XBL: The Future of Gaming is not Free!

I aint so sure about this monthly payment thang. i´ll have to fork out plenty of mulla for xbl, plus my b/b connection from attbi - that costs me $50 alone... now if you imagine have 2 or 3 games that I want to play online and get nuked for those... could be talking of an online bill approaching $95 thats 2 games I could buy!!!!

MS better get their thinking hats on if they think they can milk this puppy

I´ve said it before and I´ll say it again, I´ll be cold and dead in my grave before i fork over a cent to greedy publishers. To anyone who claims, "They give new quests and items and a bunch of other things that you will never use," give me a break! If the game is successful enough to have a fair amount of gamers on at all times, then the company is making vast profits off of all the monthly fees and little of it is going to members of the development team unless they are getting royalties. For xbox they don´t have to pay for servers, yet with pso, the xbl rate is the same as the gamecube rate where they do have to pay. Also, for these multi-system games, how many of you actually think that they´ll make truly exclusive content for each system rather than just porting these new quests, items, levels, etc, with few to no alterations from system to system? Also, in order to make these games a better deal than buying a new game every 5 months, these companies would have to totally cycle in completely new missions, characters, quests, etc every 5 months. Yeah, i´m sure that´s going to happen (scoffs and then feels pity for the poor sucker who actually believes this will happen). Also, what about people who will never get through the quests that came with the game? I´ve spent countless hours playing diablo online and I still enjoy playing it! Also, I only play for a few hours on the weekends. Why then should I pay the same rate as someone who plays 40 hours a week and utilizes every new enhancement and download? This is a no brainer, at the profit a successful game can make in a matter of months just by selling the game and not charging a fee, publishers could develop thousands more hours of gameplay while never making a noticable dent in their profits!

Personally I don´t get into RPG´s that tough (my life is enough of an rpg as it is),..but the understanding I have is that XBL is still $50 bucko´s for 1 year with the exception of this game....Which I wouldn´t have a grievance with the fee if the game play was satisfactory...Gramps ain´t never been cheap!

Rpg´s would seem to need more frequent updates, like npc´s,..dialogue,..maps.. and maintainance etc.. than say an update of SC or MechWarrior, where all you need is a map a gun and a mission.

Well for $8.95 a month they better have dedicated servers and not a peer to peer type system like most of the other titles. Seriously if they think in november they can start charging $10 a month for what they are providing I´m probably outta here. I´ll be going back to the land of PC Gaming for my Online kicks

i think instead of jumping prices up you better put out some good games for the online system. most of us are waiting for halo2 or brute force but it keeps getting pu off .and some people do not want or like pso or online football . i think i will sell this xbox just like that dreamcast that was suppose to be soooo cool.i already put out enough money on games now you want more i dont think sooo .i will stick to my pc if the money gets going up.

I think $50 for 12 months of XBL is relativly cheap for playing unlimited, cept for PSO of course. I dont care that PSO charges another $8.95/month, sounds like it would be worth it, besides even on the PC you´ve got to pay to play games like Ultima Online ( one of my favorites ) etc.
But like someone said earlier, if all games start charging monthly fees, then thats going to limit the number of games someone can play online for a month and for me that would mean I´d probably have to pick one game a month to play online. Now that would just ruin XBL.
Sounds like this could also stir up competition amongst the XBL game developers and I dont wish to see that either. Lets make it even across the board for both the gamers and the developers.

it will be a cold day in hell before i buy PSO....If they think that we are going to stump up the cash for the game AND then pay for Xbox live only to be told " you still need to pay another monthly fee to play online" then they can go and #### themselves.....IF PSO GETS AWAY WITH IT THEN ALL GAMES WILL START CHARGING MONTHLY...STOP THEM NOW

Well thats quite a delimma. I can only say this, we all know that after PSO v.1 they where just testing us all outto see howo far we will go. But they had better change focus rather than charge someone too much just because they need the $$$. I think that some companies get over zealous about $$$. The real thing about games is to impress and be appreciated. Because favor is worht more than any sort of $$$, am i right ?
I believe if MS went out on a limb and made ALL XBL games free, then it would be a lucrative opportunity for all parties/companies involved.

uh one insight here fellas´PSO ONLINE IS JUST THAT ONLINE ONLY.THERE IS NO OFF LINE MODES OF PLAY.SO DONT BUT IT UNLESS YOUR ONLINE ...OR GOING TO BE ONLINE. :o)

I hope that Microsoft keeps the 50 dollars a year deal for XBL. And hope that PSO bombs because of the fee or they drop it because of bad sales.

wayne hill u´s somoking some crack boy - of course u can play pso offline.

