X-Box Live Discontinued

[TreyDay]

2) Nobody who uses Live! actually has to pay subscription fees yet.

Everyone pays. When you buy the thing from the store, you're also paying for a subscription for a year. It was $50 then, but it came with a headset and a few demo games. It's just now when you pay, you only get the subscription.

I meant a lot of different PS2s because I know that you can't use some mod chips on some PS2 models. They're all still PS2, but they're different versions, just like Xbox Live! 2.0 is still Xbox Live!, it's just a different version.

And I don't really know how many versions of the PS2 are out, I was just exxagerating my guess.

[ian]

[quote="Dr Wily"]I don't think its going to get any more successful by MS throwing money at it.quote]

yes it will !! if microsoft tell people theirs is the best and put money into it people will soon be online gaming with their xbox

[Nyarlathotep]

2) Nobody who uses Live! actually has to pay subscription fees yet.

Everyone pays. When you buy the thing from the store, you're also paying for a subscription for a year. It was $50 then, but it came with a headset and a few demo games. It's just now when you pay, you only get the subscription.

No, because at the price of a game you get a full game, a few demos and a headset, and a years worth of Live!

Pretty soon you will be forced into paying a monthly fee to continue to use something you have already purchased, with absolutely nothing in return.

I don't see anyone falling for it, as im fairly sure anyone who actually wants Live! will pay a new $50 for a new kit, new demos and new (spare?) headeset, than $120 a year for, uh, jack shit and their old gamertag.

[MetalGearRay]

2) Nobody who uses Live! actually has to pay subscription fees yet.

Everyone pays. When you buy the thing from the store, you're also paying for a subscription for a year. It was $50 then, but it came with a headset and a few demo games. It's just now when you pay, you only get the subscription.

No, because at the price of a game you get a full game, a few demos and a headset, and a years worth of Live!

Pretty soon you will be forced into paying a monthly fee to continue to use something you have already purchased, with absolutely nothing in return.

I don't see anyone falling for it, as im fairly sure anyone who actually wants Live! will pay a new $50 for a new kit, new demos and new (spare?) headeset, than $120 a year for, uh, jack poop and their old gamertag.

Huh? How do you figure $120?

[Egotistical EvilN]

Huh? How do you figure $120?

Figure on more than 120.

Runescape $6
Graal $5
Everquest $14
Ultima Onlie $12
Earth and Beyond $10

etc...
And those prices are just for ONE game, whereas live contains 14 or so..(which two are decent - Mechassault,Unreal Championship, and Marvel VS Capcom 2, Whacked!)

[az_bont]

I meant a lot of different PS2s because I know that you can't use some mod chips on some PS2 models. They're all still PS2, but they're different versions, just like Xbox Live! 2.0 is still Xbox Live!, it's just a different version.

That's not the same. There's no noticable difference between the various versions of PS2, but there will be a noticable difference between Live! and Live! 2.0.

[atf487]

120, lol.

It's 50 a year for the service.

[TreyDay]

2) Nobody who uses Live! actually has to pay subscription fees yet.

Everyone pays. When you buy the thing from the store, you're also paying for a subscription for a year. It was $50 then, but it came with a headset and a few demo games. It's just now when you pay, you only get the subscription.

No, because at the price of a game you get a full game, a few demos and a headset, and a years worth of Live!

Pretty soon you will be forced into paying a monthly fee to continue to use something you have already purchased, with absolutely nothing in return.

I don't see anyone falling for it, as im fairly sure anyone who actually wants Live! will pay a new $50 for a new kit, new demos and new (spare?) headeset, than $120 a year for, uh, jack poop and their old gamertag.

$50 a year for a renewal. So, when you renew your subscription, you pay same price as last time, but since you're not a first time customer, you don't get all the bonus stuff, like demos and headset.

[|darc|]

Huh? How do you figure $120?

Figure on more than 120.

Runescape $6
Graal $5
Everquest $14
Ultima Onlie $12
Earth and Beyond $10

etc...
And those prices are just for ONE game, whereas live contains 14 or so..(which two are decent - Mechassault,Unreal Championship, and Marvel VS Capcom 2, Whacked!)

Do you even know what Xbox Live is?

And, uh, since when did Xbox Live have an exclamation mark behind it?

[Nyarlathotep]

Its not $50 for a year.

Its $6 a *month*.

So a years worth of Live after initial free years subscription is actually ~$70.

Plus the cost of any games you wish to play on Live.

Plus ISP fees.

I think you'll find yourself hitting that $120 very quickly, and thats excluding the fact that all MMORPGs released for Xbox so far, and planned for release, all entail monthly subscriptions *in addition to* your standard Live subscription.

And again, you get *nothing for that*.

Compare that to the (I would say standard) of PC online gaming, which is usually done in one of two ways;

1) Purchased game media with free online components afterwards:
As seen in StarCraft / WarCraft / Diablo 2 etc (except you actually *get* game servers with those games), a thousand different FPSs where the online multiplayer is a part of the cost of the game, hell pretty much every game you have to *buy* to play, you get free online gaming for.

2) Subscription based gaming - mostly MMORPGs, where you can download a free client and then play after a short trial period by paying a subscription - or in games like Planetside you purchase the game and get a fairly long free trial period, with subscription costs added after that.

