Yesterday came the announcement that the price of an Xbox Live Gold membership is going up. The new pricing schedule takes effect November 1st, with a 1-year membership growing from $50 to $60. Nerd rage was quick to bubble up across the net, some of which I believe is justified.

Major Nelson justified the price hike today stating that since 2002 "... we have continually added more content and entertainment experiences for our members, while keeping the price the same." This is all true; when I first started on Xbox Live in 2005 it was specifically because I wanted to play games online. Since then the advantages of Gold have grown: early access to game demos, Netflix instant queue, last.fm, Facebook, Twitter, and weekly discounts on downloadable content have all been added. An ESPN channel, Hulu Plus, and AT&T Uverse content have all been announced and are in the pipe for Live Gold.

All of this content is supposedly inflating the price of Live Gold. This is a service whose core functionality is online gaming, which Microsoft's competitors and many gamers agree ought to be free. This is a service which has opened up more opportunities than ever for advertisers while still charging a premium to its members. This is a service that takes a cut from every peice of content sold in its online market. To me, the Xbox Live Gold service is starting to look a lot like cable TV.

If you're subscribing for cable or satellite TV, you probably don't watch all the channels you get in your plan. You can choose how much to get for what price you want to pay, but there's always going to be some amount of bloat in the package that doesn't interest you. Xbox Live is starting down this path, broadening their stable of services to a point where everyone in the audience is going to find something they like and something they don't. When these new services were included in the original price, I have little to complain about. Now the price is going up but consumer choices are not.

As long as Live Gold remains the only avenue to play games online on Xbox, Microsoft will have an audience for their premium subscription, myself included. With all of these new services, Gold subscribers deserve more choices as to what services they can receive through Live. "Take it or leave it" is no longer sufficient. I've occasionally used last.fm, I watch Netflix almost every day, and I've been salivating over Hulu Plus. But I have zero interest in ESPN, and I'd argue that the Xbox 360 (or PS3 for that matter) is the worst platform ever for using Facebook and Twitter. I should have the option to opt out of some of these "channels" that I don't need, and to have the price of my subscription adjusted for that.

Xbox Live brings a lot to the table, but it's starting to put things on the plate that not everyone ordered. Give your consumers better choices, and we'll keep coming back for more of what's best for us.

What I'm Playing:

• Main Campaign: Shank, Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World
• Side Quest: Rock Band 2

....IT'S ONLY 10 DOLLARS.  It's the same price they charged back on the original xbox and now they provide at least 10 times better service for what you pay.  I'm fine with it.

I just hope this means that they are going to add much more content. Last FM, FB, and Twitter are sort of useless because they aren't integrated into LIVE very well. But they've already got me by the balls and LIVE is my preferred platform of online gaming, so I guess I'm in for the long haul.

If you give Microsoft a chance to piece-meal everything they will only make it more expensive than it already is. Much like cable, if you only want to play online that's $20 and if you want friends lists etc. that will be another $20 and then all the other items like hulu and Netflix will be $5 or $10. 
Right now Microsoft only has the one price so they can't raise it too high but if they had multiple tiers they would get crazy with it and much like cable the prices would skyrocket.

I use Netflix near constantly, but I just got a Blu-Ray player that also streams Netflix, Amazon VOD, and Pandora.  So now I'm questioning why I'm going to be paying $60* for this service when I really only need it for Super Street Fighter 4.
 
*ok, admittedly I'll pay a lot less since I bargain hunt for cheap 12-month cards, but still...

I used to use Netflix, but haven't touched the 360 version of it in months (it has to do with where my PS3 is, not how good the relative versions are).  I have used precisely zero of the other added features.  I think most of the problem is that they are hiking the price with no known coming service to justify it.  Mentioning the old additions is a lame attempt to justify it.  It's like giving a customer an sandwich one and then the next time telling him a sandwich costs more because he got a free one last time (kind of, I know the simile isn't perfect). 
 
However, I believe it's worth considering that there are new features coming.  Remember how they killed off original Xbox support?  According to Eric Neustadter that was so they could bring in new features.  But any way you look at it, this is a critical failure of PR.  When Awesome-Service-Update comes out later, nobody is going to say "ok,  I'm cool with the hike now". 

They've promised to upgrade the voice chat quality and are asking for 10 dollars more a year. It's easy to swallow if I can actually hear everything my friends are saying instead of having them cut in and out.

