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The Xbox Live Gold Retirement Announcement Has Only Been Delayed – Rumor

Bullet Club

Member
The Xbox Live Gold Retirement Announcement Has Only Been Delayed – Rumor

The Xbox Live Gold online gaming service is rumored to be set for retirement in the future. While the announcement seemed imminent, with Microsoft stopping selling 12 months subscriptions and changing the Services Agreement so that it no longer mentions the service, the company confirmed last month that Xbox Live Gold is not getting retired in the near future. The announcement, however, may only have been delayed.

According to VentureBeat's Jeff Grubb, who has proved to be extremely reliable regarding leaks, commented on the Xbox Live Gold retirement a few hours ago, saying that the announcement has only been delayed, which is the same thing that happened to pretty much every other Microsoft announcement like the Series S reveal, the Series X price and release date and Game Pass news.

Same thing that happened to the Series X price and release date, and the series S itself, and the Game Pass news.
— Jeff Grubb (@JeffGrubb) September 8, 2020
Jeff Grubb isn't the only one who has talked about the end of Xbox Live Gold in the past few weeks. Back in July, known Xbox insider Klobrille said that there is no question that the online multiplayer paywall will fall. It is just a matter of when that will happen.
The question is not if the online multiplayer paywall falls. The question is when.
With Microsoft trying to get more and more people into the Xbox ecosystem, retiring the Xbox Live Gold service and make online multiplayer free would make a lot of sense. As of now, subscriptions are still on sale, so it is hard to say when this announcement will be made. We will keep you updated on the matter as soon as possible, so stay tuned for all the latest news.

Source: WCCFTech
 

khakimzhan

Member
The thing that bothers me with Gold Retirement - what will happen to my “Golden Free” games that I have been collecting? As far as I know, these games currently are NOT playable without Gold subscription. So if the Gold tier going to be thing of a past. Will i retain my ability to play Gold Games? Or will they make me subscribe to GP in order to play them?
 

GHG

Gold Member
that would be the dumbest.move possible, and it won't happen.

Gold had to go for a good while now. it makes no sense anymore with how Xbox and PC are now basically one family. PC has no XBLG so Xbox has to get rid of it too to keep competitive

PC only has no XBLG because in general PC gamers don't take shit from anyone.

There's no need to worry about parity between PC and Xbox, the demographics are different.
 

Vawn

Banned
I just can't see MS losing out on more than $1 billion in revenue.

It's part of making more from GP and not confusing consumers. It's happening, since they already removed the ability to buy GP after a certain amount of time.
 
Xbox has no choice. Embracing PC as part of their platform strategy means they can’t impose service paywalls without major blowback. And their obvious strategy is engagement, which Gold hinders.

I imagine they would prefer to not sunset XBL subscriptions, but how can they keep it given the direction they’re taking?
 
Being rolled into gamepass.

Gamepass required to play online, gets everybody who has a console on board.
I see it like Silver and Gold.

Back in the days you had Silver, which was nothing, and Gold which was online play
Then this gen you had PSN, where you could play F2P games, but you needed PSN+ to play multiplayer
I can see 'Gold' tier becoming the same as PSN; F2P games are free to play online (maybe first party titles like Halo as well?) and gamepass becomes 'gold'

Tl;DR: Gold becomes silver, Gamepass becomes Gold.
 

Nikana

Go Go Neo Rangers!
I think it'll take the approach Sony is using. Game Pass games in the library will not require Gold(like PS Now) and F2P games will now actually be free.

I dont think gold going away to play any games online is impossible though.
 
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It'll be announced around when the Series X Release date is announced. I can see it now. PS5 needs PS Plus, Xbox is free online play. That will help move consoles more than you realize.
 
Just wish they would clarify what the fuck is going on.

If the next Xbox event goes by and nothing gets said about it I'm gonna be pretty peeved.
 

THE:MILKMAN

Member
This won't be free Gold online. It will just be Xbox coming into line with the industry standard of F2P games not requiring it.
 

IntentionalPun

Ask me about my wife's perfect butthole
The Xbox Live Gold online gaming service is rumored to be set for retirement in the future. While the announcement seemed imminent, with Microsoft stopping selling 12 months subscriptions and changing the Services Agreement so that it no longer mentions the service

The bold is a lie.
 
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vdopey

Member
If they get rid of paying for multiplayer, I will applaud them for it. its one of the most anti-consumer things Microsoft introduced to gaming, but I also think its their strategy against Sony - Death by a thousand cuts, trying to bleed them dry.

Sony has become dependant on the PS+ Revenue, they should have kept online play free and ps+ for the additional games and content, I think paying for online play should frankly be killed.

The argument back then was because xbox live costs money it must mean that it is superior, just like sex from a hooker is superior because you have to pay for it.

Like most things a good majority of gamers just don't understand networking and don't understand how these services work, most games use p2p (peer-2-peer) networking, where essentially 1 person playing the game with a decent connection is selected as host and everyone else in the lobby is connected to this individual. The alternative is client-server, which is actually far better as it provides stable pings and a dedicated server. If its third party then either the publishers host the servers (eg battlefield EA manages the server network) The only thing xbl and psn do is handle the user authentication, much like google accounts login or facebook login or paypal etc, they already charge the publishers 30% for each game they sell on their respective platforms asking for money to play online is just outright greed.

In fact during the ps3 days Sony used client-server based networking for a lot of its games - MAG with its 64 players had to be client-server, warhawk was client-server, uncharted was p2p, im pretty sure resistance was client-server as well.
xbox: I'm pretty sure halo is p2p and I believe gears of war is also p2p, forza horizon is probably client-server.

third party: cod has always been p2p, cod warzone is client-server, battlefield is client-server,

In the ps4 era Sony had just 1 multiplayer game I can remember, killzone shadow fall and I think that was p2p, also stuff like dreams would require hosting and that would be client-server

Anyway you get the idea, the only thing Sony or Microsoft has to provide is infrastructure to hold all of the users (ie a massive database) storage for the games they sell / distribute, and probably api's which the third parties plug into to auth the users and also grab user details and stick into their own db, companies like EA, Ubisoft etc all create an account on their service with the details they get from sony / microsoft after auth.

as for the database and games storage - this is how they sell digital games, so its already making them money, they can use the data they gather to sell targeted advertising to make further money - to then also charge the end user to access online play is just greedy.

anyway end of rant, old man yelling at clouds moment done.
 

mckmas8808

Mckmaster uses MasterCard to buy Slave drives
Being rolled into gamepass.

Gamepass required to play online, gets everybody who has a console on board.

This is what's happening. But it'll be voluntary. MS won't be forcing you to get GamePass. They want to make GP so enticing that you'll be willing to pay $15 a month for it (and it'll come with online play of course).
 
Gamepass required for online play (console), and GamePass cost goes up so PC players enjoying the service will pay more, MS makes more money, streamlined services. Winning.
 
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