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[Jomjom]

Most companies aren't taken to court by governments across the world for anti-trust and monopolisitic behaviour, so no, "haters gonna hate" is not a sufficient explanation for their reputation. Most people do not begrudge success.

Apple might well pick up a negative reputation for their continued abuse of the patent system, and again, its not just because they're big, it's because they're using unfair methods of competition.

"Haters gonna hate" is not what I was going for. You were talking about public perception of companies and their poor business practices. I think we agreed that virtually all public corporations are guilty of some form of shady business. What I'm merely stating is that the perception of their wrongdoings is generally proportional to how big the company is and how well known their company is.

For instance, when Apple was just releasing the iPod and their other new products under Steve Jobs, it's not like they weren't using Foxconn to build them. But did anyone care, was there ever a single story about it? No. Now that Apple is bigger than Microsoft, those negative stories abound.

So, using some amorphous metric like "more negative public perception" doesn't really objectively measure anything and moreover isn't something that can even be proven. Something that would be better is some objective measure like consumer complaints per million costumers or some sort of customer satisfaction metric taken by some third party.

 

[rpmurphy]

It costs millions per day to run Xbox live.

Electricity, bandwidth, customer service, monitoring, engineers, maintenance. That's also outside managing content, and other functions which blend with other portions of the operation.

Just keeping it up and running it costs millions.

It is possible to create more revenue by giving away some online services to the end consumer for free than to pass the cost of infrastructure upkeep to them. In fact, a ton of tech/web companies best in their business sector do this (including the one that I work for) and if you suggest to them otherwise, I think you'd get some crazy stares. That's not to say that MS shouldn't charge for Live because they've obviously has been very successful with that model, but it isn't necessarily the model to follow for everyone forever (maybe even for MS in the future, who knows).

I think charging for p2p is a relic of a bygone era for MS. They can't just drop it this late in the generation, so have instead decided to move into monetizing the service in other ways so they can offer p2p for free next gen.

Yeah, I would like to guess that they would be actively considering moving towards a free online service, but I really don't know too much about the business that deals with delivering services from content providers (like Netflix, ESPN, Facebook, and whatnot) and how ad revenue works into that picture or however they make money in it.

 

[Hoo-doo]

And it shows, in so many ways.

The operation of Xbox Live and PSN are quite different, security is one portion where Xbox live trounces PSN.

The content of Xbox Live is leagues better.

The customer service is also better.

Feature set is far better. Feature evolution is at a faster pace, too.

I get what I pay for. My 17 cents a day goes to good use.

I'll give you security, but that's about it, even though PSN has come a long way.
Content is simply a matter of taste, customer service is atrocious on both ends, and the feature set is nigh identical apart from cross-game chat, which sony already added to the Vita, and will undoubtedly end up on the PS4.

I have zero issues with you justifying it with a silly-sounding daily price, but over 5 years, you have spent hundreds of bucks on a service that everyone else is offering for free. I'd personally rather spend that money on actual games.

 

[NullPointer]

I think ads are here to stay for everyone and they'll become increasingly more intrusive across all consoles, well, maybe not Wii U as Ninty make more than enough off their core games to fund their service for decades.

That worries me when it comes to investing in any walled-garden platform. MS could come out of the gate next gen with a nice offering but who's to say they don't patch ever more intrusive ads into the basic experience once they've hit a nice critical mass of users? They have a history of using that lock-in to remove value from Silver while charging for free apps.

Its that uncertainty that has driven me back to the PC for most of my gaming at this stage. Next gen will have to do something crazy to win me back to the consoles. Will probably just wait and see for as long as I can.

 

[Vilix]

Yep. They did indeed build a better mousetrap.

Problem is, we're the mice.

Xbox 360: 257K (-49.3%)

It's steadly going down. Honestly, how many more COD, Halos, and other FPS's can people play? The industry is running itself into the groung IMO.

 

[Speedymanic]

It's steadly going down. Honestly, how many more COD, Halos, and other FPS's can people play? The industry is running itself into the groung IMO.

How's the PS3 looking?

 

[Bleepey]

It costs millions per day to run Xbox live.

Electricity, bandwidth, customer service, monitoring, engineers, maintenance. That's also outside managing content, and other functions which blend with other portions of the operation.

Just keeping it up and running it costs millions.

MS tried to make people pay for online PC gaming. Remember that.

 

[DopeyFish]

It is possible to create more revenue by giving away some online services to the end consumer for free than to pass the cost of infrastructure upkeep to them. In fact, a ton of tech/web companies do this (including the one that I work for) and if you suggest to them otherwise, I think you'd get some crazy stares. That's not to say that MS shouldn't charge for Live because they've obviously has been very successful with that model, but it isn't necessarily the model to follow for everyone forever (maybe even for MS in the future, who knows).

