Microsoft is trying to change the focus of the 360 to move more into the Wii market. This is evident from the new Xbox experience, Avatars etc.
The costs structure of Xbox Live Gold subscription is one thing that I feel can scupper this, and personally find annoying.
For those who do not know the way Gold subscription works here is the issue I have with it. We all know you can pay for 12, 6, 3 months subscription and this gives you access to play online. The issue I have with this is that it is linked to one gamertag and not the actual console. This does not fit well with multiple users of on one console.
You have 2 choices.
1. Pay for a subscription for each user (I have 2 teenage kids so it means 3 close on £120 per year)
2. All users use the same gamertag.
Now many will see the second option as being no big hardship but it does spoil some of the best functionality of live.
Friends Lists
You have one shared friends list this causes issues for me personally as I will get invite from people I played with regular which were ignored because it was not me actually playing as one of my sons will be online.
Gamertag
This is your online persona and many live users are quite attached to them. It defeats the object of it if it’s used by several users and makes it much harder to make online friends and relationships.
Gamescore/ Achievements
One of the big things for Xbox (I know PS3 has achievements now) is achievements. Love them or hate them you all know we play for them, even if we don’t whore them. If you have multiple users on one account how can each user show their individual Score? Many people find that achievements add value to a game, I know I do personally, and sharing an account just simple does not work for the bragging rights.
Summary
If Microsoft wants to make their console more family friendly then they need to change this pricing structure to be console specific or even Hard Drive specific. This way you could have multiple accounts on one machine all with full access for one price.
Microsoft announced its financial results for Q3 of fiscal year 2026, including an update on its gaming Xbox business and more.
Not looking good. Hopefully Asha Sharma is able to turn Phil’s disaster around.
To me it's still quite remarkable how they can cash-in 5.3bn in revenue in a single quarter, since their hardware is basically dead.
The stock mark is what makes Microsoft remarkable, They have convinced every institutional and retail investor to just keep piling money into them. Like many big tech giants they are just a big growing pyramid scheme. As long as people keep dropping money into ETF's that cover the market Microsoft will always be liquid. At the same time it is completely stifling innovation and competition. People need to start being more discreet in how they invest their money as it's killing the system.
Riiiiight because people will just flock back to them for one or two games per year.
15+ years of bad performance is what they call irreparable in business. It is time for them to sell off the assets and get out of entertainment.
These declines are on the back of extra revenue received from releasing games like Forza horizon 5 on PlayStation. So I’m being sarcastic here when I said they should go back to exclusives. Killing off a revenue stream from Ps5 sales will only make things worse
The charity event will be streamed live from Gamescom in August.
Thanks to the slip-up of an artist working on the title, we now have more evidence that a new Injustice game is in the works.
I had no idea that Microsoft force you to pay a subscriptiom for each gamertag, I've always presumed that it was �40/$50 for an individual 360 system. I could never dream of having to share my PSN account with my younger brother so I can appreciate this being a very frustrating issue for some users of live.
Overall I could also argue that despite it being more streamlined than PSN, Live offers little more in functionality to warrent the �40 cost (plus extra subscriptions).
Your solution is applauded. I also didn't know that Microsoft charged for each gamer tag. The fact that Sony is offering as many names as you want for free should be a sign to Microsoft to step it up. I can't imagine why they couldn't afford to do this at the very least.
appreciate the comments, nice to see i have at least shown someone that there are issue with Xbox live in a family house