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Forums - Gaming Discussion - Marcus Beer speaks for gamers and questions validity of paying for Xbox Live it in front of Michael Pachter

S.T.A.G.E. on 12 November 2012
kain_kusanagi said:
S.T.A.G.E. said:
kain_kusanagi said:
DanneSandin said:
I think it's such a stupid concept of having to pay to play online. Take CoD or Halo for example. You pay 50 bucks to be able to play the SINGLE PLAYER CAMPAIGN. That's it. You buy full price for a game and only get half of the content. People are pissed off on Capcom for adding DLC on the disc? this is waaay worse. To be able to play the full game you have to pay to get online. Sucks ass.


I agree that, as a gamer, XBLA should be free. But that's because I'm a cheap bastard who doesn't even like paying full price for the best games. However you can enjoy all the multiplayer without paying for XBLA. All you need are real life friends willing to come over and play split screen or LAN. So if youbreak Halo 4 down into its most basic pieces it would be Campaign, Online Multiplayer, Local Multiplayer. Which would mean that you pay for two thirds of the game and then have to pay for the last third. But as far as content on the disc, you can use all 100% offline.

On the topic of paying for XBLA. I do wish it was free. Like I said I'm cheap and wish everything was free. But since it's not I don't think the price of a year of XBLA is too much. I buy my year subscriptions on Amazon.com when it's on sale for $35. That's comes out to about $2.91 a month. Even for someone as cheap as me can't say that $2.91 is enough to get upset about.


Dude the concept of online was a free concept until Microsoft came in. Don't call yourself cheap for wanting online to be free like it always was. Microsoft broke even on Xbox Live Gold within their first year of the Xbox 360 coming out. PC gamers didnt want to pay them for Windows Live, so does that make them cheap? No. Microsoft knows they can't force them so they just left it to their closed format console where they can charge.

You are 100% right. But $2.91 a month isn't sending me to the poor house. I probably drop 10 or 20 times that in donation and tip jars each month.

I use XBL Gold so rarely it's actualy kind of stupid that I bother to pay for it. I just don't play online games, except on very rare occasions. But $35 a year is so little that I go ahead and buy it when Amazon.com has the deal. I do feel like a sucker, but I probably lose more than $35 a year in change and don't even notice it.

I'm not saying I'm cheap for wanting XBL free. I'm saying I'm cheap and wish everything was free, but despite that, I'm not overly bothered by the fee.


You don't need to be bothered by the fee, but there are others who are and see no need for it. Again, it's apples and oranges. I am just glad that someone on the other side of the fence was heard about the issue.



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dahuman on 12 November 2012
DirtyP2002 said:
dahuman said:
Argh_College said:
I will pay for Xbox Live forever! Best service ever imo.

Halo 4 is a black on Live.


Steam, free, does everything XBL does and much more.

Not sure where Halo 4 came from but it's a pretty good game for sure.


Gaming on steam is a pain in the *** comapred to XBL.

It does less actually. Well it does more if you count hackers / cheaters, but less if you count features. It has good deals every now and then, but that is it.


I love how people would post and state nothing, it's a pain in the ass because? It does less based on your experience of? cheating is associated to Steam and not the game itself made by other companies due to(there is totally no hacking and cheating on other platforms?)? It has good deals every week btw.

I love baseless replies. Such high intelligence lol....

 

PS: I just noticed you are from Germany, in that case, I don't know as much, Steam is basically God status in North America but it might differ in your case :)



Jazz2K on 12 November 2012
dahuman said:
Jazz2K said:


You're right I don't know the guy. But after this bonus round, I don't think he knows what he's talking about...

You know, I've always hated the idea that you say a few bad things about a company and all of a sudden you MUST BE a fanboy of another company, this was a MS discussion, so they talked about it. I have a huge distaste for XBL myself and BTW Kinect works much better on a PC, but does that mean I automatically only love Sony or only love Nintendo? Fuck no! There are 2 sides to take, not some dumb ass fanboy oh I love you MS/Sony/Nintendo side, you are either on the side of us consumers, or you work for that corporation in question. Video games is not essential to our lives, it's a hobby at best, the power of us consumers can choose what they want, and if they want to pay for XBL, great, go do it, I'm never paying for it again per choice, not because other companies are better.


