Quote Saddened!="Saddened!"Apparently the next Xbox will be sold on a similar basis as a mobile phone contract. Eg. console only £450 ish, console with 12 months Xbox Live £200 up front plus £12 a month, console with 24 months Xbox Live £100 up front and £12 a month, console with 24 months Xbox Live plus music, TV & movies subscriptions £0 up front and £25 a month.
They have started trialing it by selling current gen 360s in the states for $89 plus 24 months Live subscription at $14.99. That's a £250 console for £60 up front.
I think it's a brilliant concept on two fronts. Firstly take up of the new console will be far higher than usual. A 'normal' console release sees relatively slow sales as people are put off by the massive price they put on them to recover the development costs as quickly as possible. But this way, there would be potentially nothing to pay up front and many people are already paying for Live anyway, so upgrading to the new console could be extremely cheap. Secondly it will massively increase the take up of Live if people are getting it when they buy the console and know they are paying for it.'"
That sounds decent but also pretty crud. If it becomes a 'contract' situation, what happens to the kids that want to go out and spend their Christmas money on one? What about the younger people who want to get one, but maybe don't have the credit rating? How many parents do you know that buy their children mobile phones on contract? Maybe teenagers, but not children. If Microsoft go that way, it will only make Nintendo do even better IMO. They already have the under-12 market by the balls, if Microsoft basically go out and say we only want people to be paying monthly for our service like a phone, are they basically saying they don't want offline gamers anymore? If they value the console at £400+, they're pricing out quite a large percentage of people who just want to go to a shop and buy a console, especially if those people decide at a later date that they want to invest in Live.
It's a good idea from Microsoft, and it will definitely work for a portion of gamers, but I wouldn't be interested in taking something out on a contract and, judging by the many people I know with 360s and PS3s, I doubt they would be either.