Why am I playing for xbox Live

[digiram]

First of all, I wanna say that I like and support the move they're going with the PC support and such.

However, stop half assing this move. Make XBL gold free already.

To me, my XB1 is nothing more than a Windows 10 box connected to my living room home entertainment center. I have no problems with that.

Make the move now MS. Make Halo and all your franchises available as a Windows Store Exclusive. Battle with in the app space with Apple, Google, and Steam. Make it all cross buy/play accross your ecosystem. You already have 20 million or so Steamboxes, pretty much, that Valve was trying to sell in people's living room. You can't keep your two gaming platforms seperated at this point. It makes no sense. My next console will just be a Windows 10 box that I'll build, pretty much. So, just do it already. This will by my last year as a gold member.

 

[futurefields]

They'd be throwing hundreds of million of dollars a year away if they did that.

 

[Anteaus]

Wonder how long it will take before MS will require a Xbox Live Gold-like subscription to play online games that are distributed via the Microsoft Store. With Forza 6 PC on the horizon, I'm sure they will try to monetize everything.

 

[Lil Frier]

They had better freaking keep things separated. The second they start trying to make it all the exact same, you start screwing everyone with a controller.

Besides, the console people's dollars are probably what keeps the PC gaming free right now. It's more likely everyone has to pay than no one. Microsoft is a company built on services now, and XBL is a major one. I think they said they had 48 million active users last time they reported. At the low-end assessment of $30/user, that's $1.44 BILLION in revenue. Do you really think it would be smart of them to throw that back? That revenue is probably the biggest reason the Xbox division still exists, since the hardware doesn't make them much money and the game publishing has much higher costs to produce, I'd imagine.

 

[digiram]

They had better freaking keep things separated. The second they start trying to make it all the exact same, you start screwing everyone with a controller.

Besides, the console people's dollars are probably what keeps the PC gaming free right now. It's more likely everyone has to pay than no one. Microsoft is a company built on services now, and XBL is a major one. I think they said they had 48 million active users last time they reported. At the low-end assessment of $30/user, that's $1.44 BILLION in revenue. Do you really think it would be smart of them to throw that back? That revenue is probably the biggest reason the Xbox division still exists, since the hardware doesn't make them much money and the game publishing has much higher costs to produce, I'd imagine.

Everyone with a controller is already getting screwed. Why are they paying for XBL and not Windows 10 users? For Halo 5? Because we're accustomed to it?

Also, they'll get more people buying the xb1 again with this move. Many people that have the ps4 would be willing to get an XB1 if they don't have to pay for online. I did the same thing last gen, and picked up a ps3 later on even though my main console was the 360.

I don't mind paying the fee, but they know they can't charge that fee to pc gamers and they essentially want the xbox to be the Windows 10 unit under your tv. If anything, maybe make XBL gold like EA Access. Vault full of games, new Games with gold still, older games get added to the vault later. I'd probably still buy into that. Shoot, I bet pc gamers might buy into that to. There's lots of value in that.

 

[Lil Frier]

Everyone with a controller is already getting screwed. Why are they paying for XBL and not Windows 10 users? For Halo 5? Because we're accustomed to it?

Also, they'll get more people buying the xb1 again with this move. Many people that have the ps4 would be willing to get an XB1 if they don't have to pay for online. I did the same thing last gen, and picked up a ps3 later on even though my main console was the 360.

I don't mind paying the fee, but they know they can't charge that fee to pc gamers and they essentially want the xbox to be the Windows 10 unit under your tv. If anything, maybe make XBL gold like EA Access. Vault full of games, new Games with gold still, older games get added to the vault later. I'd probably still buy into that. Shoot, I bet pc gamers might buy into that to. There's lots of value in that.

Microsoft wasn't having to house all the infrastructure of online gaming on PC, I wouldn't think. Now, they're running 300,000 servers. They're putting out games that function off servers for physics (Crackdown) and A.I. (Forza). I don't know how it compares to what they do on PC, but they're doing a lot so I don't have to rent a server or set up matches myself on my Xbox.

Again, the XB1 hardware doesn't make money. The loss of revenue by cutting LIVE subs won't be made up by incoming users. The XB1 is listed around 20 million users. They're around 50 million XBL subs. They'd probably need to double their hardware sales to make it up in software sales, and with lower profit margins there, the profits still likely don't balance.

Given all of the features of the XB1, you're kind of getting an Access-like experience. Without the funding of XBL subs, they might not have had the money to commit to the employees to get BC up and running. You're getting 4 games/month with GWG, that's 48/year. EA Access has about 15, and some of them are older versions of outdated sports games that have newer versions in the Vault.

 

[digiram]

Microsoft wasn't having to house all the infrastructure of online gaming on PC, I wouldn't think. Now, they're running 300,000 servers. They're putting out games that function off servers for physics (Crackdown) and A.I. (Forza). I don't know how it compares to what they do on PC, but they're doing a lot so I don't have to rent a server or set up matches myself on my Xbox.

Again, the XB1 hardware doesn't make money. The loss of revenue by cutting LIVE subs won't be made up by incoming users. The XB1 is listed around 20 million users. They're around 50 million XBL subs. They'd probably need to double their hardware sales to make it up in software sales, and with lower profit margins there, the profits still likely don't balance.

Given all of the features of the XB1, you're kind of getting an Access-like experience. Without the funding of XBL subs, they might not have had the money to commit to the employees to get BC up and running. You're getting 4 games/month with GWG, that's 48/year. EA Access has about 15, and some of them are older versions of outdated sports games that have newer versions in the Vault.

