The True Australian Xbox Experience
Do Microsoft offer any real value for Australians?
By DarkArmada
© 2008 Lee Edgerton
As a foreword to this little rant of mine, let me say that Xbox LIVE has been my service of choice since its meek beginning in Australia some years ago. I have had special online time with my PC and although free to access and is provided with a lot more customization than a typical console based online service, I’ve always preferred the “plug and play” mentality of Xbox LIVE, it’s excellent end-to-end feeling has always made me feel all warm and fuzzy inside.
You get what you pay for.
It’s a fairly straight forward concept, one that is utilized by sales people the world over and is a common explanation for “is this really worth the money” type questions. In Australia we pay $AUD79.95 per year (RRP) for access to Xbox LIVE. For reference, that is about $6.66 per month (spooky) and just under $1.54 per week. This year, we’ll have paid just 0.22 per day to access Xbox LIVE. Why does this matter? For starters, let’s remember that Xbox LIVE is not considered an “item” or a real-world-goods we can hold in our hands, it is simply a service. Secondly, we do not have local access to Xbox LIVE, we run off of the US Marketplace servers.
What does this all mean?
“`Well, this week our dollar made it to all time 25 year high of $0.9842 US cents, but for my example here, I’ll stick with Google’s latest reference rate of $0.9679. As many of you know, Australia’s excellent exchange rate has had minimal bearing on the gaming market with most games sold in Australia at a RRP of $100 – $120, while the same game in the US would sell for $US50 – $US60, which to them is considered “very expensive”. However, this is a different issue altogether!. And as little rant of mine here is related to Digital Distribution such as XboxLive, not goods as such that we can pick up and hold, we’ll that area to be covered in the next installment of “Why Australian’s are at the wrong end of the stick financially in gaming”.
Anyway, for $50 per year, the US gets access to Microsoft’s Xbox LIVE service however, their service is nothing like what you have seen locally and for far cheaper than what we pay. They are gifted with a plethora of extra content and features that us mere Australians could only ever dream (and hope) of. To get it into perspective, in Australian dollars, we pay $79.95AUD and they pay $51.66AUD and this right here is where Xbox LIVE Downunder is fundamentally flawed.
“Why are you saying this? These are all lies, Xbox LIVE is awesome!“
Yes it is, but if you’ve ever tried to get into large* (8+ players) matches with players from overseas, you would most likely of encountered the ever feared, ever hated latency issue we lovingly know as “lag“. We’ve all found ways to combat this phenomenon, whether it be to play only with Australian players, play smaller games or just take your chances as is, but the fact of the matter is, that without local servers for our own Xbox LIVE pleasure, we’ll always and forever suffer from this “virus” of online gaming if we truly want to compete and play globally.
As the main servers for Xbox LIVE are housed nice and safely within the “land of the free”, you’ll find that, bar sporadic technical issues or bad connections, our Yankee brethren enjoy a far more fluid and responsive time online. This is particularly evident with Call of Duty 4 – after the release of the first patch globally, the mechanics of the title gave the coveted “host” position to the user closest (defined by the lowest ping) to the US server – practically destroying the game entirely for Australian (let alone elsewhere in the world’s) gamers from ever enjoying a fair and even playing field on Xbox LIVE. As such, with no “county filter” within the matchmaking engine or a “choose fastest host” option, this is an issue that affects all of us, every single $80p/y member of Xbox LIVE.
So, to some up – for the lowest quality connection to Xbox LIVE, we pay the highest premium. This does not only apply to games but across the board.
Just some of the things we Australians miss out on completely, and we do so for more money!
“But we get all the cool demos and stuff!”
We do and we don’t. We do get all the cool demos, but we don’t really get any of the cool “stuff”. In the past, the ever elusive Video Marketplace has been a staple of an average American’s Xbox LIVE diet, able to download movies, TV shows and video clips as well as all the bells and whistles of such media (such as gamerpics and themes) without even a second thought. Whereas locally, our highlight would have been a (yes a single) South Park episode in HD… *cough*
If it were only this feature of Xbox LIVE that we missed out on I would not mind in the slightest. Australia’s poor excuse for a 21st Century Telecommunications infrastructure lets us down time and time again, both in quality (Mbit/s) and quantity (GB) and as such, the ability to download numerous GB’s of movies a day would be useless to us with our ever so sad GB p/month caps that an age-long monopoly of the country has so graciously left us with, but I digress…
“`Features such as IXB (Inside Xbox) that we have lived without for sometime and would take next to no engineering to implement locally is all but a shadow on the wall for us here in Australia, along with the upcoming flood of new features for Xbox LIVE (coming in the 2008 Fall Update) that caused such an oooh and aaah from fans all over the world, fall just outside our reach. Netflix, what is that? Primetime, that’s on TV, right? – all just features that are dangled in our face as “coming soon” in the hope that we won’t all just take our bat and ball and go home.
