WarMaiden – Judgement of a DarkValkyrie

Once again, Steven Ballmer's Microsoft has demonstrated its continued desire to squeeze more money from its customers. Yesterday, the Microsoft XBox 360 blog MajorNelson announced that the prices for XBox Live Gold subscriptions would be increasing on November 1, 2010 and would affect users in the United States, Canada, Mexico and United Kingdom.

According to the blog, the new price scheme will be the following:

source: MajorNelson.com

The stated reason behind these price increases is the following: “since launching Xbox LIVE in 2002 we have continually added more content and entertainment experiences for our members, while keeping the price the same. We’re confident that when the new pricing takes effect, an XBox LIVE Gold membership will continue to offer the best value in the industry.” Well, I have a problem with this.

I use my XBox 360 for online gaming very rarely, but when I do, I use the many 3 month membership cards that have been gifted to me over the years so that I am prepared when some of my friends foolishly challenge me to a game of Ace Combat 6 or Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. When I log in to X-Box Live, I see all sorts of useless content and garbage, like connection to Facebook and Twitter or downloading the latest movies. My X-Box is a computer that is solely dedicated to allowing me to play games. I do not need to access web pages or do tweets or access Facebook or watch movies on Hulu on it…that is what my PC computer is for. All it should be doing is letting me play my games by myself or online, nothing more. Microsoft has gone too far in following this stupid mainstream idea that everything should interconnect with everything else for convenience. I understand that they believe this is what the consumer wants, but they should carefully look at what market sectors this notion applies to.

I took the following sample of comments from the MajorNelson.com blog post to see what some of the reaction was to this X-Box increase. As you will see, the news has generally not gone over well:

  
source: MajorNelson.com

You know, the Playstation Network allows users to play their online games for free and has a pay-level membership for those who want extra content…now why can’t Microsoft emulate something like that? This business model has helped entice me to have brand loyalty to Sony, since they seem clearly demonstrate that they want their customers to enjoy their products once it is purchased. But allowing long-term free game access does not seem to be part of Microsoft’s business style, so I think that having an Xbox Live membership level where people can play the online games and have no access to “additional content” at the original prices would be a good idea. Microsoft can then offer modules for their extra content and features that can be added on for individual monthly fees, such as Twitter and Facebook access. This would make the Xbox community much happier.

But, I doubt that will happen…unless Xbox Live users band together and conduct economic warfare against Microsoft over this issue. We, the consumer, have the power to dictate how a company like Microsoft will behave in the marketplace, because they need us a hell of a lot more than we need them. Boycotting any pay subscriptions to Xbox Live and sending Microsoft emails informing them that their prices should remain as they currently are would certainly do the trick.

Today, I’ll be sending Microsoft an email protesting this price increase and proposing the solution I’ve written above (they’ll most likely ignore me, as they have done with other non-game related issues I’ve written to them about). I’m going to use up my XBox Gold subscription cards before they expire due to this change in pricing policy and then disassociate myself from Xbox Live…it’s not really something I need to have, and I certainly won’t pay to use it with my own money (it’s definitely not worth it, in my opinion).

This whole thing is kind of amusing though, because despite Microsoft’s history with its consumer, I firmly believe that this XBox Live price increase would not have occurred if Bill Gates was still in full charge of Microsoft. Ah well, that is the past. It is Steve Ballmer’s Microsoft now, and just look how well the company is doing now.

Heh.