News "MS points weren't meant to mislead customers"

http://www.bit-tech.net/news/gaming/2010/01/21/xbl-points-weren-t-meant-to-mislead-custom/1

Xbox boss Aaron Greenberg has apologised to customers who were misled by MS Points.

 

Wanted to be transparent with points? PAH!

 

It's nice to see that they're trying a new system. Paying the direct amount seems easier then balancing MS points.

 

200 points is 200 points? No matter what currency.

And do the points adjust as easily as exchange rate?

And can you buy just 10 points if you are only 10 points short?

 

what pisses me off is that companies all use a different points system if i want the DAO DLC i need to get bioware points if i want a wii game ai need Nintendo points if i want X box game i need MS points.
the problem is that there is no way i'm going to invest in points as it seems like lost money

say the DAO DLC costs 180 points but you can only buy in blocks of 200 the immediately i am paying 10% more than i need to

 

I'll care about this when gold membership is free... which will never happen.

 

Having moved country in europe 3 years ago I still cant believe that I can't pay for mspoints.

The problem is that you cannot change the country on your live account!

F*king ms

 

if they go to money istead of points it has to be based on a single currency and everyone else uses the exchange rate.

im in ireland and 2100 points cost the same here as in the uk (within a few euros) but the on demand games that came out lately cost alot more to buy in euros in ireland than in uk with pounds. its not an exchange rate its a local pricing.

points are fairer than local pricing, the fairest of all would be everything based on one currency, say the dollar for sake of argument and everyone pays the exchange rate at the time

 

I was always most confused that I couldn't buy stuff with my 'gamerpoints'
I thought that was such an awesome idea, until I realised that MS points were different.

Buying stuff on Live with points earned by playing games on Live would have been pretty great, no? Why the hell would I use real money to get a new theme for the xbox interface!?

 

Points systems are designed to get people to spend more money than they need to spend. They are a scam right from the get go. If they are truly so benevolent they would put in the work to make everything based on real money. I don't buy things on Xbox live because I don't appreciate everything being sold for less MS points than you can actually credit yourself. For example (and I may be getting the numbers wrong) You can only buy in blocks of 500, 1000 or 2000, but the MSpoint cost of things are always like 200, 400, 800, 1500, etc...

So you end up having left over points that you have rightfully paid for but can't spend. It's unfair to the consumer. It also calls into question the "value" of MS points vs real money. That value is basically imaginary because if something costs 200 MS points all around the world, you're basically altering the value of the product based on who's buying it due to the value of whatever countries currency.

If Microsoft wants to stop misleading consumers they should get rid of their points system completely. There was no question on PSN when I bought a PSOne classic. It said it costs $9.99. I confirmed the purchase and it charged my associated card $9.99. I got exactly what I paid for and I didn't have like... $2.78 "credit" left over that I paid to Sony that I can't get anything with.

 

You found the real reason why the point system exists in the first place.

 

I don't mind points but you should be able to by small amounts of points e.g game cost 1600 points and I have 1400 points I should be able to put in how many point I need in this case 200, so if im getting it right that £1.70.

 

I don't mind the point system at all. In fact its nice-- buy a bunch of points, and if you don't use them all, they sit there and you can use them in the future. No price fluxes, no bs, no hassle. If they switch to dollars I'll just go out to the store and buy the physical game for the extra $$$ and hassle.