Do you feel Live should be free and included with the purchase of an XBOX?

Sugarhill said:
They may be selling it now as the All in One box, but that is not what Live started as and it makes no sense, nor would it be fair to all of the people that supported Live to give it away for free now, just because someone WILLFULLY went into a store and purchased a One or 360 to do other things over gaming. Your computer can access all of the same features that an One can, but for whatever reason you want to use the One to do it, so it's a choice that someone makes and a very easy one.

It's akin to buying a sportscar and telling the manufacturer they are wrong because it requires premium gas. You could've bought a car that didn't and still made it to point A and B.

This is not a lost demographic, this is a demographic that is requesting the One. They want one box in their home that can do as much stuff as possible and Live is truly of no consequence to them.
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The analogy doesn't work because one isn't forced to get Xbox Live, its optional. Your speaking on behalf of the consumer and I agree with what you're saying. My point was from a marketing standpoint. This launch is going to be well contested and sure the hardcore don't care, but the hardcore have also chosen their side. Microsoft is now aiming for the casual gamer and the non gamer. These are the 2 core groups that will look at things like accessibility and premium fees. When doing a side-by-side comparison XB1 needs to do what they can to compete with both the PS4 and PC. Not to mention competing with tablets, smartphones and smart TVs for the attention of the non gamer. They will simply see a $60 fee to access a service which they have already been paying for monthly. Sports car manufacturers aren't aiming to be in every garage, most of them pride themselves on being for the elite. The XB1 is trying to be the focal point of every living room. Different strategy for a different product. If the average person was offered 2 different cars, one costing less and with "free gas" then the other not only costing more but requiring premium gas, why do you think the average person would choose? Keep in mind both cars are basically identical under the hood with the cheaper one having a slightly better speed off the line.
 
I can kind of see it from another perspective now that it's been put out there. I still wouldn't mind six months free ;)
 
I feel like XBL should be free as to compete with PSN. The PSN is really superior in every way, sleek design, not buggy, FREE, and this is coming from a 360 fan. I really doesn't make sense to pay more for a lesser service.
 
KN1GHTMARE said:
The analogy doesn't work because one isn't forced to get Xbox Live, its optional. Your speaking on behalf of the consumer and I agree with what you're saying. My point was from a marketing standpoint. This launch is going to be well contested and sure the hardcore don't care, but the hardcore have also chosen their side. Microsoft is now aiming for the casual gamer and the non gamer. These are the 2 core groups that will look at things like accessibility and premium fees. When doing a side-by-side comparison XB1 needs to do what they can to compete with both the PS4 and PC. Not to mention competing with tablets, smartphones and smart TVs for the attention of the non gamer. They will simply see a $60 fee to access a service which they have already been paying for monthly. Sports car manufacturers aren't aiming to be in every garage, most of them pride themselves on being for the elite. The XB1 is trying to be the focal point of every living room. Different strategy for a different product. If the average person was offered 2 different cars, one costing less and with "free gas" then the other not only costing more but requiring premium gas, why do you think the average person would choose? Keep in mind both cars are basically identical under the hood with the cheaper one having a slightly better speed off the line.
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But, you're acting as if PSN is free. Even if someone were foolish enough to buy a console to watch Netflix, they still wouldn't get as much with a PS4 under with that train of thought because as soon as a friend says, "tonight, let's play CoD!" They won't be able to do that until they buy PS+. With Live, they can do whatever they want, whenever they want. No, "ooops, I forgot, I don't have multiplayer gaming access."

phantomsignal, you are the only one outside of Sony HQ that has ever said PSN was better than Live and even if it were, the "free" aspect does not carry over once the PS4 comes out. If you want to play with others, you will pay to play.
 
if they bundled in a 3 month trial or 6 than sure.. but not a year. its just a bit much honestly. microsoft just dumped 300million iirc into cloud computing which is not their baby that is handled by another company. microsoft is committing to give us dedicated serves,cloud and support.. xbox live is quite nice.. and the ps network is not 100% free either if you really use it as described by others.

their is chatter about the tv connectivity not being xbox live enabled or required. this may somehow work in with netflix,prime,hulu. reamember some tv's are already wifi ready and have these apps so in theory you could stream them thru the tv/xbox one.. but i do think netflix/hulu/prime should be accessable without live as those apps are a subscription..

i am not upset about them wanting money to create a stable gaming community with dedicated serves to equal the playing field.
 