“WTF! then $79.95 is a ripoff man! MS epic fail!!11!one1!! . . “
Well, in this case that’s probably right. We currently pay a much higher “premium” price for far less features and content, just for the ‘privilege’ of playing on Xbox LIVE. In fact, it would seem that our payment of $79.95 per year actually subsidises the quality of service that our friends up north experience. Do we get what we pay for? No, not by a long shot… Is this even fair? No, not really… Is our “gimped” version of Xbox LIVE worth $79.95 per year? No, definitely not, and yet on the other side yes!
In my honest opinion, yes it is. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder and as such, I truly think that my 0.22 cents a day is well spent. Without comparisons of our service with the US, Xbox LIVE in Australia is an excellent console based online experience and one that delivers in spades. But it should be matched in what it delivers in content and be at a similar price point for something that is “digitally distributed” rather than an item that relies on real-world personal handling such as games and hardware.
“Yeah yeah bla bla Dark, I can has teh XBL card for $69 @ JB you n00b!!11! “
Yes, yes you can… I’m not done yet and I’ll tell you all about that issue next time!
© 2008 Lee Edgerton
Filed under: Microsoft Games, Software News & Updates, Xbox 360, Xbox 360 News Tagged: | "Australian Xbox Live service", "Australian's being gipped", "xbox live australia", xbox live, XboxLive
Great article mate, interesting read
Target’s Toy Sale is on at the moment and they have 12 month Live subscription for $59.95 and you get 200 MS points and a corded headset too.
I think we here in AU are getting ripped off too re the price but I honestly don’t mind paying. Xbox Live is the most fun I can have with my clothes on (or off when I am playing with Sheeky) !!
Dude i just read everyone’s comment’s and agree with almost all. The Xbox 360 is a fan%^&*()tastic console which i play everyday.
I reckon that sony should *&^% off with the PS3. It is no where near as good as the 360 yet all my friends have one. I’m the outcast with the 360. WTF. It owns and I know it’s a rip off but what you get is really great. The games qualities when you get an Australian server I think are unbelievable but i know the americans is better which (*&^*& me off.
XBOX 360 IN AUSTRALIA IS THE (*&^% BIGGEST RIP OFF BUT THE BEST GAMING EXPERIENCE ANYONE COULD EVER HAVE AT THIS MOMENT IN TECHNOLOGY.
ED) We don’t mind the comments mate, but the TOU and COD dictate civil language please . . . thanks. OZ
the grass is always greener on the other side.
i live in the united states, and let me tell you that all the stuff you mentioned in your article are not as fantastic (imo) as it may seem.
i can see your point, and do agree… it sucks that you have to pay 50%+ more than we do in the US, and get less for the money.
the movie rentals are a joke to me. you pay [however much it costs, depending on whether its hd or sd], but the license to watch it expires 24 hours after you play it for the first time. now, i can drive to the local rental store and pay a dollar more (for standard def dvd’s) and rent them for several days, and watch them as much as i want within that time. plus i can drive to the movie store and back before the movie is even down downloading. so basically, if you want to rent a movie from the marketplace, you have to plan ahead. you have to set it to download way before you plan on watching it, plus you have to make sure your family (or whoever is watching with you) will watch it within 24 hours. i dont know about you people, but this is a real pain in the ass for me.
pics and themes… (shrugs shoulders). im not a big fan of paying my hard-earned cash for a wallpaper and some small avitarish pics. the ones we get for free are that way only because they are for promoting something… like a new movie or something. they are basically like mini billboards on your xbox… which i dont like.
