Xbox Live Purchases Listed in Local Currency Cost

[Jason Dunn]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://arstechnica.com/gaming/news/2009/06/xbox-live-evolves-no-more-microsoft-points-user-ratings.ars' target='_blank'>http://arstechnica.com/gaming/news/...ser-ratings.ars</a><br /><br /></div><p><em>"Meeting with Microsoft's Scott Austin to talk about Xbox Live, there was little expectation of sexy reveals or big news, and what we saw during the briefing wasn't flashy in any way. But there was still some really good news for Xbox 360 owners: Microsoft is getting set to update Xbox Live in a number of ways to make it easier to find and buy content. The big news is that games will be priced in your local currency, and you'll be able to buy with a credit card, bypassing the point system altogether. That's not all."</em></p><p><img src="http://images.thoughtsmedia.com/resizer/thumbs/size/600/dht/auto/1244480262.usr1.jpg" style="border: 1px solid #d2d2bb;" /></p><p>One of the things that really irritates some people about the Xbox Live system is the reliance on points for purchasing content - and because the Zune ecosystem is so closely tied to that of the Xbox, over on the Zune Market place points were the only choice for buying content. That's changing, at least on the Xbox side of things - purchases will be listed in local currency costs (that's dollars and cents) and you'll have the option to pay via a direct charge onto your credit card, or you can use points if you have them. That will be great for renting movies - it always ticked me off that I had to bust out an Xbox Points calculator to figure out how much an HD movie was <em>really </em>costing me.</p><p>Here's my hope: the Zune Marketplace will be able to transition over to a cash-based system rather than being reliant upon Xbox Live points. There are some people that absolutely loathe the points system, and if the Zune Marketplace can reach parity with iTunes and Amazon's MP3 store by charging dollars instead of points, I'll all for it.</p>

[Espiox]

I don't see this happening any time soon. The "pay by credit card" feature is only being applied to the new Games on Demand store, not the Marketplace as a whole. Points aren't going anywhere just yet.

[Jason Dunn]

I don't see this happening any time soon. The "pay by credit card" feature is only being applied to the new Games on Demand store, not the Marketplace as a whole. Points aren't going anywhere just yet.

Uggg....really? I guess I was hoping for too much. That sucks...but maybe it's the first step of several to be made.

[Stinger]

As a first step, it's great.

Hopefully the whole points system will either be dropped or supplemented with direct purchases eventually.

Hopefully the new Xbox games purchasing system will be as good as Steam for Windows.

[Felix Torres]

The points system was designed to accomodate micropayments and to simplify/normalize pricing across territories; the value of a MSP could vary but the content price would stay constant.
With the OnDemand game store neither of those applies.
Other stuff, however...
<shrug>
It has never annoyed me that much and the idea of having a pool of MSP credit is more convenient than hitting the credit card with a dozen nickel-n-dime charges a month.

[Jason Dunn]

It has never annoyed me that much and the idea of having a pool of MSP credit is more convenient than hitting the credit card with a dozen nickel-n-dime charges a month.

I don't mind the points system myself - they make it easy enough to purchase a block of points. But I wish they'd give you a dollar amount for ALL purchases - hiding the dollar amount irritates me, especially for movies. Not sure why - I guess because I want to know how much I'm paying for the movie compared to renting it, etc.