WTF Microsoft?

Someone looking to start a revolution?

When watching Netflix for any extended period of time, there's this little system built in the backend to make sure you haven't walked off and left the show. (Or, as is more likely, fallen asleep) It could be argued as a symptom of the jealous way in which Netflix demands as much active attention as possible, or maybe just a tactic for shaving off some of their server load. Either way, the 'Are you still there' prompt remains the pain of long-form bingers like myself to this very day. I mean, if I want to turn the show off, I'll turn it off. But if I want something on in the background whilst otherwise occupied, I don't think that's a problem either. Companies need to learn how to trust their consumers more. And if you're wondering what this has to do with anything, it's just my strange analogue for the 'are you still there?' that Mircosoft pulled the other day when they slyly teased a price hike to their Xbox Live gold service. (Excuse me?)

So perhaps those in the enlightened PC worldspace aren't familiar, but down here in the peasant console land we are forced to pay a tax in order to go online. It's called the 'online service'. Here's a system where we pay in order to have our trusty console manufactures secure an online ecosystem that is usually fraught with all sorts of nonsense and stupid issues and can be subject to the odd global shutdown ever year or so. (It's always whenever I'm online, too.) So for our bloodmoney, the Sonys and Microsofts of the world get to maintain their revenue stream and stay as rich as they want, it is what it is, I think we're past fundamental arguments at this point. And yet, as begrudging as this situation is and how we just have to accept the meal we're given; that don't mean eyebrows won't be raised at a spontaneous 100% price increase. I mean; who the heck do you exactly think you are, Xbox?

It's not as though they're the leaders of the console gaming pack by any stretch of the imagination. Strides have certainly been made and I'd say that right now we're sitting in a position where, through initiatives like Game Pass and certain upcoming exclusives and the technical superiority of the Series X (in some fields), Microsoft might be in a position to be a real competitor again at some point in the discernible future. But they aren't there yet, and Playstation still rules this day. Playstation has all the exciting exclusivities, all the relationships with the powerful studios and enough gall to pull Cyberpunk off their shelves entirely when that development studio started given them sass. Microsoft don't have that sort of swagger, because they can't. The Xbox One console generation, led with the Kinect mess, threw Microsoft too far in the back, it swapped the power dynamic entirely. So in what world do they think they have the sort of reputational capital to make a foot-in-mouth move like that?

It was just so 'matter of fact' and cold. They just spat out a document neatly calculating the new prices in various major worldwide currencies as though to say; "you expected this, this makes sense." They even had the gall to throw in some nonsense about "Our prices haven't changed for 10 years so now it's reasonable that we..." That's because your prices are already too much, morons! We're locked in this stalemate because both Microsoft and Sony are subtly gouging console players for lackluster services and hoping they don't get wise to the grift, the absolute last course of action to take in such a predicament is to up the ante. You really want to draw attention to the crappy value proposition of your online service, Microsoft? You really want to do that?

And I may be throwing a 'how could this happen' sort of vibe about, but let me tell you exactly what happened, shall I? Microsoft just turned around and looked at the way Netflix and all those other streaming services have been slowly turning up their prices now that their consumer base is locked in. Those executives turned around to each other, rubbed the brimstone out of their ears and went "Look at how much money they're making! Heck, we've had a captive audience for decades; why ain't we taking advantage like that?" And the response should have been; 'Because that would literally be like opening Pandora's box', or something to that effect. (But no one ever jumps in to point out the obvious. Thus we, the customers, have to remind them the basic of common sense.)

What really gets me about this, and I mean that which just has me scratching my scalp to the bone, is the timing of all this. Did they really not stop to think about the timing? We're in the middle of an ongoing pandemic, lockdowns are getting renewed, budgets are as tight as they've ever been, and Microsoft are just sitting there with their wallets open waiting for their due? And before you start thinking "Oh, maybe times are tough on their end too"- Nope. Gaming has been doing just fine with the lockdown mandates, the steady transition to digital only bought doom to the third-party retailers, Xbox ain't got nothing to be complaining about. Not matter which way you look at this, this here was just another example of "Why have most of the money when you can have all of the money?"

One thought I had, though I admit it borders on conspiratorial, was that this was an attempt to divert traffic onto the Gamepass service, because that would actually make some grim sense, wouldn't it? Whilst the 'Xbox live' value proposition equation is all skewered, Gamepass actually overdelivers on it's value and then some, and I've been feeling like Gamepass is destined to be the Xbox live replacement for a while now. It secures a audience coming back for the high-quality 'free' games on a roatation, earns a slightly higher monthly cost through sheer virtue of the service and is easily the best deal in the entire industry right now, so there's a headline earner. I just thought that the transition would come as a steady abolishment of the Xbox Live charge system in favour of steady rising Gamepass prices, rather than a bad-faith attempt to outprice us to the new service. (Shame on you, Xbox, that was dirty.)

Of course, I'm not the only one who was bewildered and enraged about this story, and by the time the journalists had managed to wrangle an article together, Xbox had already completely turned tail and withdrew the expansionism plans. No price hike, and I presume no plan to make 'Free to play' online games totally free either. (Because that was apparently the toss-up that we were supposed to be swallowing the hike for. No thanks.) I'm not sure if this was meant as a sort of 'all news is good news' way to get the brand name in the headlines, but someone needs to really tell the folk over at Xbox that sometimes, when you know there's a 90% chance that the audience is going to hang you for what you're about to do, some basic instinctual foresight and sensible judgement can do wonders.