these mini ads make me wonder why we are paying what is charged for the service. i mean, on a pc, you can play online through various services for free, but the game lobby software has embedded ads. they get paid for the ads, which offsets the cost of allowing people to use the service for free. if you pay a membership, you can get the ad-free version… thats one of the perks of being a paying member. now, on the 360, we get the shaft in this department. we pay for the gold membership, and still get ads all over the dashboard… arent we all just sooo lucky?! and more often than not, those ads are for stuff that’s not even game related, such as ads for the US army/navy, some new movie, a new phone, or a new car. take the ‘yaris’ xbox live arcade game. it was free for everyone to download, but it was just an ad in disguise. the ‘yaris’ was a new model from toyota, and they needed a way to promote it. any time a developer wants to offer real content for free (like epic with gears of war), ms says NO and charges for it anyway.
inside xbox is probably the most pointless feature of them all. you can go to xbox.com’s homepage and see most of the stuff there. and what you cant see there isnt really worth watching anyway.
anyway, like i said, i do see your point, but most of those things are just a waste of space and server power, in my opinion.
here is an idea for you guys in AU though. make a silver account and set the location to the US. then you will connect to the US live servers and can download all the stuff we get. my old neighbor did this, but made a japanese account so he could download demos that we dont get here in the US, and it worked for him. give that a shot.
Hey guys there is no point in comparing live to the PSN. Live is a much more planned and encompassing experience than PSN. I hardly ever play my PS3 online or even play it anymore……
Hey champ,
just came across your blog. really like and completely agree with everything that you said. Its unbelievable that M$ expect us to pay so much for something that provides so little.
They could at least set up localized servers or some sort of service to get rid of the fucking lag.
I still paid for a 12month subscription though, I figure with the ability to download game demos it’ll be worth it in the long run, and some games are okay…even with the lag.
What grinds my gears as well is the fact that M$ are charging 800 points per game for arcade games. I mean 800 points is the equivalent of approximately $15….$15 for Street Fighter 2, its a fucking 15 year old game, unbelievable.
Oh and how generous of them to give me 400 free microsoft points which I can do absolutely nothing with.
Hey guys, just visit this website where you can purchase xbox live 12 month subscription for around $45 Australian dollars. Very easy, just done it and worked perfect. They email you the code within an hour.
http://www.microsoftpointsxbox.com/
with regards to the PS3 being a Blu-Ray movie player. Well, that what it is. And it’s a gaming console. But it’s first role was and has always been as an inroad into Blu-Ray HD DVD movie player. Even Sony said so on the outset of the PS3 being announced. They even went so far as to say, their words, not mine, “that they no longer made gaming consoles, the PS3 was a Super Computer and HD Blu-Ray movie player – that played games.
Not trying to have ago at you, but if you do some digging, you’ll find comments from good old Uncle Ken K himself that said those sorts of things prior to the PS3 being released. He then went back on himself several times and started commenting that it was a gaming console, a Blu-Ray movie playback device with supercomputer powers, than back to a gaming console. He basically couldn’t make up his mind what it was.
All that being so, the PS3, while an excellent machine, and I’d have one at the drop of a hat (filled with money), if it relied on game sale for it to survive, it would be dead in the water. It’s main claim to its success to date is purely due to Blu-Ray and its acceptance as the new HD medium.
Sales of games on the PS3 are poor in comparison to the units sold for the 360. Any developer will tell you that they now know that to sell units to get their $US20 – $US30 million per game back (not incl publishing and promotion), they’ll have to put their once only Sony games out on both platforms in order to survive. It’s why FFXIII is on the 360 now, with Square Enix having a 360 Exclusive and 3 others on both platforms.
Sony used the very same tactic with the PS2 back in 2001-2002. In fact, many of the devleopers back then had huge issues with Sony Corp during its first year, as ppl were NOT buying games, but simply walking into the games stores and buying the PS2, then going and buying DVD’s from the Video stores and department stores. Games simply were a second thought and it took almost 12 – 18mths before they started to gain momentum in sale.
The difference then to now was that they basically had no real competition, now they do, and they can’t afford to make mistakes. At least now with KK out of the way (retired cough) they are addressing those earlier errors, and beginning to re-focus on gaming.
All that aside, when games on the 360 sell in the numbers like 5 – 6 million for some titles, and the PS3′s only in the lower number such as 2-3 million for a certain title, then you can see why it’s easy to call it a Blu-Ray player over a gaming unit. It’s sold MILLIONS of units based on the Blu-Ray, and it in turn has sold tens and tens of MILLIONS of blu-ray movies world wide.
