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No Changes to Xbox Live Gold Pricing, Free-to-Play Games to be Unlocked [Update]

Panajev2001a

GAF's Pleasant Genius
Tbf the main issue was the TOO aggressive hike. Doubling the price didn't seem smart, and you don't underestimate how much power the CFO usually holds

A $5-10 increase would have gone without a hitch
Maybe, but your adoration of Phil aside, is there anything Xbox could do where you would blame Phil? Like ever :p?
 

longdi

Banned
Maybe, but your adoration of Phil aside, is there anything Xbox could do where you would blame Phil? Like ever :p?
The thing with Phil, is that you can tell he is trying his darn best to return Xbox to its glory days.

Sure there are fumbles with first party QC and some other there.

Phil just seems as likeable as Shu or Miyaomoto. They gets a pass unless they do some things as dumb as Don kinect šŸ¤·ā€ā™€ļø
 
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Kev Kev

Member
Honestly, just one of the most bizarre decisions this industry has ever seen. Doubling the price during a pandemic, $10 I could understand.
very bizarre. this whole story wreaks. just doesnt seem MS could be this dumb. maybe they just wanted a bigger pop in the news headlines that f2p games will longer require gold? even that doesnt make much sense tho...weirdness...
 

ethomaz

Banned
Holy shit, was that just a troll move to gather attention all along?
A troll move where you ship perhaps millions of paper cards to stores? I donā€™t thing so.

The backslash from the press and community were probably huge to the point to even give F2P being F2P as ā€œcompensationā€.
 
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Kev Kev

Member
A troll move where you ship perhaps millions of paper cards to stores? I donā€™t thing so.

The backslash from the press and community were probably huge.
did they actually ship any of that tho? if not, then i dont think calling this a stunt is off the table just yet. its just too weird that theyd think this would work. double the price?!
 

M1chl

Currently Gif and Meme Champion
very bizarre. this whole story wreaks. just doesnt seem MS could be this dumb. maybe they just wanted a bigger pop in the news headlines that f2p games will longer require gold? even that doesnt make much sense tho...weirdness...
There is no bad PR

Sometimes Microsoft seems to be run by this dude:

Michael-OLeary.png


But him, without a plan. Leary is probably the most effective CEO, ever. Spencer, well not so much
 

longdi

Banned
very bizarre. this whole story wreaks. just doesnt seem MS could be this dumb. maybe they just wanted a bigger pop in the news headlines that f2p games will longer require gold? even that doesnt make much sense tho...weirdness...
Yap that's what I think so now.
This smells like a tug of war between finance and sales. It happens all the time.

And tbf Ms stock is at an ATH, they needs to keep pumping earnings potential for shareholders. This seems like a move to cushion the heavy operating costs of SS/SX I expect to drag their results next week
 

ethomaz

Banned
Might be a case of a higher up over Spencer going ā€œfuck the nerds we need more $$$ā€. Although I though Spencer reported directly to Nadella now. If he signed off on this then he is breathtakingly retarded.
I believe that is probably the case.
Higher ups are not happy with the revenue and want to find more options to increase it.

The 50% increase in the price of Live Gold (even being 180) I believe is not a random move... the division needs and wants to take more from players.
 
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phil_t98

#SonyToo
this was a bad move by Microsoft, doubling the price with no added features or anything was always a bad look. free to play games is now a bonus off the back of this.

there should be no well done just should of known better
 

ethomaz

Banned
did they actually ship any of that tho? if not, then i dont think calling this a stunt is off the table just yet. its just too weird that theyd think this would work. double the price?!
We now about the price rise a day before the announce because the new cards reached the retails.
People shared the the pic of the cards.
 
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Kev Kev

Member
We now about the price rise a day before the announce because the new cards reached the retails.
People shared the the pic of the cards.
any proof of this? i havent seen any pictures of the actual cards. just did a quick google search but didnt see anything
 

ethomaz

Banned
any proof of this? i havent seen any pictures of the actual cards. just did a quick google search but didnt see anything

I donā€™t know how you missed the card pics.
It was the first page of all forum, press sites, Reddit, Twitter trending, etc.
That is what forced the the 180 move.
 
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Kev Kev

Member

I donā€™t know how you missed the card pics.
ummmm maybe becaus thats entirely different topic my dude? and gaf takes me to the last page of the thread when i click on it. and no one had posted that on this page. does that explain things a little better for you?

thanks for being snarky about it tho. dick
 

I'm nobody

Member
Seriously .. after 25+ years of dealing with corporate marketing teams from many different big companies...

that was the weirdest shit Iā€™ve ever seen.

you have to think ... a price hike like that was months if not years of planning and consultants ... and then just to say ā€œ whoops sorryā€ in less than a day??
/mind blown
It was a stunt
 

ethomaz

Banned
ummmm maybe becaus thats entirely different topic my dude? and gaf takes me to the last page of the thread when i click on it. and no one had posted that on this page. does that explain things a little better for you?

thanks for being snarky about it tho. dick
That was the original topic before the price rise announce... there are over 1k posts there.
The link sending you to last page means you already entered the thread before.

It is pretty hard to have missed that when even MS found the backslash too big to the point to make a 180 move in less than 24 hours.

Imagine how many emergencial meetings MS Game division had yesterday night just to decide that 180.
 
