Xbox Live Ad

[JagDogger2525]

(I know I am going to get bombed for this but I want to get this out into the open)
I recently saw an ad for Xbox Live and the second to last screen or something was something like "More Fun with Friends" and the last screen was "Join for Free." The reason why I am mentioning this because I think that is a bit of an overstatement. Why? I believe it is an overstatement because you only get a month of gold for free and after that, you have to start paying for the online service. I am not against the parties and all that for Xbox Live but the ad misleads the person making the person think, "The service is free? Oh well in that case I will join" and a month later, after gaining so many friends, s/he cannot play with any of them and then must pay to play with them. Many of you may not care if you pay to keep Gold but you keep buying it to keep playing online with friends and other people. I COULD understand that.

Edit: I am not bashing the 360 or Live. I am just expressing how someone could make the ad out other than knowing that they have to pay for it.

[Warp]

Originally Posted by JagDogger2525

I recently saw an ad for Xbox Live and the second to last screen or something was something like "More Fun with Friends" and the last screen was "Join for Free." The reason why I am mentioning this because I think that is a bit of an overstatement. Why? I believe it is an overstatement because you only get a month of gold for free and after that, you have to start paying for the online service.

It's not an "overstatement", it's simply an advertisement that's intentionally worded to take advantage of uninformed consumers. Microsoft is not the only company that does things like this.

Either way joining Xbox Live is free, and you actually get three one-month Gold trials with your new console. They can't be used on the same account, but if you so desired you could play with your (new) friends for up to three months at no additional charge. Beyond that, yes, you have to pay, but what you pay is based on how knowledgeable and/or patient you are. Could be $30 for 13 months, could be $50 for 13 months, you could even wind up paying $8 a month (/$104 for 13 months) if you don't investigate a little before plunking down $300 for the console.

It is what you make of it. The more knowledge you have, the better off you are. No one should be making $100+ purchases without knowing at least the basics of what they're paying for.

[six_sic_six]

eh, I know it's been overstated but I don't think it's a big deal paying for live. If you do it right you can get it for almost a little over 3 bucks a month for gold. That's nothing.

[Crosshair?]

Silver is free....

[rocket wind]

they could just be mentioning that silver is free, as crosshair said above me. And as the post above crosshair said, no big deal. A couple of pounds a month (im english) better than world of warcraft i guess

[JagDogger2525]

Originally Posted by six_sic_six

eh, I know it's been overstated but I don't think it's a big deal paying for live. If you do it right you can get it for almost a little over 3 bucks a month for gold. That's nothing.

Like I wrote,

Originally Posted by JagDogger2525

. . . . . Many of you may not care if you pay to keep Gold but you keep buying it to keep playing online with friends and other people. . . . .

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Originally Posted by Crosshair?

Silver is free....

Originally Posted by rocket wind

they could just be mentioning that silver is free, as crosshair said above me. And as the post above crosshair said, no big deal. A couple of pounds a month (im english) better than world of warcraft i guess

I realize that silver is free but there are people out there who think that Xbox Live is free and don't realize that in order to play (once the trial period is over), money has to start being invested into it.

[Warp]

Originally Posted by JagDogger2525

I realize that silver is free but there are people out there who think that Xbox Live is free and don't realize that in order to play (once the trial period is over), money has to start being invested into it.

We're in the fifth holiday shopping period for the Xbox 360 and pro-Sony/anti-Microsoft consumers are constantly throwing up the fact that PSN is free while Microsoft charges for Live. Even if someone isn't immediately interested in buying an HD console they've likely already heard of the charge -- Sony themselves have shown charts during televised broadcasts of E3 with it included -- and aren't going into the purchase completely blind.

[DLineOwnzU4Life]

I got 13 months of XBL for about 30 bucks as a special on Amazon. That comes out to just over 3 bucks a month, and for the amount of time I spend talking to friends in parties, playing games like CoD on live, and just messing around on the dashboard, I spend easily over 24 hours in a month on my xbox. So paying about $3 for that many hours of entertainment? Well worth the cost for me. While the add isn't exactly honest, it is truthful. As many have already pointed out, silver is free. Except with silver, all you get is a friends list, limited dashboard, and messaging right?

[Warp]

Originally Posted by DLineOwnzU4Life

Except with silver, all you get is a friends list, limited dashboard, and messaging right?

It's easier to list what a Gold subscription gets you, since Silver is technically Xbox Live itself. Gold allows you to play online (certain games can be played with Silver), gets you access to game demos (and certain other media) a week earlier and allows you to use your Netflix account to stream instant movies. Next month Gold will also enable you to use FaceBook, Twitter and Last.FM applications from the Dashboard... but calling them "features" for Gold is rather shameful.

I believe audio/video/party chats are limited to some extent for Silver as well, though I don't recall off hand exactly what you are or aren't allowed to do.