Xbox Live Subscription Price to Increase

Posted on by derryX

In sort of annoying news, Microsoft is increasing its Xbox Live subscription price. (News Article) The pricing is going from $49.99 to 59.99 per year.

While this poses a good amount of annoyance to gamers across America. It’s important to note that this is the first price increase Microsoft has instilled since the launch of the Xbox360 in 2005. Many services (some of which are barely useful, but many of which are great) have been released for the Xbox360 since 2005, so I really don’t see this as a major deal.

Most gamers are smart enough to purchase Xbox 360 Live Subscription Cards (In fact, buy them now while they’re cheap!) through vendors that usually price battle over these. On an average day, the membership cards can be purchased for approximately $40, resulting in a 25% savings. There are times in the year where these cards can be found for under $30. In fact, my most recent was purchased in May and was $27.99.

Even if the card wars did not exist and I had to pay $60 per year for service instead of $50, I would just chalk that up to inflation and increases in cost of living. Not for nothing, everything has increased in price over the last five years, so with the addition of services, I don’t see a point to complaining about a minor (less than $1/month) increase in price.

Another way to look at this is that the newer hardware pricing is way less than at launch. The increase in subscription price can be viewed as a way of catching up the late hardware adopters on the pricing that many of us have been paying all along. Of course the price is also higher for the early adopters, but see above argument and workaround.

So please, no whining about a price increase. Microsoft provides a sound service that is continuously evolving, and there’s no reason to complain.

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4 thoughts on “Xbox Live Subscription Price to Increase”

  • Bill

    They’re offering a deal today to renew now (and tack 12 months onto your normal subscription at its normal end date) for $39.99. If you can’t find a cheap card today, this is a great promo to nab!


    • derryX

      Plus I’m sure if you find subscription cards for cheap and apply them to your account, they’re not going to charge extra at some magical moment…


  • Gamejak Dan

    I’ve been buying my Xbox Live membership cards on Amazon the last 2 years for $40-$45 each so I don’t see what the big deal is.

    Also, it’s one of the best values you’ll come across in gaming all year. One commenter on another site questioned what new content will they be delivering for the extra $10 a year. My answer to that would be that they’ve only made the experience better and better on an annual basis and you’ve paid the same amount. I’m pretty excited about the Fall dashboard update so we’ll see what happens.

    Either way, happy gaming!
    Gamertag: Flyin Hive


  • Jeff

    I have a few points to make about this.

    1) People saying “OH MY GOD I WON’T RENEW XBL”, yes you will. If you don’t, it has nothing to do with the $10, I would bet you weren’t going to do it anyway.

    2) As you already said, Amazon has awesome deals on cards.

    3) If you’re paying monthly, what the hell are you doing? You’re getting ripped off in the first place.

    4) You won’t pay? Fine, Get out, who wants you? Not me for sure, less people = less server strain = faster for me. Go use the PS3’s online service. Oh yeah, they announced paid accounts at E3! I guess that leaves the Wii’s online (good luck with that!)


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