In a move sure to piss off the entire Internet, Microsoft has decided to raise prices on their Xbox Live Gold subscriptions starting November 1. Yearly subscriptions have gone up $10, to $59.99. All the other subscriptions have been adjusted accordingly:
- 1-Month Gold Subscription – $9.99 (was $7.99)
- 3-Month Gold Subscription – $24.99 (was $19.99)
- 12-Month Gold Subscription – $59.99 (was $49.99)
Microsoft is quick to point out all the awesome services provided by Live Gold, including:
- Last.fm
- Facebook
- Twitter
- ESPN
- Video Kinect (video chat with Kinect)
- Hulu Plus
- Netflix
All of which are not exactly great selling points for me, personally, as I don’t use any of them. I already have a computer connected to the T.V. allowing most of those features, I don’t plan on getting Kinect because the last thing I want to do is move around while playing games, etc. I’m not really sure why it should cost me $60 just to connect to other Xbox 360 users to play games, I honestly don’t even feel like $50 is a fair price, $40 is more reasonable. I think at this point Microsoft should introduce tiered pricing because I really only want to play games online and cross-game chat with friends.
On top of all that, I can’t use any of the services right now because my Xbox broke, AGAIN. It’s the same issue I had the first time, the three red lights error (“red ring of death”) that has caused so many problems for so many other Xbox 360 users. It honestly has to be one of the worst feelings in the world to come home on a Friday night ready to play games and having your console break on you.