Eventually they will be able to drop the price or remove it entirely

I would guess it will happen when the system can handle DD as a focus. Likely next gen.

Just for argument sake:

Xbox Live fee alone in terms of revenue across 20 million members is equivelent to 40 million members spending $100 per year on XBL

They breach DD first day sales, they may be able to justify it.

 

[Speedymanic]

MS tried to make people pay for online PC gaming. Remember that.

And dropped it just as quickly. It was naive of MS to think the success of gold would translate over to PC, but that's the old, naive MS.

 

[Vilix]

How's the PS3 looking?

Dunno. But, my guess is that it's not fairing any better.

 

[Hoo-doo]

And dropped it just as quickly. It was naive of MS to think the success of gold would translate over to PC, but that's the old, naive MS.

You are missing the point here.

 

[SquiddyCracker]

I consider X-box Live Gold to be Microsoft's way to hiking the prices of games without people noticing.

Buy 5 $60 dollar games a year, pay live, and you're actually paying $66-70 per game every year.

Multiplats on the 360 aren't appealing to me when I can get them $6-10 cheaper elsewhere, and the exclusives are not worth $66-70.

 

[Mandoric]

Not true. Phone up MS tomorrow and say you want to cancel gold, I guarantee they will offer you a severely reduced price for a years sub. MS care about retention, you just have to know how to play the game.

And it's interesting you bring up Sky, the parallels between the two are too big to ignore. You pay your sub, Sky goes out and acquires exclusive content for their platform, the exact same thing MS does.

My experience with cable consumer retention: "We can offer you free HBO for six months."
My experience with MS consumer retention: "Do you have a brother or a cousin who may want to share your account? You can probably get him to pay."

My experience with MS consumer retention in your world, where the sun is green and magical Live fairies wash my dishes: If I spend half an hour on the phone "playing the game" every few months, I can wheedle the full unnecessary charge down to half an unnecessary charge.
My experience on Steam or PSN: I can actually sit down and play a fucking game.

 

[JJD]

Every time we get a negative thread about MS the fanboys show up talking shit about Sony.

Every time we get a negative thread about Sony the fanboys show up talking shit about MS.

It's getting tiresome you know...

 

[funkystudent]

With that kind of cash being left on the table its even more stupid that sony hasn't completely redone the ps3 XMB yet to something more fictional that they could also sell ads on.

 

[BigDug13]

And yet I don't have to pay anything to get the same TV stuff and play games online on the ps3.

Please don't get started with this. Sony doesn't have a good track record here. How many weeks was there zero service and how much personal info was stolen about users?

 

[TUROK]

Hard to believe that little square in the lower right-hand corner is causing such a stint. Doesn't bother me.

 

[OldJadedGamer]

Eh, that ticker can easily be turned off. I haven't seen it since the day I bought the console.

It cannot and if you think it can, please provide a link to the directions on how.

 

[RealDeadOne]

Hard to believe that little square in the lower right-hand corner is causing such a stint. Doesn't bother me.

Are you missing how almost everything else on there is taken up by ad space and there's one tiny little "Play your game" box in the top left?

 

[Speedymanic]

That worries me when it comes to investing in any walled-garden platform. MS could come out of the gate next gen with a nice offering but who's to say they don't patch ever more intrusive ads into the basic experience once they've hit a nice critical mass of users? They have a history of using that lock-in to remove value from Silver while charging for free apps.

Its that uncertainty that has driven me back to the PC for most of my gaming at this stage. Next gen will have to do something crazy to win me back to the consoles. Will probably just wait and see for as long as I can.

I don't blame you, I don't mind ads but I can certainly see why some are so against them, especially when they begin to actively invade a service.

Saying that, it's a massive money maker so the benefits it can potentially bring can't really be ignored either.

 

[Speedymanic]

Hard to believe that little square in the lower right-hand corner is causing such a stint. Doesn't bother me.

On every tab don't forget. And ads often take up both the top and bottom windows on the right. You just happen to catch it when the top window was game related.

 

[Orca]

Are you missing how almost everything else on there is taken up by ad space and there's one tiny little "Play your game" box in the top left?

How big does 'play your game' need to be? Does it make any sense to have that be huge and have the notice about new content be small?

 

[RealDeadOne]

I think people are mistaken in thinking that people are really annoyed by the ads. The annoying thing is the principle, if they shove ads all over the place what the hell is my sixty dollars going to? Why do they need ad dollars AND a subscription when almost all the features sans cross-game chat are available for free every where else, without ads OR subs?

