Outside of the infrastructure and cross game chat, XBL is quickly becoming a complete joke. This is just a cherry on top. PS+ has been infinitely more valuable to me than XBL ever has in its entire existence.

It's better then nothing. You didn't earn those rewards. You got them for doing what you normally do. Stop being so ungrateful.

They could give you nothing. 20 points isn't much yes but also take into mind you always have extra points left over after buying things I've had situations where I've had to spend 5 dollars because I was 30 points short on something. It will add up.

The main reason I buy games for the 360 is because they work. I got tired of buying PS3 games and then having problems with them. It got better now that we're at the end of the cycle, but it's not completely fixed.

I switched to PS3 for a few years and loved the free online, but hated how everything felt slapped together. Nothing was integrated, and the XMB was sluggish when in games. I don't buy games for the 360 because of the deals they have. I buy them because Sony fucked up. I don't want to lag in games, have varying levels of voice chat quality, figure out how to invite people in different ways per game, etc.

I love Sony's console, because I'm still on my first one rather than my 6th, but I like things that work on the software side as well and I'm willing to pay for them.

The rewards program is awful...I remember a sponsored achievement contest (I think it was Old Spice) and if you got a certain amount of achievement points in like a month, YOU GOT A $50 GAME....THOSE WERE THE DAYS.

I bought games for the 360 up until they redesigned it about a year ago, then I kinda stopped. I bought Persona 4 Arena, but thats the only game I bought last year for the 360. I realized that even though the Ps3 interface is crap. Its still not as bad as the Xbox. And the PC beats all of them So my xbox just dropped a place in my console race.

Funny, I wrote a blog not that long ago regarding Live.

I've been a Live subscriber for a long time now and I've rarely every had a problem with it but lately it's seeming a worse value compared to PS+ and while Sony keeps making their service more attractive MS basically says "meh" and offers nothing in comparison. The problem is they know they have all those CoD and Halo players locked and everyone else who has a friends list and people they play with so why would they change anything? It's a real bummer.

I'm gonna be keeping it for now cause I'm one of those idiots but when this next cycle starts, I'm gonna be looking at whats being offered. At one time the new MS system would have been a shoe in but now, not so much anymore.

MS maybe forgot to add 0 or two to the end of that 20... probably not. So at first I thought you were kidding and then I looked it up.

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2410404,00.asp

Spend $19,000 to get 30,000 MS points. WHAT IN THE FUCK is that BULLSHIT? >.>

That is a very large boulder on top of the hay pile that makes using an Xbox 360 a miserable experience.

I am loyal to many Microsoft products, and I am slowly seeing them ruin most of them. If Valve can pull of this "games in Linux" thing, I will gladly put on a red hat.

I don't mean to sound like a jerk here, and while 20 points is pretty insignificant they don't owe you anything aside from the features the service provides.

To be fair, they've been doing this for years. But the hoops you have to go through in order to get the real life points that effect your gamer score are so massive and convoluted that it's never been worth the effort.

I have an xbox rewards card in my wallet. I have never once used it, and I'm pretty sure all the places that you're supposed to be able to no longer take it.

@FluxWaveZ said:

HAHAHA, that's the surprise birthday gift? 20 points?

I also never understood the complaints people had with PSN's basic interface compared to Xbox Live...

See people have problems with simple to navigate UI. It's just too goddamn easy and lets face it it looks simple because lord knows how many hours people put into that game that's called Navigate Your UI. People need pretty pretty colors in their face. Lets not forget that people also can't live with ads plastered all over the screen too.

I really have no problem with the PS3's UI. I guess it's a side effect of growing up on old black and white movies.

Frankly my only problem with XMB is it's in-game functionality.

@Ozzie:

MS: HAPPY BIRTHDAY Valued costumer. Here's a quarter.

You: I'm sorry, I didn't know I was transported back in time to 1955.

@Ozzie said:

Between Sony and Steam, if Microsoft doesn't step it up they'll lose customers by the time this new generation of Consoles come out and I will be one of them, and just like when I first started playing Live, I'll never look back.

Agreed. I was a loyal XBL customer for years but a few weeks ago I decided to let my gold subscription lapse. I just don't see the value anymore. The dashboard gets gradually worse (increasingly less focus on gaming, more ads and social shit that I don't care for at all, terrible UI), the deals are mostly a joke compared to Steam or PSN and paying for online-gaming is laughable. Good thing one of their shitty ads reminded me that MS invests my subscription money into stupid timed exclusivity deals for COD mappacks - another straw that influenced my decision to not give them my money anymore.

a quarter.... hell a birthday party hat for your avatar would be better than that...

That's beyond words. Really don't want to pay for XBL now even with H4 and Judgment soon.

