Xbox Live Price Hike: A Higher Cost for Microsoft
By Jared Newman | Monday, August 30, 2010 at 1:06 pm
This wasn’t entirely unexpected, but Microsoft announced that it’s raising the price of Xbox Live Gold, effective November 1.
Yearly subscriptions will increase from $50 to $60, quarterly subscriptions will jump from $20 to $25, and monthly subscriptions will go up from $8 to $10. Before the price hike, Microsoft is giving subscribers a chance to get one more year for $40, effectively negating the new price until 2012. Joystiq points out that several retailers are also selling $40 yearly subscription cards, which you can stock up on now and use over a longer period of time.
The troubling thing about this price hike is not so much the $10 difference itself, but the feeling of powerlessness that it instills.
For people who’ve been paying $50 for Xbox Live since its inception, the change is a wake-up call. It’s a reminder that $50 per year is not a guarantee that comes with the console. Nor is $60, for that matter. Folks who’ve chosen the Xbox 360 over the Playstation 3 or Wii — both offer free online play — must now realize they are locked in to whatever price Microsoft decrees. At least one analyst thinks that price could reach $100 per year over time.
In essence, Microsoft makes itself look like a cable company by increasing the price of Xbox Live. Sure, you could switch to another provider, or quit the service and sacrifice the benefits, but both those options bring their own hassles and drawbacks, so you suck up the price hike and curse the company that brought it.
Short-term, that’s fine for Microsoft. I don’t foresee a mass exodus from Xbox Live over $10 per year, and if the Kinect motion controller brings in a new demographic of users, as Microsoft hopes, the Xbox 360 will have a lot of users who never knew about the old price.
Long-term, Microsoft is building a bigger price gap between its online service and those of its competitors, one that’ll make consumers think twice about staying loyal to the Xbox brand. If the gap continues to grow between now and the next console generation, Microsoft will get its comeuppance.
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August 30th, 2010 at 1:11 pm
At $60, Xbox Live is still a bargain. Having said that, I ordered a $40 card from Amazon to use when my sub expires around the 1st of the year. Assuming I remember I have it… 🙂
August 30th, 2010 at 1:25 pm
It really sucks they're hiking the price by $10. While I don't have a PS3, I do have a Wii, and would gladly pay for the Wii's online service if it were anywhere the quality of what Xbox Live is. It's definitely a case of you get what you pay for. At $60, it's still worth the cost if you're a regular online gamer and subscribe to any of its other things like Netflix or Last.fm.
August 30th, 2010 at 3:01 pm
So The answer I have been searching for is if I stock up on cards now(3-4 years worth) will they still work after the price hike? Because Dell often has deals 2 years for $60(or 2 one-years at $30 each). Watch out for those deals you economy conscious shoppers.
August 30th, 2010 at 9:53 pm
It won't bother gamers. They'll continue paying.
August 31st, 2010 at 11:08 am
They should be dropping the price by $10. What about the family plan that was $100 for 4 accounts and could use mocrosoft points between the accounts. Plus the game companies want to charge at least $10 per game for online so no more sharing or borrowing a game and buying used games will come as an added cost. Plus dlc for each game. Plus???
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