Adinnieken said:
theprof00 said:
Adinnieken said:
In what should be absolutely no surprise to anyone. The whole reason why Microsoft made the move to Microsoft Points was because it was cheaper. By using a common currency and selling that currency world-wide in local denominations, Microsoft was able to avoid having to pay credit card fees.
So, yeah I could easily see price increases of 3% to cover the cost of credit card transaction fees. Not to mention, there'll likely be exchange rate fees that are figured into the costs. |
Nope. Not surprised that MS is raising prices.
Also, MS doesn't pay those CC transaction fees. Remember, MS sells to distributors, and distributors sell to stores. Stores always pay transaction fees associated with purchases made through CC. There is literally no difference in moving from points to currency. Everything is still bought and paid for the same way.
Surprised? You still shouldn't be. The only thing that has changed is that you pay more.
EDIT: Oh wait, there is one change now, I guess, now you can't go on Ebay and buy 25$ worth of points from America and pay for it using a strong currency. That's gone.
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1 Um on Xbox LIVE Microsoft pays those fees. We're talking Xbox LIVE.
2Also Microsoft Point cards had an MSRP. 1600 MP = $20, however they also had margin. Meaning Microsoft, as well as Nintendo, sold their cards to retailers for less than the face value. So while YOU paide $20 for 1600 MP card, the retailer only might have paid $15.00. Subsequently, they have a 30% margin.
3So yes, the retailer may have paid a CC fee if you paid with a CC, but that only cut into their margin.
4Microsoft stated back in 2000 or 2001 when it announced its plans to go with it's own virtual currency, that the two reasons it did was because of exchange fees and credit card fees. And the stated problem with those thing things was that both drove up the cost of content.
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1 Yeah, so nothing has changed. You do know that users still had to pay with their cc to buy points through LIVE
2 Yeah, and there won't be a difference here, either. The cards will say 20$, the retailers will pay 18$, the distributors 17$.
3 Right, so nothing has changed.
4 *shakes head* You do know that the whole reasoning behind it was that MS would rather have you pay 20$ one time, than 5$ four times.
It saves them roughly 50 cents or so...and yet, they'll still be selling the dollar value cards, and will likely have you purchase in quantities on LIVE.
They still pay the same percentage, it's just now they'll be skipping the smaller charge, which is usually about 10-15 cents for a big retailer.
So even if you spent that 20$ buying 20 1$ items, the most they'll lose out on is about 5%, meanwhile, your cost went up 35%.
And trust me, there are still ways to push sales around, like not expensing until the end of the month, and other tactics like simply holding your cc info, so they can collect all at one time.
It's not rocket science.