I agree I jumped to conclusions... but after spending some time on forums and especially here, anything MS gets trashed so much by fans of other consoles it's difficult to know whos' who... What I hate the most is when people who keep bragging false things about MS just because it seems to be popular on the internet. People keep saying adds on the dashboard are annoying yep those who actualy have an Xbox beg to differ. Most of those adds are gaming/movie/music related when you highlight specific tabs. When you don't own the Xbox and you hear about adds being on the dashboard you don't know what's going on and you imagine all kinds of BS.

About Kinect... I would expect uninformed gamers to not know how devices work and it's ok. Not knowing isn't a bad thing, not willing to know in order to keep spreading BS is bad though. Kinect works as intended. Devs are the ones who will make it work not the otherway around. I don't see people complain about the controller when devs put bad contol mechanics in games. Some devs nail it while other don't. Same about consoles, if both are about the same, the rest is up to devs and their budget. Gamers might want to ignore this, but people in the industry shouldn't. Why would I listen to someone in the industry that doesn't know any of this or act as is? 



Adinnieken on 12 November 2012
S.T.A.G.E. said:

I agreed with pachter on the ads part, but again Microsoft doesn't need them because as Pachter said they broke even on Xbox Live after 2-3 million users. Xbox Live is a constant surplus for Microsoft and they dont give very much either. Those ads are just excess money in their pockets. All I can say is rape. We can understand why Facebook and Youtube have ads, because those things are free and they need the ads to function as an online system. Hell, I dont even care if Sony did it with all they've done because they've remained ad free, but Microsoft is on overkill.

The thing to understand is that while the division that the Xbox team is a part of is doing well, the team that Xbox LIVE is a part of has slowly been climbing up.  The Online Services business has been in the red for a LONG time.  Xbox LIVE is paying for a lot more than just the cost of the Xbox LIVE service.  With Xbox LIVE being successful Microsoft is going to do two things, 1) they're going to eek out every cent that can so get the division to balance, 2) they're try to build on the success of the service as much as possible expanding it out.

When you see the Online Services division go in the black, then you might see some things change in terms of pricing.  Until then, Xbox LIVE is the profit center for that division and Microsoft is going to use it however they can to gain profitability for the division. 



dahuman on 12 November 2012
Jazz2K said:
dahuman said:
Jazz2K said:


You're right I don't know the guy. But after this bonus round, I don't think he knows what he's talking about...

You know, I've always hated the idea that you say a few bad things about a company and all of a sudden you MUST BE a fanboy of another company, this was a MS discussion, so they talked about it. I have a huge distaste for XBL myself and BTW Kinect works much better on a PC, but does that mean I automatically only love Sony or only love Nintendo? Fuck no! There are 2 sides to take, not some dumb ass fanboy oh I love you MS/Sony/Nintendo side, you are either on the side of us consumers, or you work for that corporation in question. Video games is not essential to our lives, it's a hobby at best, the power of us consumers can choose what they want, and if they want to pay for XBL, great, go do it, I'm never paying for it again per choice, not because other companies are better.


I agree I jumped to conclusions... but after spending some time on forums and especially here, anything MS gets trashed so much by fans of other consoles it's difficult to know whos' who... What I hate the most is when people who keep bragging false things about MS just because it seems to be popular on the internet. People keep saying adds on the dashboard are annoying yep those who actualy have an Xbox beg to differ. Most of those adds are gaming/movie/music related when you highlight specific tabs. When you don't own the Xbox and you hear about adds being on the dashboard you don't know what's going on and you imagine all kinds of BS.

About Kinect... I would expect uninformed gamers to not know how devices work and it's ok. Not knowing isn't a bad thing, not willing to know in order to keep spreading BS is bad though. Kinect works as intended. Devs are the ones who will make it work not the otherway around. I don't see people complain about the controller when devs put bad contol mechanics in games. Some devs nail it while other don't. Same about consoles, if both are about the same, the rest is up to devs and their budget. Gamers might want to ignore this, but people in the industry shouldn't. Why would I listen to someone in the industry that doesn't know any of this or act as is? 

