Microsoft hikes Gold Live sub price in Canada, Mexico, UK and US

I give up, but I saw this coming.
edit
@ 3, yeah but i always thought Microsoft went overboard with prices. Push it to the limit, limit.

So. Huh? Preparing for massive Kinect fail?

I don’t see why in the fecking hell you’d EVER raise the services price, when…

Okay, whatever,

$60 still buys you more for Live than $50 does for PSN.

So does that mean that it stays at £39.99 for 12 moths in the UK?

So how much is the price increasing in the UK?

@Razor, yes let’s talk about false economy.

@4, 5: If you pay monthly it’s going up £12 a year. It says there that other packages are unaffected, so if you pay yearly there’s no change.

Live’s main userbase is American, though. They just instantly netted themselves a bunch of money there.

So, no one likes it then, what a surprise!!

@7, sweet, UK win for 12 months sub

Can I just thank everyone who’s voted over the years for paying for online gaming as an additional overhead in addition to their ISP provider and endorsed a completely closed environment which also requires you to pay for access to internet based communities such as Facebook?

Thanks all. Well done.

Now if you could just endorse paying around twenty five percent of the cost of a full new game for some new maps… oh you already have? Thanks.

So no real difference then? I wonder why they raised it though.

better not come up here in Aus, we already pay up to $100… Greedy fucking M$, yes i know it’s a business, but this isn’t nessecary, Sony has proven that, not to mention online gaming has remained free on pc for countless years(excluding MMOs ofc)

Well, thank yourself idiots. Let them increase the prices and thank you all for voting for this piece of shit.

“OMG, InyourFaceBook iZ AWZOM, GONNA PAY!!1″

As gaming goes far this is ridicilous and someone thinks that to pay for LIVe is better than paying for MMO’s 10-15 bucks.

Oh, thanks Steam and 2D2 for not making this piece of trash.

@10 LOL

Anyone actually pay what ms asks for gold anyway? I think I paid 32 quid for 13 months, it’s supposed to be 40 for 12.

@3

$0 on PSN still buys you almost the same as $60 on LIVE.

omg pachter was right!!! D:

@16 I don’t know why i replied to him, that’s the most ridiculous post ever.

@17, was he? I thought the Pachter prediction was for a 3rd “platinum” tier to the service.

@19 Pachter predicted the price increase over all saying about other alternatives if possible.

R they nuts? They already reached the top limit of pricing imo…wow. Feels like a punch in the stomach. Gotta puke all over my xbox…live is an awesome service. I love it. Always questioned if its really neccessary to pay for it though. Always feel like a retard when i buy a new gold. This indeed will make me think twice. Im germany based though…but only a matter of time that we ll get the same pricing.

is there any bonuses to Live that Sony doesn’t already offer for free? i think they have arcade trials, is that all? this isn’t a baiting comment, i’m legitamately curious if there’s anything extra on the service, i’m not willing to get gold til Reach comes out, in the mean time my m8 lets me use his gold acc since there’s nothing on the 360 he can’t play onn the ps3 or pc that he wants

Who else thinks MS have done this because of Kinect?

I don’t think this too big a deal anyway.

Sites like Shopto will probably still offer subscription cards/codes for discounted prices. Just shop around instead of going to MS.

Mountains out of molehills.

If you were getting the 12 month cards, you were already saving yourself over $30 a year. If an extra $10 a *year* is too much for you?

It’s the first price increase for the service in EIGHT YEARS! Dear lord people…

Considering there’s over 24m subscribers worldwide (3m+ UK), i didn’t think they’d need to ask for more money. Especially when you consider the cash they’re raking in for Dashboard placement and almost US$ 1bn they’re making in revanue from Additional services, like Live Arcade and renetals.

If I were still a journalist, I’d be asking Crhis Lewis when he’s announcing what we’re getting for this extra money (six months after they shut live 1.0 so we could get expanded services.)

Don’t ask Matrick; I can see the response now…

VG247: So Don, you’ve just raised the price of a Live subscription by US$20, or GBP£10 per year…

Don Matrick: [Interrupts] Wooooh, yeah! [Claps at a mediocre pace] Did I say, Wooooh, yeah? Wooooooh!

Poor people lol

Laws of market are very strange, an opponent appears(psn plus) and live costs raise!

Wheres the problem? The XBL Service in this countries is awesome, not compared to Germany, so it’s no problem that the “amis” and britons will pay more. Either way, buy on ebay

@27

That’s probably the most ignorant comment I’ve seen since joining VG247… AND THAT’S SAYING SOMETHING!