PSO is not online only... there are two episodes you can play offline.

I´m hearing that alot of people have done went online with PSO.... But I think True Fantasy Live will be more worth the money.

I Will pay 50 dollars a year for Xbox Live,but I´m not going to pay a monthly fee to play Xbox Live.I´m also not going to pay to play a certain game like Fantasy Star.It cost about 52 dollars to buy games and they want more to play them online.I don´t think so.They either keep it 50 dollars a year or I want be playing online ever again.I hope Microsoft keeps it at 50 dollars a year.I´ll play Fantasy Star for the 2 months that it is free but after that I want play it online or any other game that´s going to come with a monthly fee.I don´t care how good the game is I´m not going to pay a monthly fee to play any game.

Nice article JASON.
I myself cant mess with live right now.
Im in a payment process, in effect of owing people´s money lol.
Keep up the good work!


--> [OnlyOnXboxLive365] <--

All we have to do is not play PSO online. If we all get together as gamers and boycott PSO because of the online fee, I bet they would make it free. We have control of everything. We are the ones who make these big companies profitable. Without us (the customer) these big companies would be nothing. If you don’t want to pay for online gaming then don’t. You will be ok trust me. Play what’s free on XBL and that’s it. Consider yourself lucky that you can even play games online with your friends. If we pay for games like PSO then what’s next. We will have to pay extra for every other game on XBL. We can make or break any game or developer. So you don’t play PSO online big deal, there will always be a better game or service around the corner waiting to give the consumer a better deal.

Now "EVEN THOUGH I SAID I AIN´T CHEAP,... DOESN´T MEAN I AIN´T BROKE",..while reading an article in "Game informer" about the upcoming "Counter Strike" game currently in development for Xbox...Valve,the developers of Half-life (as most of you probably know already)allowed online players to create Counter Strike,...And the players play for FREE,..but in order to play CounterStrike online you have to Buy Halflife @!*%. With over 2.5million copies of HalfLife sold already,...Valve has been able to maintain a steady income from the game,..while also earning bonus loyalty points and respect (not to mention repeat customers for other Valve products)from the huge throng of online Counter Strike gamers.

THIS IS A VERY REVOLUTIONARY BUSINESS MODEL THAT M$ WOULD DO WELL TO CONSIDER,..yes they have done well by slashing the cost of the xbox(but can we really say it was for love of the customer or just to stay competitive)..M$ has also initiated the "Classics Bargin Bin Program"..so they are moving in the right direction.

I believe that M$ is as responsive and alert as a Mega Colossal SoftWare Magnate could possibly be..I strongly believe That they would not choose to alienate the fledgling XBox community by trying to put the "Bite" on XBL users for additional Cheese..unless they can validate the cost by providing true entertainment value that the user would feel is worth the extra compensation.(I get loads of free windows updates on a regular basis for free)

PSO has always cost to play online,..M$ is simply allowing our greatest Japanese Ally(Sega) to continue "taxing" those poor addicted RPG´ers just like almost every other Popular online RPg provider continues to do... the real question is....What is it worth to you to play PSO ????