If MS is going to keep the subs next gen, they need to drop the ads and add a PS+ type value service. Sony would be very smart to remain free next gen if MS is going to continue subs, this will instantly get them a leg up assuming they come out first and have a Call of Duty game.

How big does 'play your game' need to be? Does it make any sense to have that be huge and have the notice about new content be small?

It's not about how big it needs to be, it's about the fact that most of the damn dashboard is just ads. Why can't the thing in the middle be the launcher? Why don't they just notify you about new content on the store page? Why is there an ad for cars there on your gaming console? Do you really not see the problem with your home page only being 25% your actual content and the rest being ads?

 

[Apdiddy]

Although I don't really like the idea of ads being centerpiece for Xbox Live (especially since XBL isn't free), it's not like Microsoft isn't advertising games on there. The article I think should be more about the awful Metro UL design rather than faulting Microsoft for doing what it always done. The reason why no one can find the games easily is there isn't a lot of room currently to show it more logically.

Unfortunately, if it were that much of a problem, it would have an effect on people buying XBL subscriptions. To me, Microsoft succeeds despite itself because of hitching itself to different content providers. I'm personally hoping Microsoft goes to a free model next-gen and have XBL being like their PS+, but I seriously doubt it.

 

[toythatkills]

I think people are mistaken in thinking that people are really annoyed by the ads. The annoying thing is the principle, if they shove ads all over the place what the hell is my sixty dollars going to? Why do they need ad dollars AND a subscription when almost all the features sans cross-game chat are available for free every where else, without ads OR subs?

It's not about how big it needs to be, it's about the fact that most of the damn dashboard is just ads. Why can't the thing in the middle be the launcher? Why don't they just notify you about new content on the store page? Why is there an ad for cars there on your gaming console? Do you really not see the problem with your home page only being 25% your actual content and the rest being ads?

Point A would seem to contradict Point B.

 

[Speedymanic]

Although I don't really like the idea of ads being centerpiece for Xbox Live (especially since XBL isn't free), it's not like Microsoft isn't advertising games on there. The article I think should be more about the awful Metro UL design rather than faulting Microsoft for doing what it always done. The reason why no one can find the games easily is there isn't a lot of room currently to show it more logically.

Unfortunately, if it were that much of a problem, it would have an effect on people buying XBL subscriptions. To me, Microsoft succeeds despite itself because of hitching itself to different content providers. I'm personally hoping Microsoft goes to a free model next-gen and have XBL being like their PS+, but I seriously doubt it.

MS will never have a plus service. It's detrimental to the long term viability of a digital service.

 

[Jomjom]

MS will never have a plus service. It's detrimental to MS's bottom line and is actually consumer friendly.

fixed.

 

[flyinpiranha]

If I'm paying for live, should I have to be subjected to ads too? I'm pretty ok if it's advertising the XBLA game of the week or whatever, but to see ads for mcdonalds or ford is just asinine. The ads need to be there, it's part of what makes the direct download model work, but it really needs to be in proper context.

Ads are everywhere. Magazines, TV, roads, theaters, you can't even buy something without the clerk asking if you want that on a Nordstrom account or a Costco American Express these days.

I get it, I don't like it either ... but with all the things that are making people LESS likely to view ads they are going to find ways to get them to you, it's just unfortunate they came to gaming. I'd much rather play Cool Spot on SNES knowing it's a huge 7 Up commercial than seeing a 7 Up commercial in the lower right corner but it hasn't even remotely been the issue that people in these "Live sux, PSN rox!" threads. It's literally as easy as flipping through a magazine and just skipping them. Doesn't mean I like it, but it doesn't really fucking matter in the long run because it has done NOTHING that has affected my gaming enjoyment on the Xbox, absolutely nothing. And the price is so negligible (no, it's not the principal) that it doesn't affect me in the slightest.

 

[Speedymanic]

fixed.

it also engenders a feeling of games should be 'free' or heavily discounted. That's where the problem lies as consumers change their spending habits and impact the viability of the platform/service.

 

[alr1ght]

MS will never have a plus service. It's detrimental to the long term viability of a digital service.

Oh you must work for EA.

 

[Dunan]

You know what I really, really hate about the possibility of increased ads in the next generation?

The fact that in-game advertising going to make region locking look more desirable. Watch; it'll happen. Some corporate advertiser (in, say, the US) will discover that paying half a cent per viewer is less effective when the viewer isn't physically in the US, and demand that Sony "correctly" match ads with the people who are made to see them. They'll demand that the people most likely to buy their products be shown the advertisements most likely to make them spend the money, and IP-based region locking for accounts and games will start to become more possible.

