Xbox Live adds 6 Million members in a single Year, is the hate unjustified?

[Michael-5]

J_Allard said:

Michael-5 said:

When XBL costs <$60 a year, the deal is usually only available over XBL, using a credit card. You can't buy XBL Gold subscriptions over XBL without a credit card, and at retail, $60 cards are almost never <$50 on sale. As for Silver weekends, I'm pretty sure I've played on a wednesday/thursday before as a silver account user. Not until the update in 2009 (I think) did I ever have a problem playing Halo 3 online as a silver member.

As an XBL gamer, I never saw the ads for 360 games which are also "Games for Windows" being al imited time thing. It worked for over a year, and then it disappeared, hence silver was reduced.

Also your arguement about Games for Windows is wrong, Lost Planet played just as well, if not better on PC then on 360. How come 360 players have to pay for the same service PC gamers get for free? XBLG is thus a rip off.

So then buy them somewhere else. I rarely ever see deals for XBL on the XBL service itself. I always use Amazon or other websites. You might have played on a Wednesday before. They might have had Silver free promotions that lasted all week. Who knows. But there was never a time when Silver users were allowed 24/7 to play Halo 3 online. It was always on a promotional basis from Bungie. And they stopped because the Gold users would exploit it. So if you're gonna complain, gamers deserve your blame, not some underhanded attempt at devaluing Silver from MS. Idk what to say in regards to the cross platform games... I mean, you being unaware that they were offered for free on a limited time basis does not change the fact that they were. As far as Games for Windows vs XBL, they are not the same service.

Michael-5 said:

As for achievements requiring XBLG, I'm blaiming Microsoft here. They control what achievements their first party games have, and they also sell XBL. Making 1st party games which require XBLG subscriptions is conniving. YES 3rd party games and PS3 exclusive games make achievements related to long term online use, but for PS3 games, who cares, PSN is free, and 3rd party games are nowhere nearly as bad as microsoft. I have yet to play a single 3rd party game that required an XBLG subscription for a prolonged period of time. Achievements like Presteige on CoD, or 5,000 kills on Mass Effect don't require subscriptions, I can work towards those achievements at my own pace.

Your ignoring my point that online achievements are different then those which require online play for periodical durations. Spartan Ops maps are only available for 1 week out of 10, so you need a 3 month subscription of a 2 week trial to get them. Gears 3 requires you to play 30 separate weekends, that basically means you can;t get the achievement unless you get a subscription. This is different then say reaching level 25 in MP.

I have no doubts that publishers ask developers or at least encourage them to include MP focused achievements/trophies in their games. And that would include MS. But they do so to entice people to hold on to the games longer and lower the number of used copies on the shelves. It's not a ploy to get people to pay for Live. The fact that they exist on a free to play platform like PSN is evidence of this. Also, trophies that require prolonged play also exists on PSN. You can blow this off "because PSN is free" if you'd like, but it shows that making people want to pay Live subscriptions is not the motive. Per usual, your complaint applies more to gaming in general and not XBL.

Michael-5 said:

As for Halo Anniversary Map packs, I want Halo CEA, I just don't want to pay $40 for that and the Halo Reach map packs. If I buy the map packs separatly (and overpriced), and I buy CEA later, I'm already spending way more money then I should.

So you think the DLC is overpriced and the game is overpriced. Not seeing how that relates to XBLG.

Michael-5 said:

XBL is a service by Microsoft, so yes my complaints are towards MS. They control XBL, and XBL on it's own is bad, but how they mix it with their own games/services makes it terrible.

As for XBLG 3 Month cards, 50% the price for 25% the duration is a huge mark up, and there are no alternatives. Why is there no 1 month card in Canada? $10 for a 1 month card would be alright considering I only play MP for a month or so after a game I like with MP releases. Why do I need to pay $30 for 1 single month. That's the issue with XBLG.

XBL Gold in USA is cheaper then in Canada. Here it's impossible to find for <$50, at least legitimatly.

As for DLC, it's not expensive on Steam after 6 months. When Fallout New Vegas was selling for $20 without DLC on 360 last year, it was selling for $20 on Steam with the full game and all $70 worth of DLC. DLC on consoles is expensive, MS used to not be so bad with this when they offered old games with cheap DLC, but that is not the case anymore. Sony still does that, at least for PSN+ gamers, MS does not.

1 month cards are being phased out in the US as well. You can only get them on the console itself. But LOL @ $30 for one month. If you live in Canada, why don't you just buy US cards? You get can a 3 month card for less than $30. Hell on many occasions you can get a full year for $35-40. MS doesn't control the prices of DLC unless its for their own games. Also, PC is always going to be cheaper than consoles. That's just a fact of life. DLC on either platform is still way high even years after release. Has nothing to do with XBLG.

I know kain has said that he's bought XBLG cards on Amazon.ca for $40, but he also said he bought multiple at a time at that price. Realistically, $50 is how much they cost in Canada, you can't get them cheaper on Amazon/eBay unless you're real lucky, and again, that ignores the fact that I only play 3 months online a year. A 3 month card is still $20 at best, and $7 a month is too much.

As for Silver being removed, people did not boosts on Lost Planet online. Maybe they did on Halo, but Halo 3 was not the only game to take advantage of Silver online access. Regardless of achievement boosting, that's still not a significant enough reason to remove Silver online play. If someone is bored enough to make a second account and play mindless boring games against no one to increase exp, then let them waste their time. Why make everyone suffer just because Microsoft (the publisher) wants achievements to be hard to get?

----

It's not a ploy to get people to pay for Live

Oh bs, how come only MS brand games have achievements which require you to not only hold onto the game for a year or so, but to play it consistantly?

What PS3 exclusive game has an achievement which requires you to play online for a period of longer then 1 month? None exist. Yes there are games, PS3 exclusive and MP, which give achievements/trophies for playing x many hours online, but that's a different story, I can choose to play that game in excess over the period of a few nights and get the achievement/trophy. There are also games which require you to host x many games, but those are generally designed to keep the number of online games high.

These are completly different situations then making achievments which require you to play a game over the spand of 3 months (Halo 4) or a year (Gears 3). If you don't see this, then you are either oblivious to the fact, or just plain ignoring me.

Also regarding my post about if PS3 games do it, who cares? Who really cares, If Sony wanted to make an exclusive that required long term play, let them. PSN is free, Sony makes no $$$ off this, so there is no harm done. With XBL, there is no free option, so harm done.

------

"So you think the DLC is overpriced and the game is overpriced. Not seeing how that relates to XBLG."

I said that the game is overpriced because DLC is overpriced. How does this relate to XBLG? Microsoft blocks other developers/publishers from selling DLC at dirt cheap prices like they can on Steam by charging them a set fee per sale. Plus MS used to sell DLC at permanently reduced sale prices, and had those sales available to silver members. Now, not only are sales temporary, they are exclusive to gold subscribers, hence XBLG and MS is not what it used to be.

-----

"If you live in Canada, why don't you just buy US cards?"

Lot's of US cards don't work in Canada, and many sellers on eBay/Amazon don't sell US card to Canadians. Where would I get a US card that works in Canada?

XBLG is cheaper in USA then the rest of the world, but regardless, it's still more expensive then PSN and doesn't offer that much more. Why can't MS just offer a free service with similar quality to PSN and then charge for XBLG much like PSN charges for PSN +? I would much prefer that, then I have the option to play games for free with 95% of the features.