Published in Gaming

Xbox Live subscription going up

by on31 August 2010


20% price increase arrives in November
After seven years of Microsoft keeping the cost of Xbox Live Gold subscriptions at $49.99 per year, the company will raise the price to $59.99 in the U.S. Other regions, including Canada, Mexico, and the U.K., will also see pricing increases. One-month subscriptions for U.S. subscribers will be jumping to $9.99, while 3-month subscriptions will increase to $24.99 in the U.S.

While Microsoft is already spinning the announcement as the price increase will still provide Xbox 360 owners with the best value in the industry, many are left to wonder about this latest Microsoft move. Of course, the news isn’t being well received by subscribers, with many already taking to the Internet to voice their frustration. (This isn’t actually the first adjustment Microsoft has made to the Xbox Live Gold subscription pricing, with the company dropping the free month on pre-paid 12-month cards, and reducing them from 13 months for $49.99 to 12 months for $49.99 last year.)

The cost in bandwidth and servers continues to increase; and while not saying it publicly, it forced Microsoft to respond to these increases in kind to continue to provide the service. The timing of the announcement could not be worse, with several publishers already talking about new models for their titles that could include an additional subscription cost beyond the Xbox Live cost.

Microsoft has been quick to point out that the increase isn’t coming till November, and for a limited time current subscribers are being given the chance to add an additional 12 months to their current Xbox Live subscription for $39.99, which is more than 30% off the new price. In the meantime, Microsoft continues to talk about all of the new things coming soon for Xbox Live Gold subscribers, such as ESPN on demand for Xbox Live, Video Kinect (new video chat application) and Hulu Plus.

We suspect that Microsoft is going to take a significant amount of flack for this decision, but with Halo Reach coming in a couple of weeks and Call of Duty: Black Ops just around the corner, if the decision to raise the price had to be announced, it was best that it happened now in our opinion. Still while Sony has added their premium subscription tier, a significant amount of online content and online match making is provided free of charge. Still rumors of this model changing at Sony might be the best thing for Microsoft at this point, but still we suspect that many users will be very unhappy with this latest decision by Microsoft.

A number of Internet retailers are already dropping the price of pre-paid 12 month Xbox Live Gold subscription cards. Prices have already dropped to as low as $39 with additional price drops expected till the inventory of pre-paid Xbox Live Gold subscription cards runs out.
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