But for a game developer, that means bugger all, as they make no money from movies on the PS3, just games into ppls homes. As I said, I have nothing against it as a machine, I’d have one in a heart-beat, but as far as gaming is concerned, and excellent titles, and price for what I want, the 360 is first and foremost a gaming platform. It’s changing mind you, like the PS2 did, but there a BIG difference to 2001 and 2008, MS’s heavy hitting $$ weight and surplus cash has itover Sony who have much less surplus $$ sitting around to plough into it.
Remember, Sony’s gaming unit is the ONLY unit within Sony Corp that is loosing money annually. All other departments are turning a profit every quarter. Yet the Gaming div is $US 3 billion in the red due to the PS3, while the 360 has just turn its second quarter of profits. It’s not as simply as which one you like, but which one is doing what it set out to do . . right now it’s anyone’s race.
I respect your article and everything, because I do plan on getting a 360 just for the sake of Ninja Gaiden 2, but I disagree with you on the PS3 being just a bluray player. It’s really annoying to see how people still refer to the PS3 as a bluray player when it actually plays games.
I play both PS2 and PS3 games on my system and I have never bought a bluray movie.
We have it rough here in many areas. Our petrol is almost ready to topple the $2 mark PER LITRE . . not per gallon, but per litre. At the current rate of around $AU1.80 per ltr that woulds out to $US6.90 per gallon . . . and when it hits the $2 mark, it’ll be even higher, yet our dollar is just marginally lower than the US greenback atm . work that one out. It’ll be $US7.60 per gallon.
For digitally distributed goods, the price should be equal to what the conversion rate is as it’s being supplied off overseas terminals, not local ones, and there’s no handling charges, no shipping or storage charges, god, there’s no human input whatsoever really when downloading a digital item. Yet we pay a significantly higher rate than others do. As do many countries outside the US.
I can understand to some extend with real-world-goods, but digital goods are just that DIGITAL and shared across the internet which cost $$’s minimal to transmit.
It’s exactly the same in Europe. Just showes you how gaming companys prioritize the US and Japan. It’s been this way forever, and it’s not likely gonna change soon, even though the market in Europe at least is bigger than the US.
Nice work Dark, gonna spread the word far and wide about this article. Very balanced and strong opinion congrats!
I don’t have a qualm with paying $0.22 per day for a service which does give you more than PSN does for free atm. And like all things, I’d like more for my money just like anyone else.
The reason I stay with the 360 is that i have a much bigger selection of games, both on XboxArcade, XboxLive and through normal retail games. If I want a game that doesn’t appear here in Aust, I simply grab it from the UK (PAL territory) or Play-Asia if it’s Region Free which suits me fine.
the 360′s line up of games outstrips the PS3′s offering 3 to 1 easily, and continues to do so with more games being offered on the 360 than the PS3.
Now before you goo into a fanboy rant, I think the PS3 is amazing at what it does do, and what it offers as a great Blu-Ray movie player and occassional game console. It has sold so well based on Blu-Ray movies, NOT games. And that’s is what we are here for. Gaming first, movies a distant second.
Now if I wanted a HD Blu-Ray player, then I’d get a PS3, but I don’t, I get all my gaming goodies from the 360, with the few exceptions of such great games as MGS4 and just a few others.
Now with FFXIII coming to the 360, which every PS3 Sony fan was saying “would never happen” (cough), then really that simply says that developers and publishers can see that there is merit in having 4 times the amount of sales on the 360, than they could on the PS3 for their GAMES . . not movies.
I’ll stick with the 360 thanks, the new machine have no problems now,and the newer ones just around the corner will be better still. And yes, both MS and Sony are hard at it building their next iteration of hardware, the x720 (official code name) and the PS4, which they have acknowledged is in the works.
If I wanted movies, I would have bought a movie player, I want a gaming console.
Buy a ps3 mate. PSN is free!!!! I live in canada and everything I buy from the playstation network gets converted to canadian dollars… Or you can keep paying ridiculous prices for services and add-ons from Microshit
Mate nice read. But it is just the brunt of living in australia. We always get it, whether it be electronics goods to petrol….. It has always been that way and will always stay that way. We dont have the buying power of 270mil consumers.
Thanks Cinty – unfortunately yes, we’re stuck with a fairly large bill for XboxLIVE every year. I understand that yes, times were different when XBL was introduced over 5 years ago with an AUD$ only buying about 50 US cents, but now we’re almost at 1:1 with the USD and the price for XBL remains the same…
Very good article, Armada. I never knew you payed so much for Live.