Why You Don't Want a $99 Xbox 360 530
itwbennett writes "Peter Smith has done the math on Microsoft's $99 Xbox 360 — 4GB model (no hard drive) and a Kinect sensor. Here's why it's a bad deal: 'You'll be paying $99 + $359.76 in monthly fees, or $458.76 over the course of two years. Compare that with (I'm using prices from Amazon that were accurate as of May 7th, 2012) $287.70 for an Xbox 360 4GB + Kinect bundle, and two 12-month Xbox Live Gold cards at $48.41 each, a total of $384.52. So you're paying almost $75 for the privilege of laying out small cash now.' And then there's the not insignificant matter of early termination fees."
Or... (Score:2, Insightful)
$0 for not having an Xbox 360 at all. That's the option I'm going for.
Let me introduce you... (Score:5, Insightful)
To cell phone plans.
Multiple consoles (Score:3, Insightful)
So you're paying almost $75 for the privilege of laying out small cash now.
This privilege is valuable to working class families that have a lot of kids but not a lot of savings, especially when a lot of newer console games have been following in PC games' footsteps in eschewing shared-screen multiplayer in favor of LAN or online multiplayer. Thus one has to buy a separate console for each gamer in the family rather than one for the whole family as it used to be in the split-screen era.
the goal is to keep people from PSN (Score:3, Insightful)
Sony is releasing a new console soon. 10 to 1 odds they will release a new version of PSN and a premium version of PSN as well.
this is meant to make people think twice about buying a new PS4 and pay for PSN. why buy new PS4 if i just signed up for a 2 year x-box deal?
the hardcore i play every single kill/hack everyone to death game 7 days a week on every console 10 years back people aren't the target of this
it's people like me who have a PS3 i use only for blu rays and i've been thinking about an x-box with kinect for the kids people are the target of this
Slow news day? (Score:5, Insightful)
I've heard of slow news days, but seriously, what is this shit?
Smartphones, Cars, Premium Cable, pest control (Score:5, Insightful)
Or didn't you realize an iPhone really costs $2,000; DVR Equipment fees are really a fleecing, a $20k car really costs $36k, and pest control really costs $240, not $20/month. Gillette razors are also not 5 dollars.
Oh and mortgages are a really bad deal. You pay like 150grand extra, why not just pay cash up front?
Re:Or... (Score:5, Insightful)
Or buy the Xbox but not the Live part. Single player games are more fun anyway with better story vs. online with teeny boppers and a gamethat goes forever with no real point. Like FF elevn.
Re:Smartphones, Cars, Premium Cable, pest control (Score:2, Insightful)
...because most people don't have two hundred thousand dollars laying around to just buy a house someday, or thirty thousand dollars extra to purchase a car in cash?
Houses wouldn't cost so much, if loans for them were not so common. Same for college tuition. The more people can afford something the higher the price goes up.
Re:Multiple consoles (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Smartphones, Cars, Premium Cable, pest control (Score:5, Insightful)
Financing takes many forms, and this one is neither shocking nor very different from cellphones, which are generally accepted by a willing public. The best part about it is if this pilot plan works out, they can come out with FANTASTICALLY expensive consoles in the future, and people will just subscribe to 2 year contracts instead of shelling out the giant sticker price.
Re:Same reason as before... (Score:5, Insightful)
No, same reason as before –poor people have to make false economies:
At the time of Men at Arms, Samuel Vimes earned thirty-eight dollars a month as a Captain of the Watch, plus allowances. A really good pair of leather boots, the sort that would last years and years, cost fifty dollars. This was beyond his pocket and the most he could hope for was an affordable pair of boots costing ten dollars, which might with luck last a year or so before he would need to resort to makeshift cardboard insoles so as to prolong the moment of shelling out another ten dollars.
Therefore over a period of ten years, he might have paid out a hundred dollars on boots, twice as much as the man who could afford fifty dollars up front ten years before. And he would still have wet feet.
Without any special rancour, Vimes stretched this theory to explain why Sybil Ramkin lived twice as comfortably as he did by spending about half as much every month.
[Sir Terry Pratchett]
Re:Same reason as before... (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, the PC DRM is only "from hell" if you buy games with that DRM on it. I don't touch Ubisoft for that very reason, and it was a strong reason against buying games like SC2 (and quite likely Diablo 3 as well). Buy indie titles and you really don't have that problem.
Re:Same reason as before... (Score:5, Insightful)
It's bundled with the Kinect. And that's because the Kinect's sales figures have gone flat. Early adopters bought the hell out of them (even set a record), but then the software failed to materialize and sales have begun to stagnate. This is not a ploy to grab an extra $75, it's a ploy to get Kinect machines in more households. The extra $75 is just tacked on to leverage the risk associated with monthly payment plans.
