Now would be a great time to stock up on the 1-year subscription cards. This comes a bit as a surprise to me but most retailers have been offering them for $10-20 below retail (the cards themselves) for a while now.

wait, where are you seeing 1 year cards for 39.99-29.99?

Amazon usually sells 1 year cards for $40.

http://www.amazon.com/Xbox-360-Month-Live-Gold-Card/dp/B0029LJIFG/r

Sounds like MS is aiming for the upper limit of what consumers are willing to pay for. Reminds me of Activision.

So stupid.

I suppose this is their justification for the price increase, taken straight from the email I got about 10 minutes ago:

I wish that could be an option, if you want those features you pay the extra $10, TBH I don't need Hulu and ESPN streaming I have my laptop hooked up to my TV for that.

indeed, it'd be nice to opt-in to the extra features, but i guess 10$ isn't too bad of a price hike for 1 year membership, they could have done alot worse, but they could have also been nice and left it at the same cost, hopefully the expanded features well prove to be worth the extra 10$

It breaks out to less than three cents per day for the new annual rate, it's not that hard to swallow.

I pay monthly so an extra £1 isn't too much to ask I guess.

So Canadians have to pay more for what new features again? We don't get Last.fm, Netflix, Hulu, and I doubt we are getting ESPN, so the only thing is Video Kinect (which is just an overpriced webcam) which I would probably never use in the first place. I used Video Chat on the PS3 a total of 2 times, and that was free, with a MUCH better camera.

Greedy ass microsoft. does the pay increase with your service come with a blow job? what special new features am I paying for? Or am I paying for greedy ass executives vacation fund? If you are hurting that bad microsoft why don't you find a way to get gamestops to stop selling ur used consoles which fail most of the time anyway. The gaming industry is hurt more by fucking gamestops that push used games instead of new ones which puts the $ into gamestops pocket and not the people that made the game. if people only bought new copies like they used to then every copy sold would actually benefit the people slaving to make the games. same shit applies to ur console sales. if gamestop wasnt able to sell ur shitty used consoles then people would just buy good working new ones which would inturn put those duckets back in ms's pockets and they wouldn't need to up their xbox live cost. If you think piracy kills the gaming industry...look at how many gamestops and used games stores there are worldwide. All those used copies sold is $ in gamestops pockets not the developers...isn't that like worldwide legal piracy? selling somebody elses hard work second hand to turn a profit for urself? think about it....i used to be high up in gamestop but quit due to them just being a company that rips customers off.

Awesome story, take it up with GameStop cause nobody here gives a shit.

As for the price hike, I don't really mind it for the most part, I'm definitely excited for the new XBL features though. Probably gonna grab a cheap 12 month sub from Amazon anyways since my gold sub expires in november.

They really need a cheaper membership option for people who just want to play online.

The ESPN service alone is worth the extra baggage.

But I'm good on live for another year, but I always buy my cards from Amazon for $40 so no biggie here.

If they want to raise prices, let them. They aren't a charity.

ilyace nobody gives a shit about you being excited about stupid new features. im simply trying to give insight as to why they raise prices. ive made video games (worked at bioware)....sold them (gamestop) etc i think i know more about why they raise their prices than u do when ur just a stupid consumer whore. the reason they know they can get away with a price increase is because people like you that are ignorant will just pay the price instead of wonder why its gone up or even care why. thats cool you dont feel like what i have to say is relevant...ur entitled to ur opinion but if you have nothing intelligent to add then just shut the fuck up and buy ur stupid xbox live. consumer whores like u are the reason why stuff like this happens. all u do it buy buy buy without questioning. im sure u live ur life this way too. like a stupid tool of society. fuck you very much and i look forward to hearing you cry back.

Dude I'd believe you work at Gamestop maybe but Bioware? You can barely speak English.

if more people asked questions instead of just buying then these companies would be forced to change their strategies...but alas americans's have lost the ability to think for themselves and just eat what they are force fed. if people complained enough about the increase then microsoft wouldnt do it. plain and simple...but people as a whole are too lazy to care. they just go with the flow like the rest of the puppets.

when people think this way..."If they want to raise prices, let them. They aren't a charity." they can do what they want and they do. so if they charged 100$ you would pay it because its not a charity? at what point as a consumer do u draw the line or is the world nothing but consumer whores that only know buy buy buy? i look forward to reading all ur childish remarks about how i dont know what im talking about even though ive designed games u probably play lol let the fun begin

Right so this thread went from XBL price hikes to life lessons from rianchio23.

I don't think I'll ever understand the whole "companies aren't allowed to make money" argument.

What do I do when they raise prices? Stop buying. I don't pay for XBL (mainly because I don't have a 360, though I do want another) but I'd be fine with paying $60 a year for things like ESPN.

The market isn't filled with sheep. Some people may be dumb in the general sense, but everyone cares about their money.

By the way, you sound like a ten year old.

Pretty sure he is.

I personally think that the price raise is stupid and wouldn't ever pay for something like xbox live to allow me to be able to play online with it. I agree with what someone said on the other page though, they need an option for people who just want to be able to connect to online games and that's it. I'm sure half of the basement dwelling nerds could care less about ESPN or being able to see each other with kinect. They shouldn't be forced to pay more money for random ass features they never wanted, have no use for, and will never be using just to support some people who might.

What planet do you live on? The xbox 360 has a huge market share. Micrsoft know that a small (and in my opinion justifiable) price increase isn't going to lose them a fraction of subscribers, people have paid for the console, paid for their games and I very much doubt that they're going to stop playing online when it's roughly the added cost of a pack of cigarettes for the year. It has nothing to do with people being lazy, it's just to most of us $10 isn't a big deal, surely if you have had a full time job you would know this?

meh, i'd have to disagree, i'm sure the cost for the servers, r&d, labor, and deals with company's like espn, and such are very high, raising the sub cost probably was one of the alternatives to cover the cost's of everything(although this is only speculation on my part, perhaps microsoft is already turning a high profit)

I'd imagine they are as bandwidth costs can't possibly be that high per person, but there's nothing wrong with making more profit.

of course not, i'd imagine bandwidth cost is only around 10-20k a month(that may be a bit high, but i wouldn't put it out of the realm of possibility), but the cost of labor(tech support, repair centers, r&d groups, etc), are quite high i'd imagine

How much have Live subscription numbers increased anyways? That's the only conceivable way I can see them needing more tech support, and repair center use should have lessened with the new models too.

R&D probably is going up though since they really have been churning out new things as of late.

valid point, but you'd be surprised at how often people call tech support for the littlest problems, however i'd hope gamers would be a bit more competent, as the repair center, the new models have only been out for a short time, their's plenty of old consoles that still get the rrod=-), but yes, i'd agree that the cost for the two are most likly going down.