I heard SONY is going to be charging alot of fees with their PS2 online.
(that should fu(k it up for all of us)

i love online gaming as much as the next man or woman thats why im willing to pay 50 a month for broadband service and maybe up to $10 a month for xbox live but if a game like pso charges a fee on top of those fee´s im afraid i cannot bite the bullet. what needs to happen is if people want that new
weapon or that new quest or what ever the hel1 else they want
let them purchase it eventually joe smoe will like to have that cool weapon or would like to play the new quest that everyone is talking about that he or she will purchase it to

I´m with you Fire, I´ll pay $10-12 a month or even a flat annual fee of $125 . That´s $50 million dollars a year with 400,000 XBL subscribers, and that´s with the people already on. I think the more games out the more people will buy into XBL. They also have to remember that broadband isn´t all over the US yet, so the are gamers still dying to get Live.

personally

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Sorry I seem to have encountered some kind of glitch and I panicked momentarily, but ol´"Gertrude"(my computer) seems to have recovered now.

you people just don´t seem to get it...think about this. Cost of a server to host all those polygons. Cost of the big pipe to host the game. Cost of upkeep, backups, a team of administrators to make sure the damn thing works maybe 90% of the time.
There are development costs, marketing costs, shelf space to buy. My only gripe with this is....you can charge me for XBOX live and I´ll play at $10-$15 a month. You can charge me for PSO, if the content and quality is there. It´s like cable folks, you want the basics, you pay less, you want premium you pay more.

I think that xbox live has to be a yearly payment thing, cause i don´t want to have to worry about monthly bills. For the payment, it has to be less then a xbox live starter kit for a year. If it costs more then a starter kit then most people will just go out and buy a new starter kit, i don´t think it really matters what gamertag you have..well maybe a little but the bottom line is that to renew your subscription you have to pay on a year to year bases and it has to be less money to suscribe then it is to buy a new kit....XBL ROCKS.

You´re actually playing about $4.17 US / month for any online gaming... but as soon as you start paying for Phantasy Star Online, it´s going to be $4.17 + $8.95 = $13.12 US / month. If you´ll be paying for 3 of these kinds of games then it´s going to be $4.17 + (3 * $8.95) = $31.02 US / month. Ok, so lets say that you´re the type that will only play one game. Well then that´s ok for you but except that when you do feel like playing another online game where you have to play then it´s going to be abit inconvient for you.

Attention all babies crying about a fee to play games online.
90% of you probably don´t have jobs, ask mommy to help you. And the other 10%, stop collecting your paycheck since you so against someone else collecting one. Untill they create a new program the creates games and manages servers all by it´s self your arguements are weak.

But still ZON!!!

People work, some people have more importan things to pay fees on - that on videogames.Thats what some of you needs to understand.Its not convinient for all of us gamers to support such expensive charges on online support.When we can just fight back with our wallet to let them know it aint happening that way.I mean, I be pretty pissedoff 3 years from now.If I see a ´BRUCE LEE_Quest Of the Dragon´ type game sell millions.While seeing gamers pay $50+tax for it, and $10 monthly to play it live.And ALL of it just because its online.
Thats the thing some of you need to understand.There is too many overrated games selling like hot cakes right now.Next thing you know we have a whole-lot-more ..Of those crap games sell like hell because "it´s playable online" |-_-| + on top of that high priced .Well I aint having it.I say this is what companys like EA likes it to be like - so that they can suck us dry like a popsicle, in process for them to get more extrat profit from us. WELL I BE DAMN!!!


[ONLY ON XBOX365] <----------

If Microsoft is going to handle it that way, then they might as well give in to EA´s demands so we can get their games on XBL.

several comments seem to say that the authors believe in paying for everything, because we already pay for everything. this seems strange. what this new system is doing is charging you for the same service by two different companies. if your electric compay charges you for electric and then the cable manufacturers started to charge you because they made the cable that supplies you, you´d be up in arms, where´s the difference.servers running costs and maintenance are not that expensive at all!!! let´s face it, gamers do it so why not the publishers. The publishers! Oh yes, the corporate sponges who take your money again and again, for products which are run most of the time on the same engines as most of their other products, yet charge a premium for the privilege. why do some games shoot through the roof when released? because they genuinely are new. new idea, new design, new enjoyment. i bitterly resent paying through the nose for services which don´t cost that much to produce. it does not cost $50 to produce a game, not even $25 dollars. ms have made enough money off all their customers, and it´s about time they gave something back. same with all the others. we have the power: stop buying for a month, and see the difference it makes. comsumer power is bigger than they are and we should use it. to those who think this is narrow minded, take it from someone in the industry, they´re ripping us off and always have, halo costs as much as it ever did, and as long as people pay for it they will keep it up, project gotham loses it´s charm, surprise get it half price...