Xbox live is a mixture of both of these in that:

You buy the game at full price (no discount for Live subscribers to buy a game thats utter crap without online play for example, like UC), AND then pay a monthly subscription to carry on playing but without any servers being provided for you.

I would genuinely love for some one to be able to explain how that is, in any variation of the defintion, value for money.

Also FYI RuneScape is $5 a month not $6 :p

EDIT: Oh, Id also like to point out that in Japan, you get PSO free with the Live starter pack. The full game. Not any crappy demos, the *full game*. Plus everything you get in the US and Europe.

And theres still nobody interested in it.

[|darc|]

Plus ISP fees.

Don't forget the basic needs. You need food, clothing, and shelter to survive. You can't play Xbox Live if you aren't alive, can you? Food can amount to quite a few dollars a day. And what about your electric bill? Cost to own a television? That's a lot of money a year to play online, even if you do get away without clothing or shelter.

[antidot]

I would consider Xbox live quite worth it. If you are here, you likly have the net connection. First year for 50 dollars is excellent. And no way is XBL going to die, it is MSes big advantage.

[MKE]

i cant see microsoft giving up on live. unreal championship and midnight club was 100x better online on the xbox than the pc. what this probably is (and from what i hear) it is an updated version of live, duh..., that will detect the modchip even if it is switched off. this new version already disables the ability to use the software exploits. this is probably more of a security update than a software update.

[Wagh]

Plus ISP fees.

Don't forget the basic needs. You need food, clothing, and shelter to survive. You can't play Xbox Live if you aren't alive, can you? Food can amount to quite a few dollars a day. And what about your electric bill? Cost to own a television? That's a lot of money a year to play online, even if you do get away without clothing or shelter.

lol

to me it just seems as though he had a bad experience and gave up installing it or something.

As for the 9.99 Xbox live set .. total bs. I went to 3 targets today. 1 super target and 2 regulars all of which looked at me like I had just bitten off a babys head when I asked them. They did have the new kits though with mech assault included.

[MetalGearRay]

Plus ISP fees.

Don't forget the basic needs. You need food, clothing, and shelter to survive. You can't play Xbox Live if you aren't alive, can you? Food can amount to quite a few dollars a day. And what about your electric bill? Cost to own a television? That's a lot of money a year to play online, even if you do get away without clothing or shelter.

http://www.penny-arcade.com/view.php3?d ... 8-25&res=l

Coincidence? I report, you decide. (Don't sue me, Fox)

[TreyDay]

Think of it this way. You pay $50 a month to be in their system. I don't mean a server for certain games, I mean their system. One gamertag, for every game. It's easy to keep up with people, and people know if you're Sk8terpunkrawkdood in Mech Assault, then they know you're Sk8terpunkrawkdood in Unreal Championship. It's a nice feature, and you know it's nice. And you know it's better than PC gaming in that aspect, which for me, makes it all worth it. bam.

[melancholy]

As for the 9.99 Xbox live set .. total bs.

No, our Target has them too, only they were $12 something. If I cared anything about Xbox Live, I'd probably had gotten one.

[Nyarlathotep]

Plus ISP fees.

Don't forget the basic needs. You need food, clothing, and shelter to survive. You can't play Xbox Live if you aren't alive, can you? Food can amount to quite a few dollars a day. And what about your electric bill? Cost to own a television? That's a lot of money a year to play online, even if you do get away without clothing or shelter.

Yes, I read penny-arcade too.

However, Sega when they did online games did so by providing their own ISP, so that when you *purchased* a game, if you wished to play online you used *their* ISP which was free, so you DIDN'T have any further ISP costs associated with playing the game online - let alone a frigging SUBSCRIPTION for jack shit.

Or are you seriously trying to suggest MS are incapable of providing a free ISP to Live subscribers?

unreal championship ... was 100x better online on the xbox than the pc.

You are high. UT2K3 pisses all over UC from an extremely great height.

Think of it this way. You pay $50 a month to be in their system. I don't mean a server for certain games, I mean their system. One gamertag, for every game. It's easy to keep up with people, and people know if you're Sk8terpunkrawkdood in Mech Assault, then they know you're Sk8terpunkrawkdood in Unreal Championship. It's a nice feature, and you know it's nice. And you know it's better than PC gaming in that aspect, which for me, makes it all worth it. bam.

So its advantage is offering a service identical to Steam or Gamespy, or UT2K?s stats tracking?

Except it randomly erases all those stats?

Oh, you've convinced me, its clearly not a scam to subsidise massive hardware losses by making people pay for a service they shouldn't have to.

[MKE]

hey Dr Wily, apperently you dont like your xbox, do you want to sell it? or is it just the xbox live service you dont like.

i think you can cancel out the isp as a disadvantage. most people have, or are going to, be upgrading to broadband/dsl in the near future becasue of the basic need for it and there getting sick of paying 2 phone bills, or not getting all htere calls, etc, etc. and yes, ut2k3 was better than us if you spent 100-1500 on a decent computer to run it on.

[CoasterKing]

I agree that LIVE is not worth the money at the moment but I've heard that MS will have lots of dedicated servers up by the time Halo 2 comes out. To be honest though I will get Xbox LIVE when Halo 2 comes out, dedicated servers or not