@FluxWaveZ said:

HAHAHA, that's the surprise birthday gift? 20 points?

I also never understood the complaints people had with PSN's basic interface compared to Xbox Live...

See people have problems with simple to navigate UI. It's just too goddamn easy and lets face it it looks simple because lord knows how many hours people put into that game that's called Navigate Your UI. People need pretty pretty colors in their face. Lets not forget that people also can't live with ads plastered all over the screen too.

I really have no problem with the PS3's UI. I guess it's a side effect of growing up on old black and white movies.

Frankly my only problem with XMB is it's in-game functionality.

@Ozzie:

MS: HAPPY BIRTHDAY Valued costumer. Here's a quarter.

You: I'm sorry, I didn't know I was transported back in time to 1955.

I'll probably buy a month or two of gold to play around with AC3, and Hitman online modes, but otherwise it's been a while since I've had a regular subscription. Especially with the offer of downloadable games (even if they aren't brand new), Sony's looking like they're going to get my business next generation.

HAHAHA, that's the surprise birthday gift? 20 points?

And that's why I stopped paying for Xbox Live Gold. Never needed it except for having to pay to access online multiplayer. I also never understood the complaints people had with PSN's basic interface compared to Xbox Live's and I've had both consoles for a long while now. XBL Gold is a joke compared to PS+.

WTF 20 points? I thought it would be an avatar prop or at least 400 points. How stingy.
 
Edit: Just checked my Rewards page and yup. 20 points.

Before you read this I want to make 2 things very clear:

1. Never written a blog before I just wanted to write down these thoughts, so bare with me (assuming anyone even reads this thing which I doubt)

2. I am not trying to start a console war, I'm just writing as a very aggravated customer of Xbox.

I've been a fan of Xbox ever since I first played Halo but once I got Xbox Live, and started playing online, it was a whole new experience for me that I never looked back from. That was about 8 years ago, since then we've seen a lot of changes and yes it does annoy me to have to go three or four damn pages just go get to the game section of Live but in the end of the day I still liked playing a game on the Xbox. However, with Steam being the craze that it is I was starting to wonder if I being ripped off by console gaming? It seemed like PC gamers had more options for price and could get really great deals, while I didn't. And yes I do play PC games on my computer but I don't really have that great of a gaming computer. So I just overlooked it and said well it's not like any other consoles are offering crazy deals. In walks Sony.

First it started with their free games which was already making me jealous of people who had Playstation Plus but I shrugged it off because even though it would be awesome to get free stuff it was nothing I was falling off of my chair over. Then it was PS+ members getting $6 off of a game they reserve off of PSN (not all but it's def a step in the right direction) which is pretty good so I started to get really annoyed why am I paying MS all this money to just play games online, what do they give me? I don't use any apps, most Gold Member only games come to PC any or even PSN, and the discounts they have are terrible. What so I get to use Bing and Youtube? Who cares.

So even with all my anger I was said "Whatever MS will probably come up with something soon right?" Well they did so far, and this is why I'm writing. For those who don't know you get money back on games you buy over the Marketplace now, if you sign up online. How much you ask? Well it depends on your Gamer Score which is already kind of odd but it's not ridicules only 25k for the max reward. Which is 2% back every month on every game you buy online and a gift on your birthday month... Now let me put some context behind this in case this doesn't insult you. PS+ member get $6 back for reserving new games that cost $60, you would have to spend $500.00 dollars to get $10.00 dollars from this deal, with the highest reward pack! So I got it to see what the deal was for the birthday since my birthday is the 18th of October and I got my reward. 20 Microsoft Points ... 80 MS is a dollar, 20 is a quarter. I've been a member for 8 years, bought tons of games and been a pretty loyal customer and they give me 25 cents. With this "deal", the amount I spend on the Market Place, and the 200 points I get for buying another year of Live I will maybe get $5 dollars a year if that from Microsoft, while reserving 1 game with Sony saves me $6.

This pissed me off more than anything else, I would rather get nothing and wait for them to actually come up with a good deal rather than try to give me a damn quarter. Who knows maybe a week from now they'll come up with something amazing and I'll be completely on board again, or maybe not.

Between Sony and Steam, if Microsoft doesn't step it up they'll lose customers by the time this new generation of Consoles come out and I will be one of them, and just like when I first started playing Live, I'll never look back.

EDIT: Thanks for everyone who read this I never expected over 1000 people to read this blog (at the same time didn't know I could post it on forums so obviously that helped lol). Everyone has their own opinion and they are entitled to that and I always respect it, even if I disagree with you. Thanks for the taking the time to read my thoughts.

- Ozzie Gonzalez