Basically, why should we pay for online content. ITs gaming for the rich. If they want to charge 40 pounds (as in the UK) for games in my view thats enough. Look at the companies involved, especially Microsoft, they make millions every year pure profit and thats WITHOUT Xbox live on the whole. What they are doing is fleecing the gamer out of every last cent for their fun. In my view the yearly fee for Xbox live is about right, the games are overpriced but if they include online capabilities then if I want the game I will pay. My Broadband connection is expensive enough already so why the hell should I pay anything like a subscripition for a particular game. Wake up Microsoft you will create a two tier system, one game for the rich and one for the poor. Stop taxing the fun out of life !!!

I personally will not pay more than a fair yearly fee for XBOX LIVE service. This is getting out of hand if they think most people will pay a monthly fee to play games they are wrong. I am hooked on XBOX LIVE but will not pay monthly to play any game. Cable modems cost enough on their own. I would not mind if the yearly fee went up a bit, but I already have two XBOXES and two XBOX LIVE accounts in my house now along with the cable fee. If Microsoft does this to me I will play direct link with friends and not renew my Live account.

Here it is, http://www.geocities.com/tnsalmisael/xlive.html

If you feel ripped off by microsft as well as me and the thousands more then please visit http://www.petitiononline.com/syngori/petition.html

From <a href="http://www.petitiononline.com/syngori/petition.html ">The Petition</a> Sign it now!!!

984. Matt Genevie <i>Xbox used their one fee for all games as an attack against PS2s multiple fees. I rember, we all remember. Thats why some of us bought the Xbox over PS2. </i>

Are you people slow?

seriously, companies are not in the business to just lose money. they ALWAYS have their financial line in mind with every decision they make.

also, you goofs compaining about the extra money it will cost have OBVIOUSLY never played, asherons call, everquest, anarchy online, shadowbane, earth and beyond, dark age of camelot, or many other MMORPGS.

the sheer amount of money it takes to finance servers, badnwidth, admins, developers, advertising,support team is staggering. they dont use crappy servers and a cable modem to serve you people, they use top of the line equpiment and OC3 lines.

PSO will be offering updates(unsure if its constant, monthly, or quarterly). its not like your paying for nothing here.

they are using their resources, time, and effort to supply us these games. for that they deserve your money.


seriously, you people need to learn about this new thing called an economy.

Jesus. Were gonna pay per game? y didnt anobody tell me?! no dont pay. All of you idiots who say that to finance servers and administrative staff and all that cost money bare in mind these people arent poor. You´re not feeding a starving family by paying for this. You´re paying the Ceo´s new porsche. You´re making sure they make larger proffit margins. Heck, if they couldnt afford it they wouldnt do it. Its not for the spirit of gaming its for nexts month´s pre tax proffits. Its for the company´s expansion, for bigger proffits and for more stupid avertising on websites, in magazines. People, dont feel sorry for them. I´m poor, i´m barely struggling to find the money to get broadband, im not going to be able to pay for online gaming. The dude who works at the publisher has an 8 bedroom house. f*** him, he wants more?! my heart bleeds. Its like pay per view tv. in many places you used to get it free. then they made you subscribe and pay for it, then they made you pay individual fees to see it, even thought you already subscribed. now why does it cost more than before? cos Mike t wants his new ferrari, or stupid tatoo. these people arent poor, wee are. lets stop giving them our money. when ps2 online comes up ill shut my wallet

"All of you idiots who say that to finance servers and administrative staff and all that cost money bare in mind these people arent poor."

wow....are you seriously retarded?

and what if they DONT charge us to use their services?

they go out of business, and dont make more games for us.

i swear, some of you idiots must not even be old enough to work jobs yet.

broadband is a luxury, not a right, if you are going poor keeping it than who´s fault is that? stop being a damn whiner.