I really wished Live would be free when buying an Xbox. It would save quite a bit of money from my wallet. I mean we already had to pay for the console, and another $60 for each game we play. Sometimes I prefer using PS3.
 
You also had to buy a TV or a monitor to play it on. You have to pay the electricity to operate the TV and console. You need the internet to play Live. Other than electricity, all of those things are optional.
 
I liked the idea even of subsidizing the Xbox price with the purchase of Live, like they do with phones. If you pay for phone service, companies don't expect you to pay the full price of the phone, for example. Why not do the same for consoles? This was a rumor for the Xbox One's pricing for a while there, but obviously that didn't pan out.

I do agree they are making Live a bit more worthy of paying for now with the dedicated servers. But I also believe they could lift the restrictions on things like Netflix that really doesn't even cost them any bandwidth. I think it's a bad business practice, since it probably drives people who want to use Netflix to other devices like an Apple TV or Roku (or I dunno, whatever) instead. If I was Microsoft, I would think it's in my best interest to keep people involved with my ecosystem. Maybe they'd see an ad or demo for a new game etc and keep them interested instead of just turning them away.
 
Of course it should be free. Don't we pay enough for the consoles and games already? It is interesting to note that the first online gaming for consoles did cost money. I paid between $15 and $20 a month or so to play xband on my snes and sega genesis. It's not like microsoft needs the money.
 
I don't think Live should be free with the purchase of an Xbox. Most come with a limited time gold membership, don't they?
Including Live would make the community even worse in some areas (and possibly better in others) and would increase the price of the Xbox itself.
Microsoft would love major profit from including it rather than having subscriptions. I really don't see this happening any time soon.
 
I like that you get three accounts for one month per Xbox 360. Thus making it free for the consumer of the Xbox.
 
Yes, I think Live should be free with a purchase of an Xbox One. I mean the Xbox One is $500 dollars, there will be tons of Xbox Ones sold. I mean if you are going to charge us at least make it a reasonable amount.
 
mareebaybay said:
Yes, I think Live should be free with a purchase of an Xbox One. I mean the Xbox One is $500 dollars, there will be tons of Xbox Ones sold. I mean if you are going to charge us at least make it a reasonable amount.
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I also agree that it should be free. I wish they would offer us a year or two for free and then charge beyond that. It would be better than nothing. Regarding your words above, "make it a reasonable amount", what would be a reasonable amount to you? Isn't $60 a year a reasonable amount? That's $5 a month.
 
I really think that a free year of live should come with the purchase of an Xbox. Think about it. It would be a great incentive to get your current users to buy a new console. It might just contribute to e-waste, but it would be a great way to get people to cross over from playstation as well. I'm tired of paying for Live. *sigh*
 
It IS free for 3 months when you buy a new xbox.

Microsoft loses about a grand off of every console they sell. They make the money back from licensing rights from xbox 360 games. Ever wonder why games cost $60? Yeah. And here you were thinking that the hardware in there is only worth $399.99 at launch. Silly kids.

Anyhoo, my point here is that xbox live doesn't hurt coping the losses from console sales.
 
Um no. If they want to include a month trial or something, go for it. But I don't think we have any right to expect that they provide it for free. There are alternatives people! If you don't want to pay for online, play another console. Nobody has a gun to your head.
 
Since Sony has also agreed to follow suit with Microsoft's money earning scheme by charging for "online access", I doubt we will ever see any "free Live" ever in the future. Big corporations like Microsoft want all the money they can get, so they'll do whatever they can to earn sales. This is also the reason why they decided to do a 180 and change features on the Xbox One to appeal to a larger audience and therefore earn more sales.
 
KN1GHTMARE said:
No. I think the paid service is what made the difference this generation. Microsoft's servers offered a better service than Sony and is what made me stick to the XBOX over my PS3. I do believe, however, that some service shouldn't be locked behind a pay-wall so that they can stay competitive with Sony. I also think that Day One editions should include at least 3 months free just to entice new customers.
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agree on the 3 month free to entice players/new adopters.

they say the xbl can be carried over from the 360 to xb1.. but 3-6 months of free xbl service would show the capabilities and stability of their system which would help the 5 dollar a month purchase seem like a fair deal.

i do agree apps you are paying for hulu,amazon,netflix should be open apps as long as you have connection. but i dothink microsoft has a devision for apps and those are the big players and i am sure microsoft as a whole backs and helps keep them stable...
 
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