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Kev Kev

Member
That was the original topic before the price rise announce... there are over 1k posts there.
The link sending you to last page means you already entered the thread before.
no i didnt see that topic. i just saw this one and entered. there are no pics of the cards on this last page (which is where GAF automatically sent me), and you mentioning it is the first time i heard about it. thanks for answering my question tho

but if youre going to be a douche about this, i will just give you the finger right along with MS :messenger_tears_of_joy:
KJ5qPGP.jpg
 

ethomaz

Banned
no i didnt see that topic. i just saw this one and entered. there are no pics of the cards on this last page (which is where GAF automatically sent me), and you mentioning it is the first time i heard about it. thanks for answering my question tho

but if youre going to be a douche about this, i will just give you the finger right along with MS :messenger_tears_of_joy:
KJ5qPGP.jpg
You make no sense.
People help you and you keep attacking back lol
 

IntentionalPun

Ask me about my wife's perfect butthole
At least MS listens.

They need some people who understand how the public is going to react to things though,

If thereā€™s anyone internal who has warned them about some of their decisions, promote that person.
 

Hezekiah

Banned
So they put the feelers out, and saw the backlash to basically pushing people toward GamePass Ultimate and backed down šŸ˜„.
 

bxrz

Member
Phil actual listens to his fanbase when they raise hell. Unlike the other publishers. Nintendo games are still full price years after release. Sony and other publishers pushing $70 games (wanted to make it 80). The difference is concerning
 

SilentUser

Member
The price increase was surreal, glad to see they backtracking. They are really out of touch of the gaming market, they still don't have a single compelling exclusive that would make people oversee the major price hike.

They will increase the price later and to a much more reasonable price.
 

Hezekiah

Banned
Really? No. It was a greedy move they thought they could pull off, and sadly (imo) we had to rely on rage culture for MS not to go through with this.
Thing is, why was this even under consideration when MS are a $1.5tn company with money to burn.
 

Fbh

Member
I'll admit I totally didn't expect them to back down.
But it's nice they listened to the backlash and didn't go through with it.


Phil actual listens to his fanbase when they raise hell. Unlike the other publishers. Nintendo games are still full price years after release. Sony and other publishers pushing $70 games (wanted to make it 80). The difference is concerning

Is there really a big "backlash" or "people raising hell" against Nintendo pricing when 6 years old games like Mario Kart which are still being sold for $60 continue to make the top 10 best sellers list almost every single month and year?.
Same with the Sony pricing. I saw some people complaining but a lot were also saying it felt justified. On the other hand even most Xbox fans were upset about the gold price increase.
 

Hezekiah

Banned
There is no way Spencer did not sign off on this. Now he might have been forced to because he had to show a certain profit and he's gone on a spending spree of late. He couldn't raise the price of the console because that would kill it. He couldn't raise the price of Game Pass since that is their golden goose that they are trying to grow. Xbox Live Gold was the only thing left.

Now the question is "How will MS make up the money that they were projecting to make with this increase?" These price hikes weren't done out of the blue for no reason. I think they'll have to monetize Game Pass somehow. For example Game Pass games might show an advertisement on loading, while bought games wouldn't. Amazon has shown that this is a pricing model that people will accept.
Precisely this. Make no mistake, the Xbox division needs to start delivery results no matter what some fanboys claim.

GamePass will be getting an increase. It's their only way to make up that money they've spent of late, they won't be getting any significant return on the Zenimax deal anytime soon, especially with the all the deals given out, and a likely third place again in the console race.
 

NahaNago

Member
This backtrack on the pricing just means they will raise it to that price most likely by the end of this gen. Now they got me thinking how the other publishers are going to create ways of increasing or creating their subscription plans.
 

GhostOfTsu

Banned
Because as much as Playstation fanboys trying to pretend that Xbox fanboys are cult, they gladly take every shit Sony throw at them for fake feeling of superiority. Yesterday only people who does not do push back againts this, are those "look at them cultists"
You and those two other posters ( The_Mike The_Mike ) keep bringing up the 70$ PS5 games as deflection but that's only for first party games. The rest is still 60$ (Ubi). Multiplatform games that are 70$ on PS5 are also 70$ on Xbox so it's the same. What narrative are you trying to push? The price increase came from T2 and Activision anyway.

Besides, Sony games always drop in price after about 6 months. After a year they practically give them away on Plus/Now or Playstation Hits. It's a non-issue. You can drop the crusade.
 
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MacReady13

Member

I wonder if theyā€™re hearing us on losing Gold altogether to play online for free? You know, like there other service does on PC?
This is what you get for having Game Pass and giving games away for minimum price. You need to recoup somehow...
This is such utter bullshit. They listened and learnt!? Kiss my ass. Just go back to the old days of Xbox when you actually seemed to give a fuck about us gamers and gave us new and exciting games instead of worrying what games will appear on that shithouse subscription service that will eventually ruin gaming for us purists.
 

wipeout364

Member
While I donā€™t think a price hike is a big deal, it was weird that they did not see the blowback from such an aggressive price hike, they essentially jumped the price by 50%. Imagine if Sony had said they were jumping game prices to 89.99. Thatā€™s insane, they should have taken a page out of Netflix playbook, increasing the price every year by 10% or so.


Frog GIF

The free to play block removal is a good move though, they should never have been behind a paywall
 
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