The thing about Kinect is that they had to keep cost down, but then the 360 doesn't really have a good room for it on the processing front, it works great on a decent PC, but I've always said that the current XBOX is not good enough for the current Kinect. These are the things they need to fix for the next one, 1.) make sure there is little delay as possible for the next iteration. 2.) able to pick up more people(at least 4+) and know who they all are on the screen(more processing power and better software) 3.) Make it with different lenses so it works in smaller rooms and is able to pick up motion at a closer proximity.

Otherwise it's just an even worse piece of shit than the Wiimote+/PS Move technology.

The whole ads thing, people might call me crazy for this, but I'm actually an IGN Prime member.(that's how I get into a lot of betas lol, so leave me alone :P ) Now, they literally give you an option to disable ads in your Prime options, I'm a paying member, therefore I have the choice of either displaying the ad or go without, I of course disabled it. Lets look at the XBL side, where is my option to do so if I'm a Gold member? I can understand them showing ads all the time to people who are not paying, but where is the option to turn it off if I don't want to see it as a paying member? That's something to think about isn't it? >=)



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S.T.A.G.E. on 12 November 2012
Adinnieken said:
S.T.A.G.E. said:

I agreed with pachter on the ads part, but again Microsoft doesn't need them because as Pachter said they broke even on Xbox Live after 2-3 million users. Xbox Live is a constant surplus for Microsoft and they dont give very much either. Those ads are just excess money in their pockets. All I can say is rape. We can understand why Facebook and Youtube have ads, because those things are free and they need the ads to function as an online system. Hell, I dont even care if Sony did it with all they've done because they've remained ad free, but Microsoft is on overkill.

The thing to understand is that while the division that the Xbox team is a part of is doing well, the team that Xbox LIVE is a part of has slowly been climbing up.  The Online Services business has been in the red for a LONG time.  Xbox LIVE is paying for a lot more than just the cost of the Xbox LIVE service.  With Xbox LIVE being successful Microsoft is going to do two things, 1) they're going to eek out every cent that can so get the division to balance, 2) they're try to build on the success of the service as much as possible expanding it out.

When you see the Online Services division go in the black, then you might see some things change in terms of pricing.  Until then, Xbox LIVE is the profit center for that division and Microsoft is going to use it however they can to gain profitability for the division. 


I don't really know about it being in the red for Microsoft and agree with both Pachter and Beer that Microsoft is in profit heaven with it (Next year will be eight years exactly) but no doubt its still in the red for Sony, which is why they had to add PSN Plus and probably soon they will  need ads to break even while being subsidized. 



S.T.A.G.E. on 12 November 2012
DirtyP2002 said:
dahuman said:
Argh_College said:
I will pay for Xbox Live forever! Best service ever imo.

Halo 4 is a black on Live.


Steam, free, does everything XBL does and much more.

Not sure where Halo 4 came from but it's a pretty good game for sure.


Gaming on steam is a pain in the *** comapred to XBL.

It does less actually. Well it does more if you count hackers / cheaters, but less if you count features. It has good deals every now and then, but that is it.


How? If a game sucks on PC, don't you blame the publisher and developers?



S.T.A.G.E. on 12 November 2012
dahuman said:
Jazz2K said:
dahuman said:
Jazz2K said:


You're right I don't know the guy. But after this bonus round, I don't think he knows what he's talking about...

You know, I've always hated the idea that you say a few bad things about a company and all of a sudden you MUST BE a fanboy of another company, this was a MS discussion, so they talked about it. I have a huge distaste for XBL myself and BTW Kinect works much better on a PC, but does that mean I automatically only love Sony or only love Nintendo? Fuck no! There are 2 sides to take, not some dumb ass fanboy oh I love you MS/Sony/Nintendo side, you are either on the side of us consumers, or you work for that corporation in question. Video games is not essential to our lives, it's a hobby at best, the power of us consumers can choose what they want, and if they want to pay for XBL, great, go do it, I'm never paying for it again per choice, not because other companies are better.