"Since then the advantages of Gold have grown: early access to game demos, Netflix instant queue, last.fm, Facebook, Twitter, and weekly discounts on downloadable content have all been added. An ESPN channel, Hulu Plus, and AT&T Uverse content have all been announced and are in the pipe for Live Gold.
"  

" They've promised to upgrade the voice chat quality and are asking for 10 dollars more a year. It's easy to swallow if I can actually hear everything my friends are saying instead of having them cut in and out. "

I think that this pill wouldn't be as hard to swallow if 1 - there was another competing service that also cost money & 2 - Kinect wasn't coming out the same month.  They keep talking about how Kinect is going to change everything and how they have to upgrade the dashboard & & &... i guess they have to upgrade the price too so people can wave their hands in front of their 360?  I think timing is everything and this decision was poorly time to coincide with the Kinect launch.

Yeah, once you're fine with a price hike of any sort, they'll take the opportunity to raise the price a little more. On the plus side, my stock of Live Gold cards I bought for a just in case scenario would tide me over if I ever decide to actually use the gold 360 subscription (I don't play a whole lot of multiplayer games, and when I do I usually stick with the PC to somewhat avoid "little kid syndrome". Somewhat). 
 
It's even crazier that people see it as okay because they're offering so much more, but all they're offering is a collection of otherwise free or separate subscription-based services that you have access to on any other device you own. That's one of the things that got me to finally build myself a HTPC. Much more versatile than any console is going to offer you.

It sort of makes sense, but the only problem is that most of those features are exclusive in the United States. People in Canada and Mexico are getting screwed over with fewer additional features added. 
 
But eh. I can still afford it.

Netflix instant queue, An ESPN channel, Hulu Plus, and AT&T Uverse content have all been announced and are in the pipe for Live Gold.

I was pretty angry when I heard they were doing this. What have they
added to justify it?  I didn't pay my monthly fees for integration with
crappy apps like FB or Twitter.  I pay NETFLIX to view Netflix video,
so I don't see how Xbox Live does anything to help here.  I could go
buy a blu-ray player that has Netflix included & I don't have to pay 
Samsung, Sorny, or whoever a monthly fee to channel Netflix in 
order to use the device!
 
There is nothing to justify the higher price, perhaps doing it to give
Major Nelson a raise or boost company profits & that's all. So far
this year, it seems like there has been an endless barrage of 
money grubbing in the Xbox market already.  Endless DLC, games
with fixed codes to keep the games from being sold used, higher
used game prices, higher XBL game prices, shorter content so you
hurry up & buy another one.
 
If something isn't done to address this rampant greed, I'm going
to need to reconsider my investment in the Xbox when next year's
subscription runs out.  I don't want to feed the greed machine as
feeding it will just increase the prices again, probably sooner. They'll
keep jacking up that price until enough people complain, then they'll
stop & leave it at that fixed point where it's barely tolerated by the
existing customer base.  It has nothing to do with affordability, I just
don't like paying extra money for nothing.  Like Cable TV is currently. 

these new things aren't really all that new. these services are free somewhere else. there are now devices that don't cost any extra to get netflix on. microsoft just wants more money also.

Dude....come one they made a SHIT ton of cash from live last year. THey dont need the extra 1 million to give us more services. Unless we are getting Hulu Plus for free...its not a good thing at all. I renewed my year today for the 40 bucks. but for newer people coming in... :/ I cant not believe the amount of people saying its only 10 bucks....thats not the fucking point! Paying extra for nothing is dumb as shit. thats all.

I don't use the Facebook on my 360. I have a computer. I don't use Twitter on my 360. I have a computer. The only feature they have that I might use sometime in the future is Netflix but I would have to pay extra for that. I would also have to pay extra for Hulu Plus. Thank god they are adding ESPN for free or I wouldn't be using anything...

While I don't think the price hike is the smart thing right now, (Sony finally caved on charging for stuff, now Sony is gonna get back on its high horse saying "Its cheaper than LIVE!") I still have no problem with the price hike. 
 
Is it the new cable? Fuck no! Cable costs more per month than Live costs in a year.  
 
On a totally separate point, I have about 2-3 years of Live service saved up at the end of my time by now. I haven't even paid the full $50 for a year of service over the last 3 years. Heck, they even have a dashboard advertisement for $40 a year right now. Just buy 3 years worth and worry about it later. Or, buy the cards on Amazon. They are almost always on sale there. 
 
The only people this should really piss off are the people who keep getting banned for being idiots, or 12 year old kids who can't decide on a gamertag and keep using Mom's money to start up another account every 2 months. 
 
Looking at everywhere my money is spent each year, Xbox Live is one of the better investments I make. 

" ....IT'S ONLY 10 DOLLARS.  It's the same price they charged back on the original xbox and now they provide at least 10 times better service for what you pay.  I'm fine with it. "