Xbox Live may get more expensive

Here's the scoop on supposedly why Live might be going up on prices .
April 21, 2010 - According to a report from Bloomberg, Microsoft and former News Corp. president Peter Chernin held private discussions about creating a Xbox 360 television channel accessible by Xbox Live members.

The report, which cites anonymous sources, claims the two parties held talks in Redmond, Washington last week about the idea. "Chernin suggested raising Xbox Live's monthly fee by $1 or $2 to add programming aimed at the online service's young, male target audience," the source said. The channel would offer reruns as well as original programming.

Former Late Night host Conan 'O Brien was targeted by Chernin for the new television channel, but 'O Brien ultimately signed a new deal with TBS. A separate report surfaced from last week saying 'O Brien was approached by Microsoft for a Xbox Live show, which suggests this is no longer a rumor.

Chernin stepped down as News Corp. president in June 2009.

Microsoft has yet to comment on this report.

Ugh. More money for something I don't want/need.

So they are targeting the young male population on xbox live does that mean we will get a playboy channel for xbox live?

animefrk122 wrote:So they are targeting the young male population on xbox live does that mean we will get a playboy channel for xbox live?

that would be good that means wiggles and zak wont lag out do to porn DL

I'm not liking this...how about a bit of research to see how many of your paying members give a SH&T about Conan and want to actually watch him or some other crap on xbox...before you start raising prices . This is the garbage that really ticks me off. No one said "Boy, I sure wish I could watch late night TV on my xbox".

What is this crap?

I saw a report this morning that Sony has teamed up with MLB.TV for streaming games to the PS3...maybe they're just trying to keep up. Last I looked they are already leading with stuff like netflix. Plus, I already have a subscription to MLB.TV and don't want to watch the baseball games on my xbox anyway.

Interesting tactic seeing as there has been a steady increase in female gamers over the years.

http://www.womengamers.com/news/2009/07/28/female-gamers-rise-09/

Sometimes I wonder why companies take a huge step back, when they've made some many advances forward.

I'm sure there are other ways to make that 1 or 2 per month. How about in-demand TV shows? If you didn't have to log out an go to a network website, hulu or Boxee, and just had it readily available, I'd be willing to pay for that. In fact, most people don't know about Hulu or Boxee, so they would be more willing to pay for something like that.

MS could easily compete with iTunes season passes and single episode downloads if they offered in-demand streaming of TV shows for an extra monthly fee that covered the major stations. It'd be a nice way to stick it to cable companies.

I'm all for live internet channels like MLB or even the NFL if it meant I could break away from greedy cable companies.

I concur with you guys lol give me some channels that I care about instead of this crap.

According to the data from JWriter's link:

Females increased by five percentage points among Console Gamers, from 23
percent in 2008 to 28 percent in 2009. Since the rise in console usage
among Console Gamers can be mainly attributed to the Wii, which
increased in usage by 19 percentage points from last year, this
underscores the finding that more females are using console systems,
especially the Wii.

Sorry, but I see nothing in that data which would imply that xbox should therefore raise prices for XBL (since more women are playing Wii). It appears they're looking raise them for any reason...

Besides, are they really getting this data from women that have a full XBL subscription? Or just from the number of women that purchase games (i.e.) with a credit card...because they could clearly be buying for their husbands, sons, brothers, etc.

Sorry, I should have clarified. I actually meant that the link with the female gamer info to refute the part of the original post where Xbox mentioned that part of the reason it is charging more is because they will provide more "male" oriented content. I thought that specific part was a step back since female gamers are increasing in numbers.

As far as charging more, as long as I get content that is worth it then I'm OK with it. I don't want them to charge us just to charge us. I don't need male specific content...I can get that for free whenever I want it. At least give me something that expands on my gaming/media experience--game DLC, access to more media, access to the internet via my console, etc.