I agree I jumped to conclusions... but after spending some time on forums and especially here, anything MS gets trashed so much by fans of other consoles it's difficult to know whos' who... What I hate the most is when people who keep bragging false things about MS just because it seems to be popular on the internet. People keep saying adds on the dashboard are annoying yep those who actualy have an Xbox beg to differ. Most of those adds are gaming/movie/music related when you highlight specific tabs. When you don't own the Xbox and you hear about adds being on the dashboard you don't know what's going on and you imagine all kinds of BS.

About Kinect... I would expect uninformed gamers to not know how devices work and it's ok. Not knowing isn't a bad thing, not willing to know in order to keep spreading BS is bad though. Kinect works as intended. Devs are the ones who will make it work not the otherway around. I don't see people complain about the controller when devs put bad contol mechanics in games. Some devs nail it while other don't. Same about consoles, if both are about the same, the rest is up to devs and their budget. Gamers might want to ignore this, but people in the industry shouldn't. Why would I listen to someone in the industry that doesn't know any of this or act as is? 

The thing about Kinect is that they had to keep cost down, but then the 360 doesn't really have a good room for it on the processing front, it works great on a decent PC, but I've always said that the current XBOX is not good enough for the current Kinect. These are the things they need to fix for the next one, 1.) make sure there is little delay as possible for the next iteration. 2.) able to pick up more people(at least 4+) and know who they all are on the screen(more processing power and better software) 3.) Make it with different lenses so it works in smaller rooms and is able to pick up motion at a closer proximity.

Otherwise it's just an even worse piece of shit than the Wiimote+/PS Move technology.

The whole ads thing, people might call me crazy for this, but I'm actually an IGN Prime member.(that's how I get into a lot of betas lol, so leave me alone :P ) Now, they literally give you an option to disable ads in your Prime options, I'm a paying member, therefore I have the choice of either displaying the ad or go without, I of course disabled it. Lets look at the XBL side, where is my option to do so if I'm a Gold member? I can understand them showing ads all the time to people who are not paying, but where is the option to turn it off if I don't want to see it as a paying member? That's something to think about isn't it? >=)


I dont know if the Kinect 2 will sell. 



dahuman on 12 November 2012
S.T.A.G.E. said:
dahuman said:
Jazz2K said:
dahuman said:
Jazz2K said:


You're right I don't know the guy. But after this bonus round, I don't think he knows what he's talking about...

You know, I've always hated the idea that you say a few bad things about a company and all of a sudden you MUST BE a fanboy of another company, this was a MS discussion, so they talked about it. I have a huge distaste for XBL myself and BTW Kinect works much better on a PC, but does that mean I automatically only love Sony or only love Nintendo? Fuck no! There are 2 sides to take, not some dumb ass fanboy oh I love you MS/Sony/Nintendo side, you are either on the side of us consumers, or you work for that corporation in question. Video games is not essential to our lives, it's a hobby at best, the power of us consumers can choose what they want, and if they want to pay for XBL, great, go do it, I'm never paying for it again per choice, not because other companies are better.


I agree I jumped to conclusions... but after spending some time on forums and especially here, anything MS gets trashed so much by fans of other consoles it's difficult to know whos' who... What I hate the most is when people who keep bragging false things about MS just because it seems to be popular on the internet. People keep saying adds on the dashboard are annoying yep those who actualy have an Xbox beg to differ. Most of those adds are gaming/movie/music related when you highlight specific tabs. When you don't own the Xbox and you hear about adds being on the dashboard you don't know what's going on and you imagine all kinds of BS.

About Kinect... I would expect uninformed gamers to not know how devices work and it's ok. Not knowing isn't a bad thing, not willing to know in order to keep spreading BS is bad though. Kinect works as intended. Devs are the ones who will make it work not the otherway around. I don't see people complain about the controller when devs put bad contol mechanics in games. Some devs nail it while other don't. Same about consoles, if both are about the same, the rest is up to devs and their budget. Gamers might want to ignore this, but people in the industry shouldn't. Why would I listen to someone in the industry that doesn't know any of this or act as is? 

The thing about Kinect is that they had to keep cost down, but then the 360 doesn't really have a good room for it on the processing front, it works great on a decent PC, but I've always said that the current XBOX is not good enough for the current Kinect. These are the things they need to fix for the next one, 1.) make sure there is little delay as possible for the next iteration. 2.) able to pick up more people(at least 4+) and know who they all are on the screen(more processing power and better software) 3.) Make it with different lenses so it works in smaller rooms and is able to pick up motion at a closer proximity.