Why should people just accept hiked prices? Regardless of whether they have large disposable income or not… they should always be vigilant when spending money.

I think people are making this out to be a bigger deal than it is, but Microsoft didn’t do themselves any favours by announcing it in such a fashion.

Even if it’s an illusory advantage, giving the bad news of the price hike followed by, say, “and we’re improving voice chat quality” would have been a better approach. Show give and take, not just take.

You think they will let me pay less if I don’t have access to all the bullshit I don’t use like Facebook, Twitter, all the bollocks “shows” they have on the Spotlight channel, Zune and so on?

No?

PC gaming onlines free and the servers are good. *pisses on XBL and PSN*

You would think with Kinect being £130 they would be doing the opposite of raising prices wouldnt you.

i love my pc and ps3/psp and wii and ds with the great cost of online gaming between them being the staggering price of £0.00.

If theres one thing i really hate about the 360 and microsoft is making a service which is free elsewhere charge for on there platform.

I always view multiplat games as nerfed on the 360 due to this if they have online.

^ The DS has online gaming?

@gekidami, not every single game but some do yes, though obviously no where near as robust or expansive as pc ps3 etc

I was playing pokemon battles online about a year ago on diamond

Hahahaha….the thought of selling my xbox is becoming even clearer as time passes.

Edit: Definitely not going to get Halo Reach now. I’m probably going to throw my elite up on craigslist this weekend with the 11 games i own and sell it for $300 all together. My live subscription isnt over until march of next year but this is just getting fucking ridiculous.

@Michael, i always knew you were a huge xbox supporter but you have really shown us all how much of a tool you are with your #25 comment.

Anyone else think this is anticipating lots of people renewing subs for Halo Reach? First thought that came into my head lol.

@39 – oh shit i forgot to resubscribe for reach! FUCK!

Alright, thats it. The fact that they are charging for playing a game online is just fucked up. I never use twitter, facebook
and any extra shit they are trying to release and get paid for. But those 10 extra bucks is just not okay with me. So after being a loyal xbox owner since 2007 i say FUCK U MICROSOFT. I am now supporting ps3, free multiplayer, all racing wheels are supported so is the bluetooth headset one can use to chat without paying extra to microsoft and many other functions.

And yet all the lemmings will still pay…
They know their market and they fully intend to exploit it just in time for Halo Reach.

up by a quid big deal…

@33 Wait, what? Piss on PSN because it’s not free? It’s just as free as you want it to be, it’s only if you’re a fanboy like me that you’d actually pay for the overpriced stuff called “PSN+”.

At least playing online is free on PSN, XBL forces you to buy time to play with friends. I like the 360 as well, but raising the prices is not a smart move for Microsoft. Right now I don’t think it will affect the amount of players that actually buy Gold (at least not significantly), they’ll just bend over and take it for now. But who knows what happens in the future? What if MS crosses a certain line? What then? :O

the way i see it as a multi console owner who probably has spent more gaming on the 360:

*couldnt give two fucks about halo reach, seriously its a sad state of affairs if a consoles first party line up has this as a majority player in the industry imo, ever heard of variety? said something similar on another forum and got slated. dont know about you guys but if i was in charge i’d make my portfolio stronger than just halo,gears,fable and forza.

*the price hike isnt a great deal but i feel the timing is shit, why didnt they do this during E3 2010 conference? with a sneak peak at what new features will be coming? nothing!

*there seems to be a change in employees at MS and a strategy i’m not taking to, far too much kinect talk and a first party line up that really is getting weak

*apart from the 360 slim sales stats i’ve read nothing else positive about MS for a while, the lack of game announcements from 1st party studios, losing exclusive games and concentrating on timed exclusive stuff is no good, it should be exclusive or not.

After Mass Effect went multiplatform i really cant see much point in owning a 360 (gears 3 maybe) and I feel they need a few big exclusive game announcements because its thin, getting weaker and the competition is gaining full speed with free online and a good blu-ray built in and exclusive titles, some very impressive ones at that.

i wouldnt mind coz dont we get espn and shit so no wonder they added an extra qid

@3 In other words your saying: “Microsoft shit on our face but atleast they tell you first”

LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOL

@ 25 I agree 100 %

lol who the fuck plays xbl in Mexico lolol

Well, if they offered a service where the online gaming alone cost $20/year or something then i wouldnt mind. I dont use any of the stupid bonus features like facebook and espn so why should i be charged for them. I shouldnt have to pay for online gaming either but if they are going to they should offer an online play package only deal.