years I've been on I've rarely had an issue with it. I've dealt with less LIVE outages than some Cable companies. In fact, I've had more issues with the XBOX hardware than LIVE.

I'm caught up through 2012 and I'm sure I'll find ways to pay less than $59.99 when the time comes to renew.

Decker

http://www.xbox.com/en-US/live/pricelock/default.htm
Now THIS is deceptive advertising. The price goes up on 11/1/10 and this deal expires on 10/31/10. This deal saves you $10, nothing more than that. It's bad enough to raise prices, they don't have to essentially lie to the consumer as well.

mhg83

This thread has reminded me how little online gaming I've done. I can't even remember the last game I played online. I won't be re subbing to live unless I get it for x-mas.

redbill

but you get FREE Netflix and FREE on-line gaming with your paid subscription.

PixyJunket

Indeed, if you play every day, it's probably a great deal (even if it's free elsewhere).

If they had something more economical for people that only play occasionally, I could still consider paying for it.

Draven

Complete non-issue. I don't notice my one-a-year-automatic renewal and I won't notice it being $10 more. The service is well worth it.

Anyone who can't swing an extra $10 a year has some serious budgeting problems.

Decker

To me, the $10 bump isn't that much of a burden. Thanks to frequent gaming sessions with my best friend in Hawaii, it's well worth it to me. But it's really hard to get over that they're competing with a near-identical service on the PS3 that's actually FREE and they still felt the need to hike rates by 20%. Yes, their service is better, but in all honesty it isn't all that much better. I'm really surprised at the rate hike for that reason mostly.

Raul3

For the people that have played MP games heavily in both systems, what are the advantages, if any, of Xbox Live?
- Voice chat across games? or something like that.
what else?

I know that for most people downloading a game/demo is much, MUCH faster in Xbox Live compared to PSN, in general.

mhg83

I when people defend live and say how you can have silver account free. That's so kind of MS to let me download and buy games from them for free

Decker

Well, it allows for chat. So that's nice. But compared to PSN? Yeah, not so great.

Chew

The $10 hike isn't a big deal to me either. But, I haven't played online with my Xbox since I've had it. I use my TiVo for Netflix. The couple game discounts I've actually got with Gold isn't worth it.

I won't be renewing.

gerrythedon

Yeah Capcom should pay for half ure bill...

Giantrobo

They already said "no".

mhg83

Someone on destructoid made an interesting comment:

'Weird that this starts right at the same time as the Family Pack bundle. Coincidence, I THINK NOT !'

Decker

Of course, someone else on the site made this interesting comment:

Draven

PSN may be free (I have a PS3 as well as a 360) but no one I know plays on it. So it doesn't matter how free it is, it will never be "worth it" to me as an online gaming platform.

DJariya

I use XBox Live primarily for Netflix and occasionally for online gaming, but I'm not good enough or play often enough to have compelling games with someone who probably sits and plays video games all day and night. For me at least the Netflix part is worth it because the interface is no much more smoother than using my Samsung BR Player. My BR player will only play the movies that are in my queue, while XBox has the queue and all the different categories/genres, along with new releases you can add as well. The service is worth it to me.

Boba Fett

I'm one of the few people who plays mostly smaller games online like Catan, Carcassonne, and Magic. If smaller stuff like that goes pay-to-play, my days of gaming are over, or at least relegated to single player. The big stuff, time and time again, I've been burned on. I buy it, get a few months of play out and rarely do I find myself going back to it. I sold MW2 and for my FPS fill I still go back to Far Cry 2, Quantum of Solace, and Perfect Dark.

I'll still get Gold, just because I've saved enough money on the Deals of the Week over the past year or so to pay for 50% of the online cost.

tonyc3742

I'm obviously not the target market, but this doesn't sound good.

The major new improvements have been Netflix, Last.fm, Twitter, Facebook, and now ESPN, HuluPlus and Video Kinect, right?

Netflix requires the NF membership - which is fine, I understand that.
Last.fm requires the free Last.fm account.
Twitter and Facebook are only partially implemented and to me nowhere near as convenient as using them on a PC, even as little as I do use them.
Hulu Plus will cost money on Hulu's end as well, I believe.
ESPN - um. First, most of the athletes and personalities on ESPN get paid tons of money, then most major sporting events or venues are subsidized by taxes anyway [something else I have a problem with], so paying for it doesn't make sense to me. Of course, I also couldn't care less about sports and sports news, so this is totally not for me.
Video Kinect - ok, you can only video chat with Gold. Oh yeah, you have to buy a 150 dollar Kinect as well.
So, I use Netflix and Last.fm....I could always plug my iphone/ipod directly into my reciever, and while I like Netflix, it's free on the Wii [though I haven't tried it yet so i don't know how it works], and probably the PS3 as well.

Higher price for additional services I will never use - not a bargain for me. And yes, "it's only ten bucks more" which admittedly isn't that much. But now comes the point where I decide to go ahead and stock up next time they're <40 bucks and plan to save, or realize that I'm really not getting my money's worth right now, and I'll get even less of my money's worth in the future.

Oh yeah, and I don't game online a lot - I prefer single player or couch co-op.
I did buy a few of the Gold Deals of the Week, but I've also won enough points to cover the delta.

I think this is the wrong move at the wrong time.

Michael Corvin

I play Halo, Borderlands and a select few others online so I get my money's worth so a $10 increase isn't too bad. Personally, I hope people put their money where their big talking internet mouths are and cancel in droves. It's the only way MS will get a clue. Unfortunately I won't be one of those people.

Ding. Ding. Ding. Couple that with a terribly uncomfortable and outdated controller, everyone lacking headsets, bigger pool of players, no party chat, etc. and free just doesn't seem to matter as much. It's the whole package, not just simply playing games online or not.

Do you pay for cable? If you do, you are paying $4 a month for ESPN whether you watch it or not. That's what they charge the cable co. for EVERY cable subscriber that has an ESPN channel (aka everyone who has the basic 60 channel tier). The cable company conveniently passes that $4 on to every subscriber they have.

A fee was inevitable, but I was hoping it would have been subsidized in some way myself since I doubt it will be a fully functioning channel like on television. I'm imagining something akin to 1vs100 where you have blades showing game times and you can log on at that time to view a specific game.