Otherwise it's just an even worse piece of shit than the Wiimote+/PS Move technology.

The whole ads thing, people might call me crazy for this, but I'm actually an IGN Prime member.(that's how I get into a lot of betas lol, so leave me alone :P ) Now, they literally give you an option to disable ads in your Prime options, I'm a paying member, therefore I have the choice of either displaying the ad or go without, I of course disabled it. Lets look at the XBL side, where is my option to do so if I'm a Gold member? I can understand them showing ads all the time to people who are not paying, but where is the option to turn it off if I don't want to see it as a paying member? That's something to think about isn't it? >=)


I dont know if the Kinect 2 will sell. 

I'm hoping they'd not be stupid enough to not bundle one for each nextbox.



S.T.A.G.E. on 12 November 2012
dahuman said:
S.T.A.G.E. said:
dahuman said:
Jazz2K said:
dahuman said:
Jazz2K said:


You're right I don't know the guy. But after this bonus round, I don't think he knows what he's talking about...

You know, I've always hated the idea that you say a few bad things about a company and all of a sudden you MUST BE a fanboy of another company, this was a MS discussion, so they talked about it. I have a huge distaste for XBL myself and BTW Kinect works much better on a PC, but does that mean I automatically only love Sony or only love Nintendo? Fuck no! There are 2 sides to take, not some dumb ass fanboy oh I love you MS/Sony/Nintendo side, you are either on the side of us consumers, or you work for that corporation in question. Video games is not essential to our lives, it's a hobby at best, the power of us consumers can choose what they want, and if they want to pay for XBL, great, go do it, I'm never paying for it again per choice, not because other companies are better.


I agree I jumped to conclusions... but after spending some time on forums and especially here, anything MS gets trashed so much by fans of other consoles it's difficult to know whos' who... What I hate the most is when people who keep bragging false things about MS just because it seems to be popular on the internet. People keep saying adds on the dashboard are annoying yep those who actualy have an Xbox beg to differ. Most of those adds are gaming/movie/music related when you highlight specific tabs. When you don't own the Xbox and you hear about adds being on the dashboard you don't know what's going on and you imagine all kinds of BS.

About Kinect... I would expect uninformed gamers to not know how devices work and it's ok. Not knowing isn't a bad thing, not willing to know in order to keep spreading BS is bad though. Kinect works as intended. Devs are the ones who will make it work not the otherway around. I don't see people complain about the controller when devs put bad contol mechanics in games. Some devs nail it while other don't. Same about consoles, if both are about the same, the rest is up to devs and their budget. Gamers might want to ignore this, but people in the industry shouldn't. Why would I listen to someone in the industry that doesn't know any of this or act as is? 

The thing about Kinect is that they had to keep cost down, but then the 360 doesn't really have a good room for it on the processing front, it works great on a decent PC, but I've always said that the current XBOX is not good enough for the current Kinect. These are the things they need to fix for the next one, 1.) make sure there is little delay as possible for the next iteration. 2.) able to pick up more people(at least 4+) and know who they all are on the screen(more processing power and better software) 3.) Make it with different lenses so it works in smaller rooms and is able to pick up motion at a closer proximity.

Otherwise it's just an even worse piece of shit than the Wiimote+/PS Move technology.

The whole ads thing, people might call me crazy for this, but I'm actually an IGN Prime member.(that's how I get into a lot of betas lol, so leave me alone :P ) Now, they literally give you an option to disable ads in your Prime options, I'm a paying member, therefore I have the choice of either displaying the ad or go without, I of course disabled it. Lets look at the XBL side, where is my option to do so if I'm a Gold member? I can understand them showing ads all the time to people who are not paying, but where is the option to turn it off if I don't want to see it as a paying member? That's something to think about isn't it? >=)


I dont know if the Kinect 2 will sell. 

I'm hoping they'd not be stupid enough to not bundle one for each nextbox.


I dont even want to think about the price of the next consoles. I am saving up for a gaming PC, while paying my college bills.