It is the day after Christmas and all the shoppers are out in force grabbing up deals. As for me, I got what I asked for and had a good Christmas day with family and friends.
Now one of the things I asked for this year was a Xbox Live Gold membership. The main reason for me was to be able to use Netflix in HD on my TV. Unlike Nintendo's Wii or Sony's Playstation 3 which allow you to access online gaming and Netflix for FREE, Microsoft needs to milk as much money out of the consumer as possible. This is one of my biggest issue with the Xbox 360 that grinds my gears, having to pay on top of a game's cost play online or use services like Netflix. If you want to either play online multiplayer or use Netflix, you need to spend $60/year for a Xbox Live Gold account to access that content. I can understand for online gaming as that covers server and bandwidth costs. But to be required to use already paid for services like Netflix is just absurd in my opinion. I am already paying Netflix, now Microsoft wants to charge me a toll to access it (but nothing to watch trailers and download demos on Mircosoft's Zune..hmmm).
I got Netflix a couple months ago when it came to Canada and just happened around the same time to setup my 360 for internet access (which Microsoft gave me a free 1 month trial for Gold). Using Netflix on the 360 was great until my Gold trial expired and I lost access to Netflix. I found out the hard way by not being able to access Netflix on the 360 but I could on the Wii. WTF? After checking Xbox.com and Netflix, there it was, Gold account required. Fine Microsoft,I will use my Wii as only loss is HD content and my current TV was only a 480p CRT. As a note, when I added Netflix to my 360, I was not aware you needed a Gold membership to access as was already accessing for free via our Wii and was currently in a 1 month Gold trial.
Now from a marketing point of view, why would someone want to buy a console, only to have to pay more to use features when the competing consoles do the same or very similar for free? Wouldn't it draw more users to buy a 360 knowing they could use Netflix for free and not require a Gold membership? Just seems baffling logic to me. Especially as more games are now released on both 360 and PS3 where before, certain games were available only to certain consoles. This was my main reason for buying a 360 over a PS3. Games I like to play tend to be 360 only and I was willing to lose a built in Blueray player and go with Microsoft's product to be able to play them.
My TV recently died and got replaced with a HD model. So for Christmas, I asked for a Gold membership so I can access Netflix in HD as the Wii can only output a 480p resolution. This was fine when the old TV only supported max 480p but now that I can do 1080p, I wanted Netflix in HD. My brother kindly got me a 12 month Gold subscription prepaid card for Christmas. Stoked to be able to watch Netflix in HD again, I logged into my 360 console to redeem the code like a little kid excited to test out the new toy. This kid was about to get what no one wants on Christmas, an issue with the gift with a side of terribad customer service...
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