The "Value" of Xbox Live Gold

[Shane R. Monroe]

In the early days, I was a little pissy about paying for Xbox Live Gold. But, after doing some math, I can't even flinch about it.

- $50 a year / 12 months a year = $4.10 a month (WOW costs $15 a month right? For one game?)
- $50 a year / 52 weeks a year = $0.96 a week (That's less than a bottle of soda out of the vending machine)
- $50 a year / 365 days = .13 cents a day (people spend 400x that a DAY in a cup of Starbucks)
- You play 10 hours a week - that's 520 hours a year. So, $50 / 520 = $0.09 cents PER HOUR. The more you play, the less it costs.

So ... umm ... can someone else point out ANY sort of entertainment that costs less than a dime per hour that delivers the kind of value? My Movie Dollars comparison says I'll pay $4.50 an hour for a GREAT movie. I think I can pay a dime an hour to kill my friends.

[hiphopcr]

I love me some Xbox Live Gold.

Maybe they'll go free just because Sony and Nintendo's online services are free.... that's if those services ever become good.

[Shane R. Monroe]

My "insider" won't pay for Gold because he believes that Gold will be free "soon".

I believe if PS3 suddenly started becoming a threat, this would happen. Right now? Don't see it happening.

[ChairoNoMe]

It would be one thing if Microsoft delivered a no-frills online service like Sony or Nintendo. But they aren't. Microsoft is delivering the Cadillac of online services, with more features than you can shake a stick at. So it's well worth the price.

[javierdlopez]

My "PS3" friends always cite xbox live's cost as a reason they went for the PS3. After playing the PSP for a while and using it's "online" service, although better than nintendo's offering, there really is no community feel to it.

I really had to problem forking over the $28 dollars for my 1 year subscription to live (bought it on buy.com, very good deal I thought). It really is pretty incredible. My parents flew to my brothers' place in TX over the holidays and we were able to video conference with them. The image quality was pretty incredible and sound quality is as good as any VOIP phone system...

The company I used to work for used to use a video conferencing service that charged them $80 an hour and they were charged a minimum of 10 hours a month...

Live

[Womp]

The problem with Sony's "Free" online is that you are left in the hands of the developer and at least under Live it's all under one "Unified" service. Being able to see who is playing what and being able to jump right into a game with them...It's almost sybiotic in nature, you feel like you are part of something and not left to your own devices. It's all very VERY well done. Sony's if free but then again, why shouldn't it be? They really aren't DOING anything within the service in a way that MS is doing things. $50 for an entire year as Shane said is really not as expensive in the long term than you may think.

[entexman]

The problem with Sony's "Free" online is that you are left in the hands of the developer and at least under Live it's all under one "Unified" service. Being able to see who is playing what and being able to jump right into a game with them...It's almost sybiotic in nature, you feel like you are part of something and not left to your own devices. It's all very VERY well done. Sony's if free but then again, why shouldn't it be? They really aren't DOING anything within the service in a way that MS is doing things. $50 for an entire year as Shane said is really not as expensive in the long term than you may think.

Once they have enough people hooked I am sure the prices are going to go up

[Shane R. Monroe]

They've stayed stable for some time....

Believe me .. I'm the LAST person to say ANYTHING good about MS ... truly ... but I gotta hand it to them with Live.

[davidmt]

Plus, I don't think I've ever actually payed $50 for Live Gold. There are always deals floating around out there. Average cost is more like $40 per year.

[Shane R. Monroe]

Agreed ... I was just going "full retail".