Why? Maybe MS hopes a larger user base will inspire more Kinect development. They might have decided the Kinect is the "universal remote" in their "Xbox as home entertainment hub" scheme. They could just be trying to move units and recoup their investment.
(probably all of the above)
Re:Smartphones, Cars, Premium Cable, pest control (Score:2, Insightful)
Oh and mortgages are a really bad deal. You pay like 150grand extra, why not just pay cash up front?
Because while you are saving the cash to pay for the house, you pay that $150,000 in rent and, if you are unlucky, find out that the house prices have risen by another $100,000.
Re:Same reason as before... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Same reason as before... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Same reason as before... (Score:4, Insightful)
Preach it. I took a job in a different city and moved here soon after to start work, while my wife and kids stayed put through the end of the school year. I find myself sitting in an empty house, in a situation where it'd be dumb to buy a TV when all my furniture will be moving here within the month. The library is a lifesaver. There's a bus stop near my house, and it's cheap to ride to another part of the city and just walk around to look at stuff. If I have to have passive entertainment, I can watch shows on Netflix (and I bet 90% of households who would want to buy an XBox already have a PC and Internet connection capable of supporting it).
I grew up with video games and I love 'em, but they're hardly something you've gotta have. For the history of the world up through 30 years ago, people managed to entertain themselves without them. It's still possible, you know?
Uninformed (Score:5, Insightful)
First of all, if you get your xbox this way, it's warrantied for the two years you're under contract, compared to one year for the usual retail package. The extra year's warranty retails for $50.
When you figure in the extended warranty, the price gap (using the author's Amazon sale prices) shrinks to about $25. If you use the usual retail price of things it actually works out to be $10 cheaper to take the subsidized deal.
Secondly, yes, if you get it on sale and can pay up front, it's cheaper in the long-run. Welcome to the world of finance, asshat. In the end, for everyone else, you're paying a premium of just over a $1.04 per month for the privilege of having the thing now, rather than later. Try getting anything even close to that on a credit card -- at even a relatively modest interest rate of 9%, credit works out to $422 over the course of 2 years.
Nearly every goddamn article and blog on this acts as if Microsoft if fleecing everyone, when in fact the terms are very reasonable, if not generous. Of course they're counting on re-couping the costs elsewhere (games, peripherals, continued growth of XBL), but so be it. The fact that they expect to expand their revenue in this way is not underhanded, allows them to offer a better deal than credit companies, and frankly, is a good business move.
If you have philosophical differences with entering into such contracts yourself, then fine, but that doesn't mean this offer isn't valuable for other folks.
The Sam Vimes Boots Theory of Economic Unfairness (Score:4, Insightful)
"A poor man can only afford low quality boots that are $10 and last for about a year. A rich man can afford good boots that cost $60 and will last him for a decade. In that decade, the poor man will have spent more money on boots, and will still have wet feet."
Re:Same reason as before... (Score:4, Insightful)
The Amish, like every other culture, have a variety of things to do to pass the time and stave off boredom. I believe that the parent was trying to say people need entertainment of some for good mental health. e.g. playing ball and stick for a few hours is more healthy than staring at a blank wall.
Just as a note the Amish tend to be reasonably wealthy: virtually no costs but produce extra to sell. Check out the stories on the news sometimes about extravagant Amish kids who are experiencing their year outside the community.
Re:Same reason as before... (Score:5, Insightful)
Besides, I got tired of buying a new video card every year just to keep up with the latest titles. I know for a fact that any console game will run on the console.
I'm pretty weary of that myth. Three years ago I built a computer with fairly reasonable specs, an ATI 4870 (was about $270) and a Core 2 Duo E6540 (about $150) and incidentals including memory, motherboard, etc all for about $800. To this date it's still running recent games just fine. The only people stuck in the upgrade rut are those that see running a game at anything other than max detail at 100fps as not being able to play the game, which is ridiculous.
Granted $800 is more than a $600 launch day PS3, but I can also use it for, well, everything I could need a computer for. I imagine someone with a lot more money could get even more ahead of the curve.
Re:Same reason as before... (Score:4, Insightful)
Well, you did buy a dell... and it was a laptop.
Re:Or... (Score:4, Insightful)
ps. Before you slam Sony for root kits, I'd suggest you read the history. It's not related to a PlayStation at all, and is old and apologized for.
That's funny, the CDs with the rootkits and the consoles both seem to say SONY on them.
If SONY doesn't want me to conflate rootkits distributed by SONY with games consoles distributed by SONY they can just not put SONY on one of them.
Until then, SONY is the rootkit company, the end.