Welcome to City-Data.com Forum!
U.S. CitiesCity-Data Forum Index
Go Back   City-Data Forum > General Forums > Entertainment and Arts > Video Games
 [Register]
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
View detailed profile (Advanced) or search
site with Google Custom Search

Search Forums  (Advanced)
Reply Start New Thread
 
Old 05-07-2012, 02:54 PM
 
Location: Land of Thought and Flow
8,323 posts, read 15,147,082 times
Reputation: 4957

Advertisements

Quote:
Originally Posted by Gungnir View Post
Not if you use T-Mobile you can save about $230 for buying an unlocked phone, and getting a discount over 2 years. Plus there are rulings from the Supreme Court that require cell providers to reduce plan costs and termination fee's for unlocked cell phones that are joined to their network. This may turn out to be increasing the costs of those plans that have a phone bundled with the service, rather than reducing costs for the unlocked owners however, but that will still mean that in real terms an unlocked cell phone will be cheaper than the associated locked bundled package.
Which, this model is very similar to that of this 360.

Except that video game consoles aren't a necessity.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Gungnir View Post
You can claim there was no itemized cost for the DVR, you can't claim that there wasn't a fee. There may not have been separate billing for the DVR, but I'd lay odds there was an itemized equipment cost, and I'd also lay odds that the cable supplier had 2 or 3 tiers of equipment costs based around the package you had, and what equipment you owned. It would be naive to assume that the DVR you were supplied was not charged for by the cable company. Comcast for instance is currently offering a "triple play" XFINITY package that includes a free DVR service for 6 months, if you take out a 24 month contract. What do you think happens from month 6 through 24 if you keep the DVR? This is a slightly shady tactic, because many people will get the DVR, sign the contract, then find an additional cost on their bill in month 7, since the DVR is now chargeable.
> DVR Service

Seems you're paying for the service of using the cool box to record things. Never have I actually paid separately for the hardware. Hardware vs Software and all that jazz.


Quote:
Originally Posted by Gungnir View Post
Actually WoW isn't even on the same level as a LIVE subscription, can you download other game titles through WoW? Can you watch Movies, TV Series, or Sports through WoW? Without hardware for WoW you're stuck, you are for Xbox Live too, but how many people subscribe through the Xbox Live Web Interface, vs. from their Dashboard? While I know this is not the function nor purpose of WoW, at the end of the day the principle is the same, they even have similar pricing structures, for subscription monthly, quarterly or annually.
As I thought, you completely missed the point.

For LIVE, you are paying for a service that comes with certain features.
For WoW, you are paying for a service that comes with certain features.

Same thing.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Gungnir View Post
Ah, but you own a cell phone, and even consider it a necessity, it's been that way for at least the last 10 years, but in the 5-10 years before that it was considered a luxury, how did people ever manage before them I wonder. I got my first cellphone in 1990, and the general response from family, friends and coworkers was "why the hell do you want that thing, they'll never catch on?". Indeed both my parents still think that cell phones are a bit silly. Yet here we are both agreeing that to us at least they're a necessity.
When video game consoles become necessities, this paragraph might actually have some meaning. As it is, a video game console is a luxury for entertainment purposes.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Gungnir View Post
Necessity, and luxury are actually highly mutable depending on what society considers them to be, and your personal circumstances. So if we agree on this, then we're just quibbling about whether your personal opinion on the luxury of a cell phone is more valid than my personal opinion on the necessity of a game console. Your position becomes less secure if you were to admit that you have any game applications on your cell phone however
For me, having a cellphone is a necessity. Having a smartphone with a bazillion features is a luxury. Beyond that, the rest of this paragraph seems like some sort of meaningless "gotcha" that failed to launch.

All this because I think it's borderline funny to sell a subsidized gaming console. Bahahaha.

People would do a lot better financially to keep an eye on this website when looking to buy a console or renew LIVE - or really anything video game related.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message

 
Old 05-09-2012, 12:52 AM
 
9,408 posts, read 11,907,447 times
Reputation: 12439
I think ms is using this as a test. It seems everything is moving to a subscription based model. Personally I loathe this trend. I prefer to buy my stuff outright and use it for years, and not pay any monthly fee. I made exceptioms for netflix and hulu as it let me cancel my cable which saves me a lot of money. But like I said, things are moving away from that. Leasing cars, cell phone contracts, etc.

Personally I wouldn't lock myself into a contract with ms ever. Don't give them your cc info, they are stubborn when it comes to cancelling services. I hope this model fails. But given that people are suckered into paying for xbox live gold, I wont be surprised if it does well.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 05-09-2012, 07:56 AM
 
14,993 posts, read 23,824,916 times
Reputation: 26513
What's crazy is that you may still be paying for something that is obsolete (when the next generation comes out). What happens when the user wants that new system but is still stuck paying for the old system?
Frankly, the fact that you have to pay for Xbox live at all is the reason I went with PS3.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 05-09-2012, 09:54 AM
 
2,182 posts, read 5,426,622 times
Reputation: 1214
Quote:
Originally Posted by Dd714 View Post
What's crazy is that you may still be paying for something that is obsolete (when the next generation comes out). What happens when the user wants that new system but is still stuck paying for the old system?
Frankly, the fact that you have to pay for Xbox live at all is the reason I went with PS3.
PSN sucks a big fat one though, I don't mind paying $50/year to have a much, much better service.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 05-09-2012, 11:29 AM
 
Location: Matthews, NC
14,688 posts, read 26,547,283 times
Reputation: 14409
Quote:
Originally Posted by kazyn View Post
PSN sucks a big fat one though, I don't mind paying $50/year to have a much, much better service.
What's so bad about it? Other than the occasionnal outage over a few weeks...ARGGGH!!!

I don't play online enough to justify paying for an online service so that is one of the reasons I picked PS3. For one thing, Internet in my house sucks and for another if I wanted to get cursed out and by racist 12 year olds, I will just go to the apartment building near where I live.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.

Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.


Reply
Please update this thread with any new information or opinions. This open thread is still read by thousands of people, so we encourage all additional points of view.

Quick Reply
Message:

Over $104,000 in prizes was already given out to active posters on our forum and additional giveaways are planned!

Go Back   City-Data Forum > General Forums > Entertainment and Arts > Video Games
Similar Threads

All times are GMT -6. The time now is 01:04 AM.

© 2005-2024, Advameg, Inc. · Please obey Forum Rules · Terms of Use and Privacy Policy · Bug Bounty

City-Data.com - Contact Us - Archive 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37 - Top