At what price point would you ditch XBL?

[NightDragon83]

heruamon said:

NightDragon83 said:
I wouldn't pay more than the going rate of $50/year, and even then I haven't payed that much... both times I waited to pick up a 13 month gold card for $30... that's something like $2.30 a month... oh man, what a bank breaker!!!

Meanwhile, you're paying upwards of $50-$60 per MONTH for high speed internet access in most cases... most cable companies charge that much for internet by itself unless you get the triple pack with cable and phone, and even then the price goes up on all 3 after a year... that's where us consumers are really getting hosed!

I wouldn't have any problem with a super user pack for XBL to get ALL DLC (Expect for full retail games) for free...but M$ would lose money on that deal.  My fear is that they raise prices and we get what we've been getting...I've got some beef with that.  Here's my thing...the infacstructure for XBL is already in place, and M$ is making solid $$$ off it already, so IF you want to increase prics, you'd better provide some massive GAME related improvements to jsutify your increases...not facebook and etc.  Okay...look in the world of MMOs...Blizzard launches 18 month expansions...one-time charges, but they don't tag us with annual increases to the base price.  If they want to generate more $$$ for XBL...offer up one-time charges...and let people buy them...as an OPTION.  That's what M$ has promoted for Xbox format since it's inception...

Lastly on my rant...I'm membered up thru 2011...so what would happen to my membership?  Based on this news, I'm going to spent $80 and get 2 more years thru 2013...lol!  Jack my prices...class action lawsuit!

DLC is another beast entirely, and while I agree that it would be nice to have access to most DLC for a flat membership fee, rather than paying for everything a la carte like we are now, that's never gonna happen because both M$ and the game developers/publishers are making too much cash off of it to turn it down.

I think that if anything, M$ should make XBL free for everyone based on the fact that the second you boot up your console, you're bombarded with advertisements for everything imaginable on the main slides... movies, TV shows, music, hell even fast food advertisements like McDonalds and Wendys.  The money M$ makes from advertisements on XBL alone pays for the service and then some.

The only reason M$ charges for XBL Gold in the first place is because they charged everyone for XBL access when it first launced on the original Xbox (which in all fairness they kinda needed to since it was an upstart at the time), so they figured that once they launched the new console, most Xbox fans would have no problem continuing to shell out $50 a year for having access to online multiplayer, while making basic XBL access free for everyone.  Sony wishes they could do something like this, but they know that their fans would start an uprising against them since they never charged for online play before.