According to Michael Pachter who is an Analyst at Wedbush Securities on GT Bonus Round. Right at the end of chapter 3 he states (paraphrasing), "Microsoft wants Xbox360 gamers to only buy games for the 360 and not PC. Especially multiplayer so they can charge $50 a year to $100 a year, I think we all know it's going that way".

I'm very curious about this statement. Unless there is a major change in how Xbox Live works, I cannot see any reason for MS to raise the price. Yes, Project Natal is coming, MS is releasing new features for Xbox on a yearly basis, but what would make an Analyst think that a raise in price will occur?

Before Live, charging for multiplayer services outside of MMOs was virtually unheard of. I don't see any reason why MS wouldn't raise the price if they thought they could get away with it.

Also, given the overall functionality that they are offering, there could end up being additional tiers to Live. In a way, there already are (just not all of it goes to MS). In order to get Netflix on the 360, you're paying MS and Netflix a monthly service fee. There could well be additional services in the future that you could add ala carte. Or, MS could bundle a Netflix subscription into your Live subscription. They could try launching their own OnLive style service through the console.

On a pure gaming side, I can see them charging for Clan support. The possibilities are endless.

I would rather see ads in the dashboard than have a price hike.

Yeah - or adds during loading times in games.

The worst thing, is that if M$ did increase the price of live, most people (including myself) who make use of it would probably end up paying it regardless.

Online play is a big thing for me - it's what I do most.

Crazy thing is, even if they only raised the price by one dollar, they would still make millions of extra dollars just due to the live install base alone. That has to be tempting to a large money hungry corporation...

You already do...I just downloaded a Wendy's Dashboard theme about a week ago. There's advertising all over the place on the 360 from games to the dashboard. Ive had a huge problem with the price and haven't paid the full $50 since I originally got the xbox live starter kit back in 03 or 04 (i think) for the original xbox. I've only bought $30-40 12 month cards since they became available, or have paid a few months, then stopped for a few months. $50 to play online is already a tug on my wallet, if they start hosting tiered accounts which cost more, I will not pay to play on the 360 at all. Live ultimate edition only $69.99 a year allows you to play online games anytime you want! Live Premium edition $49.99 a year allows you to play games from 7am-10pm mon-friday...

Anything beginning with "According to Michael Pachter" has about a 10% chance (IE: dumb luck) of actually happening.

They just recently got me to pay them what they currently charge, that will change if they decide to increase it.

I could see it being more modular.

I would gladly pay for cloud like storage for my saves to access anywhere for an additional $5 a month.

I actually could see them dropping the fee for multiplayer and doing more subscription type stuff like that.

I think if they were smart, they'd do that. One of the PS3's biggest features is the free online multiplayer. If Microsoft wants to try to get more people on their consoles, one of the biggest things they could do is make the jump to free online multiplayer, at least in terms of playing the game.

The only problem I could see is sales may actually drop, whether that's a little or a lot. From the people I know from my old high school, if/when they play games, they just want to get online and play. They don't care about OXM Reports, Insider Tips, or anything like that. The game is all they want. Many other people could be like that as well. . . And in return, Microsoft might see a drop because of that. But who knows: Maybe a jump in sales of the console itself, due to that kind of change, would cancel out any drop in previous LIVE sales.

There already are ads in the dashboard, and it would be incredibly foolish for Microsoft to raise the price further

Remember the analyst doesn't know anything, but is speculating.

Gamasutra has an article where they mention companies like EA didn't add their sports games to XBL cause they felt they deserved to get money for customers playing their games online (way back before the "new" EA) and Activision is now thinking that since Call of Duty is one of the most played games online, they deserve a cut as well.

So Gamasutra throws out thoughts like paying a premium to those companies for discounted DLC and "included some kind of online multiplayer that wasn't available on XBL Gold".

Face it these companies want their part of the pie when they make popular games that are on the Top 10 played games online each week. Maybe not EA, but certainly Activision is looking that way.

Thoughts?

If something like that ever happened, it'd cement my decision never to buy that kind of game again.

I'm fine with paying for XBox LIVE, because paying for the account assures me I'll be able to play my games online, and access all game modes. No "locked content", basically. As soon as I start needing to pay more for a specific, lone game, I begin thinking of MMOs. . .

I play Dungeons and Dragons Online because of the community. There were times when I considered quitting, until I met some really cool people. I pay for the singular game because of them, and others I've yet to meet (as well as, obviously, being allowed to play the game). Being told, "You can only access that if you pay more" would make me immediately begin judging the community -- is this a group I want to align myself with? Do I have any incentive to get to know these people?

XBox LIVE's general population points to no to both questions, it seems. If I had to pay more to play all of a specific game. . . It had better be game of the freaking century, not year, because no amount of DLC or blocked content is going to make me pay more to access kids mic-spamming and super-competitive players. :/

That's just my take on how I look at payments.

I'm already considering dropping Xbox Live and just playing PC games. If they raise the price I'm done. It ridiculous to pay for a P2P service AND see ads. I should do one or the other. Maybe if Microsoft would stop throwing so much useless crap into Live it would be free. Last.fm? It's called Pandora. And I can already use it for free on my laptop and my freaking phone. Why do I need to pay $15 a month for a radio service that can't even run in the background?

It just so happens Xbox users are getting an email about Microsoft's Rewards Program that is being tested

Hmmm...coincidence?

More Info about the Rewards program

Official Microsoft Link

Yea was reading stuff about that earlier, doesnt really mean they will raise the price but more incentives for people to stick with m$ and give feedback for points.

I will stick with them since I usually buy my 12month cards when my tax return hits so it's not too big of a deal.

Ok, I just had to call 18004myxbox to stop my re-occurring payment today with the news that Netflix will be available on the PS3 with the next patch...but anywho onto my gripe. Why can't I cancel my account from my xbox? The only options it gives you is to change payment type, or change payment dates i.e. 1 mo, 3 mo, year subscription. It doesnt even tell you how to go about canceling your account... Makes me very weary to ever start it back up without using prepaid cards.

here's the netflix site for PS3 users:
http://www.netflix.com/InstantStreamingDisc

you can't really "cancel" your account. you just have to let your gold status expire. as for the re-occurring payments, you can do that from xbox.com. i don't have it turned on so i'm not sure but it is probably under my account->membership level. mine says "automatic renewal: OFF"

to remove a payment method:
my account -> manage payment options -> remove your payment method

xbox.com won't work on my firefox for whatever reason. Still sucks that they won't let you cancel from your console, that was my gripe.

are you sure? i recall they recently added more account management settings to the dash.

have you tried IE?