So, the only people that are paying to support this "cloud" are the XBL gold subs? C'mon man, makes no sense. Or are the Windows 10 folks not getting in on any of this "cloud" action? So silly.. lol

 

[CA19100]

They'd be throwing hundreds of million of dollars a year away if they did that.

Maybe. There's also another possibility: clinging to an expensive subscription model is losing them billions in sales to guys like me who've moved to PC gaming rather than buying the next generation console (and continuing the XBL subscription).

 

[Lil Frier]

So, the only people that are paying to support this "cloud" are the XBL gold subs? C'mon man, makes no sense. Or are the Windows 10 folks not getting in on any of this "cloud" action? So silly.. lol

It makes perfect sense. Microsoft can't gain any traction in PC gaming by charging the players money for online play, not when Steam and private servers are there. However, they've got loads of money, in no small part because of the paying XBL customers. Sony said itself years ago that a free PSN was unsustainable, and started charging for online gaming this generation.

Maybe. There's also another possibility: clinging to an expensive subscription model is losing them billions in sales to guys like me who've moved to PC gaming rather than buying the next generation console (and continuing the XBL subscription).

Maybe in revenue, but not profit. Without the subscription, your profit margin to them could very well be lower. The hardware's break-even, at best (given it was a slight money maker at $500 and is now down to $350). Having the sales mean nothing if the profits aren't there. XBL is probably pure profit on a per-user subscription rate, by now.

 

[CA19100]

Maybe in revenue, but not profit. Without the subscription, your profit margin to them could very well be lower.

On the console, I agree with you, but I am also no longer buying Xbox games, which is also a huge source of licensing revenue.

 

[Lil Frier]

On the console, I agree with you, but I am also no longer buying Xbox games, which is also a huge source of licensing revenue.

Yes, but they have to pay to fund games, and third-party ones probably aren't major revenue. They might be losing your business, and maybe even a million others, from games, but they'd lose almost 50 million people's paid subscriptions to LIVE. That service is probably the most profitable thing (by percentage) of any portion of the division, since the infrastructure's already up and running.

 

[CA19100]

Yes, but they have to pay to fund games, and third-party ones probably aren't major revenue.

I disagree that it isn't major revenue. It's a huge driver of revenue! Microsoft takes 20% of the retail price of a typical third-party game as a license fee. No risk, no development costs, just a royalty. Multiply that by the millions of games sold every year, and it's huge money.

 

[Lil Frier]

I disagree that it isn't major revenue. It's a huge driver of revenue! Microsoft takes 20% of the retail price of a typical third-party game as a license fee. No risk, no development costs, just a royalty. Multiply that by the millions of games sold every year, and it's huge money.

Yeah, $12/game, vs. $60 for Xbox LIVE. Now, I went with a conservative number of $30/year for XBL user, let's call it $36 for easy math (given $30 is basically the bare-minimum and a lot pay twice that, $36/user is still probably fairly low). For Microsoft to BREAK EVEN on going free with XBL, it would have to make up for 48 million users' lost revenue. At $36/year per-user, that's $1.728 billion.

Using VGChartz, the Xbox One is at about 20 million consoles and 117 million games sold. To hit that $1.728 billion, Microsoft would have to sell another 144 million games. At the purchase rate of 5.85 games per-user from VGC, Microsoft will need to add another 24.6 million consoles sold. Do you think that if Microsoft made Xbox LIVE free, it would increase its consoles sales by 123%? That would be hitting about 45 million, or about 8 million more sales than the PS4 has.

Now, remember that that's just a single-year number. Those users have to then continue to average about 6 games purchased per-year. Sure, some of that would be made up in accessory sales, and probably in digital sales (where a retailer takes no cut), but you're still, on the low end, saying that Microsoft's user base would double if XBL went free. Given that the PS3 and 360 basically tied last generation while the PS3 was free to play online, I don't think you're going to see that happen, not even close.

I hear too many complaints from non-Xbox gamers about Xbox before XBL's price tag comes into play. It might have swayed a few million if the generation STARTED with Sony's putting in a subscription and Microsoft's dropping it, but even then, it wouldn't have added anywhere near enough people to make up for it.

 

[cmdrdredd]

Wonder how long it will take before MS will require a Xbox Live Gold-like subscription to play online games that are distributed via the Microsoft Store. With Forza 6 PC on the horizon, I'm sure they will try to monetize everything.

Forza 6 Apex on PC is a F2P model...just remember that when you wonder why everything costs money and is hard to earn legitimately.

As for Xbox Live...running a good online system that keeps everyone connected to friends and allows all the functionality you get from it is not cheap. Sony learned this and it's why they also make you subscribe to PSN+ to play online games on the PS4.

Don't be surprised if they bring the subscription model over to Windows 10 eventually for their exclusive titles that you cannot buy through other sources. Offering incentives like monthy game giveaways for members etc. Not at all different from on their console. They could even have your single subscription work between both the PC and XB1. So you subscribe once and can use the service between both platforms. Since all future Forza products will be developed for PC and Console at the same time this could be easy money for them. Even more so if they start developing more titles to be released on Windows along side the console. Though I don't see how that is very good for their console business *shrug*

 

[ronbo613]

Eventually, there will be no Xbox and a Windows computer, they will be the same thing(from Microsoft, anyway). Microsoft wants to sell(control) all your entertainment and computing needs. Gaming will probably only be a fraction of it.