XBOX Live Gold for sale on amazon

JohnnyRnR · Post by **JohnnyRnR** » Wed Jan 12, 2011 5:20 pm

For those in need of non family plans, $40 for a year isn't bad at all ($20 off MSRP).

http://www.amazon.com/Xbox-360-Month-Li ... 343&sr=1-1

Also, if anyone needs an xbox...
http://boards.collectors-society.com/ub ... ost4527239

Daniel Jackson · Post by **Daniel Jackson** » Wed Jan 12, 2011 7:45 pm

Odd how one pic has a $59.99 price on the package while the second pic says $49.99.

JohnnyRnR · Post by **JohnnyRnR** » Thu Jan 13, 2011 2:17 pm

That's likely an older pic (the cheaper one), they did go up $10 MSRP in November

Daniel Jackson · Post by **Daniel Jackson** » Thu Jan 13, 2011 2:42 pm

JohnnyRnR wrote:That's likely an older pic (the cheaper one), they did go up $10 MSRP in November

That's quite a hike in price.

JohnnyRnR · Post by **JohnnyRnR** » Thu Jan 13, 2011 4:41 pm

20% is certainly not insignificant, but it is the first time in the life of the service that it's gone up. (And with amazon and other stores frequently having promos like this, I've never paid MSRP for it.) They also introduced the family plan, which lets people "share" the cost, as long as they will share their login info with whoever the "patriarch" of the digital family is.

Daniel Jackson · Post by **Daniel Jackson** » Thu Jan 13, 2011 4:47 pm

JohnnyRnR wrote:20% is certainly not insignificant, but it is the first time in the life of the service that it's gone up. (And with amazon and other stores frequently having promos like this, I've never paid MSRP for it.) They also introduced the family plan, which lets people "share" the cost, as long as they will share their login info with whoever the "patriarch" of the digital family is.

Amazing how the price of games have remained relatively the same since the NES days, but MS feels the need to milk the online service after such a short time...

ian_house · Post by **ian_house** » Fri Jan 14, 2011 4:35 am

Daniel Jackson wrote:
JohnnyRnR wrote:20% is certainly not insignificant, but it is the first time in the life of the service that it's gone up. (And with amazon and other stores frequently having promos like this, I've never paid MSRP for it.) They also introduced the family plan, which lets people "share" the cost, as long as they will share their login info with whoever the "patriarch" of the digital family is.
Amazing how the price of games have remained relatively the same since the NES days, but MS feels the need to milk the online service after such a short time...

It has been about 4 years. And games have gone down in price if anything. I never see games at £50 or £60 now like they were on release dates for the SNES.

Daniel Jackson · Post by **Daniel Jackson** » Fri Jan 14, 2011 11:01 am

ian_house wrote:
Daniel Jackson wrote:
JohnnyRnR wrote:20% is certainly not insignificant, but it is the first time in the life of the service that it's gone up. (And with amazon and other stores frequently having promos like this, I've never paid MSRP for it.) They also introduced the family plan, which lets people "share" the cost, as long as they will share their login info with whoever the "patriarch" of the digital family is.
Amazing how the price of games have remained relatively the same since the NES days, but MS feels the need to milk the online service after such a short time...
It has been about 4 years. And games have gone down in price if anything. I never see games at £50 or £60 now like they were on release dates for the SNES.

They do run the occasional special that knocks 5 bucks or so off of a new game, but over here the new titles have stayed about the same.

JohnnyRnR · Post by **JohnnyRnR** » Fri Jan 14, 2011 11:16 am

That's not entirely true. In the SNES/Genesis era, some games at retail went as high as $90 (in the US). These were not special editions, no tin boxes, these were normal titles, like Phantasy Star 4, Street Fighter 2, Final Fantasy 3, Chrono Trigger. Plus these were 1990's dollars (worth considerably more than today's).

Additionally, the development costs on games is absurd in comparison to those older titles. You can't make a budget title today for less than around 20 million, God of War 3 clocks in at $44 million, Gran Turismo 5 at least $60 million (again, these values would have been significantly more impressive in the early 90's, but still, these are movie budgets). Regardless of higher development costs, there are budget titles, and they're often worth playing. i.e. Wet, Deadly Premonition, House of the Dead: Overkill, the entire Katamari series. There was no such thing in the NES era.

There were no server costs in the NES era, so nothing to compare to. Dreamcast/PS2 were the first systems to have use for them, so there was no precedent. The amount of data moving is drastically different. The Wii's online features are primarily there to sell overpriced ports of old titles, so they won't charge for that. PS3's is tiered, and the free play exists because it was a selling point to sell what at one point was a very expensive system. Xbox Live is currently the premiere online experience. It doesn't take me hours to download a system update like it does on my free PS3 service. Since 2002, it has raised its price once and added new features many times, I wish I had that luck with any of my other luxury services (cable, internet, the Metro Transit Authority). And it is still only $5 a month at MSRP (which again, I've never paid MSRP). Can't say I'm bothered.

Knightt · Post by **Knightt** » Fri Jan 14, 2011 11:42 am

Daniel Jackson wrote:
JohnnyRnR wrote:20% is certainly not insignificant, but it is the first time in the life of the service that it's gone up. (And with amazon and other stores frequently having promos like this, I've never paid MSRP for it.) They also introduced the family plan, which lets people "share" the cost, as long as they will share their login info with whoever the "patriarch" of the digital family is.
Amazing how the price of games have remained relatively the same since the NES days, but MS feels the need to milk the online service after such a short time...

That is because playing online/multiplayer is the new cash cow... classic example: my second oldest son wants to live like he is in a gypsy camp and cannot clean his room. Choosing to ignore my order to clean his room and playing online instead, I took away his ability to play 'online' (and grounded him) for two weeks. NOTE: I did not take away his 360. He has games, can borrow my games etc etc... so while he has no online access he could VERY well play the single player campaigns on any number of games. But what does he do ? You got it... he does not even turn on his 360 because he is too hooked on multiplayer that he does not know what to do with himself.

The Cash Cow must be sacrificed to and people are just too hooked on it to let up... and don't get me started on World of Warcraft, where you pay to play the game you bought.