Being born in the US and making frequent trips back there, I probably pay no more or less attention to American-based advertising than someone who's physically in the US. But will the producers of advertisements, who want to maximize the ratio of purchasers of their products to viewers of their ads, see that?

 

[Rapstah]

How big does 'play your game' need to be? Does it make any sense to have that be huge and have the notice about new content be small?

Call of Duty Elite isn't actually new content. If it had said, say, MW3 map pack 4 or whatever we're at, then you'd have a point.

 

[Speedymanic]

Oh you must work for EA.

Nope, I'm not so easily blinded by the flashy spectacle of 'free' games and can see that it's not viable.

 

[Jader7777]

Good thing I keep my 360 off the Internet.

Imagine if people put ads into my consoles! It would be like TV, newspapers or radio then. I would probably vomit with fury.

 

[reptilescorpio]

The makeup of the dashboard makes it less likely that I will hunt around in there for some arcade games to buy, just stupidly laid out compared to PSN or Steam.

First half of the generation I was constantly buying XBLA games, now it is the opposite.

I just wish they could make it more user friendly, that new sales app sounds like it could be a huge help.

 

[Speedymanic]

Good thing I keep my 360 off the Internet.

Imagine if people put ads into my consoles! It would be like TV, newspapers or radio then. I would probably vomit with fury.

Ads during load screens. It's going to make a comeback, Sony jumped the gun but that's the future.


....

:-/

 

[Barkley's Justice]

All that money and LIVE still isn't free.

Sony: "We want M-S Money!"

 

[Dacvak]

Well, Kudos to Microsoft for making more money. Unfortunately, ever since this change, I've barely used my 360, and have absolutely started purchasing games for my PS3, instead. I like the 360, and I'm sure I'll keep using it here and there, but they've definitely lost money from me.

It's not just the ads, though. I don't care too much about the ads. It's just the whole new theme is abysmal and hard to navigate.

 

[Monty Mole]

next gen, it will happen. MS would be mad not to make basic online gaming free, it's too big a bullet point to give away to your competitor.

Not doing it would exceed Sony's level of arrogance at the start of this gen.

Am I back in 2005?

 

[watership]

I will say the hard liquor ads that just started being served sorta weird me out.

[edit]
wrong comment, sorry.

 

[M-PG71C]

And this is why I don't fucking pay for it. I would sooner play Modern Warfare 3 on the Wii for free online than pay $60 annually to those fuckers. Luckily, I can play for free on PS3.

And when next-generation comes and both MS and Sony are charging, I'll play for free on Wii U and PC. They can kiss my ass.

 

[Jader7777]

Ads during load screens. It's going to make a comeback, Sony jumped the gun but that's the future.


....

:-/

Wii U has no ads: Not next-gen confirmed.

 

[NullPointer]

My Steam:



And if you have to see some ads, I don't mind these:



All of this on the TV from the comfy couch with a wireless xbox controller in hand.

Console gamers, you do have options.

 

[watership]

The makeup of the dashboard makes it less likely that I will hunt around in there for some arcade games to buy, just stupidly laid out compared to PSN or Steam.

First half of the generation I was constantly buying XBLA games, now it is the opposite.

I just wish they could make it more user friendly, that new sales app sounds like it could be a huge help.

I have never, never been unable to find what I'm looking for in less than a dozen seconds on the current dashboard. Everytime someone writes this I just can't help to think there is something wrong with them. There is global search and dedicated sections for content. What's wrong with everyone? My 8 year old neice understands how to find stuff.

 

[Speedymanic]

Am I back in 2005?

I don't know, are you?

Wii U has no ads: Not next-gen confirmed.

can you imagine furore if a Mario game had ads during loading.

 

[BruiserBear]

Hard to believe that little square in the lower right-hand corner is causing such a stint. Doesn't bother me.

I see an ad for the Chevy Volt, Halo, and Call of Duty Elite.

My Steam:

It's amazing how that's possible, isn't it? Why wouldn't Valve want to clutter up all that space with ads? Because they understand a tasteful user interface.

 

[Spasm]

 

[Speedymanic]

Complaining about game ads on a games console.

C'mon.

 

[8byte]

Timed Exclusive DLC isn't something of value? Your money along with the money from ads is used for that exact purpose, to secure timed exclusive or exclusive DLC.

That money is also spent on funding new XBLA titles like Deadlight. Seems silly to ask for more added value at this point. Giving away games or offering a rental service is detrimental to the long term viability of their online marketplace.

It's not something of value, it's something detrimental to the health of the industry.

 

[Row]

you are way too much of a fanboy if you can't see the reasoning behind being upset that you're essentially being charged to view ads