XBOX 360 are they starting to take the mick??

pitkin2020

PREWARNING : Bit of a rant

Thought I would get others opinions as of late I have found microsoft and the game developers, especially EA seem to be taking the pi$$ out of xbox 360 customers.

Firstly I am an avid gamer but generally during the months of March-September work is manic so i rarely play and play even less online. Because of that I tend to only buy xbox gold for over the winter months so I can play online. I have no issue in paying for xbox gold to play games online but my issue is the fact to watch any of the TV services including Lovefilm that I subscribe to you have to have xbox live gold to be able to watch them. I wouldn't care less but the other half likes to watch films of an evening so not only do I have to pay lovefilm but also for xbox gold.

Also now most of the new games you buy, especially those from EA require you to enter a code for online play which you do get for free if you buy the game brand new. If for example you buy a pre-owned game you will have to pay again to play online at a cost of 800 microsoft points, which is roughly £7-£10. Which if your buying a recent game preowned you will usually only save a few quid, still a saving but if your not aware you need to pay extra that cheap game will cost you more than new if you want to play online.

Just seems microsoft want to charge you now every step of the way and everytime you turn the xbox on its going to cost you. I also think they are going to kill the preowned game market aswell as ruining new game sales. There have been plenty of titles I would not have bought if I hadn't of had one of the early games preowned, knew I liked it and waited for a new release.

Rant over.

m5rcc

Yes - it's called profit maximisation in order to giver shareholders value.

neilwoods

Microsoft have always been like that though, gold live account for any online content.

Guess EA are trying to cash in the pre-owned market now, must have some deal with microsoft I guess. Which is going to hurt the companies like game, gamesstation, etc, etc, they make a nice profit from it. Unless they lower the prices to make it worthwhile for the buyer

grimsalve

"Passport" games are becoming the norm these days - I think this is the games industry trying to claw back some of the lost revenue from the second hand market, game sharers, rentals, etc.

I noticed in my local Game store a while back that they had a big sign above their (HUGE!) second hand section - "All that's different is the price" and I was going to pick them up on this. Technically, they can't say things like that with these passport games... probably a waste of breath saying anything like that to a Game employee though.

m5rcc

Game - 90% in 12mths - need one say more

vyle

It's not just on the 360. EA's online passes have been around for over a year, and are used on ps3 and xbox. It's because the developers (and publishers) lose a lot of money on preowned, so they're rewarding the customer for buying new, by providing them with an extra incentive. If you want to want to buy preowned and wish to benefit from the incentive, then you pay the developers for the privilege. I really don't see any problem with it, and would much rather that, than see decent developers go out of business because everyone is passing preowned games from one to another, especially as (on ps3 more than xbox) it costs the publishers to run a game online.

And if you buy an xbox, it's well known you need to pay to go online in the first place. I don't have gold any more, but when I did, it was noticably better than PSN in terms of speed and reliability. You get what you pay for.

Mr_Toad

This is why I stuck with the PC for games, they are usually cheaper to by than the console version and you don't have to pay to play on-line.

I'm not anti-console, I'd love one, but when I was looking at them seriously it just didn't seem worth it.

jamespir

thing is we pay 7.00 a month (around that) to use xbox live to play games on line but games comapnies expect us to shell out more for the priveidge

pitkin2020

I appreciate they are a business and need to make money but microsoft are charging for the use of free services aswell such as 4 on demand and demand 5. Thats one of the reasons they couldn't get I player onto the 360 as the BBC can not be part of the charged service.

I don't how these "passport" games work on the PS3 as the online gaming is free so how can they charge if you don't have the code?

[Deleted User]

jamespir wrote: »

thing is we pay 7.00 a month (around that) to use xbox live to play games on line but games comapnies expect us to shell out more for the priveidge

A 12 month subscription for less than £30 from eBay is the best way to pay for it.

AleksandrOrlov

I pay £24 from an ebay seller, instant reply with code etc