Xbox LIVE Gold Is Free For This Weekend

16 responses to “Xbox LIVE Gold Is Free For This Weekend”

1. 

   spaghett

   November 30, 2012 at 9:32 am

   Woah….free Live

   Noice

   Reply
2. 

   Neo Kaiser

   November 30, 2012 at 9:34 am

   Woah! Free LIVE until September 2 of next year!?

   Reply
   1. 

      germinalconsequence

      November 30, 2012 at 12:05 pm

      It’s a really long weekend.

      Reply
3. 

   gus

   November 30, 2012 at 9:35 am

   It should really be completely free by now anyway.

   Reply
   1. 

      jellyarrow

      November 30, 2012 at 9:50 am

      I doubt that will happen. I’d imagine MS makes a tidy profit from the subscriptions.

      Reply
      1. 

         dogman

         November 30, 2012 at 12:04 pm

         It’ll happen eventually. XBOX Live paved the way and set the standard for quality online experience. That money was enough to make them invest in growing online functionality for consoles and take it all extremely seriously. Sony decided to eat the cost but even as a free service it had to follow XBOX Live’s lead. Now Microsoft are in a position where they’re being pressured to eat the cost too but they can’t lower the quality without looking bad.
         I’d say next generation XBOX Live Silver will cover most (if not all) your basic needs, while XBOX Live Gold will become more of a luxury package like PSN+. It’s already started to happen, they just need to take one or two more big steps. Just look at all these pretty-much-giving-it-away sales. They know they can’t charge for it forever.

         So the end result is that instead of having ok online functionality that was left mostly up to the individual developers to handle like we probably would have got, the XBOX Live subscribers raised the bar to the absolute limit by paying during the early years, Microsoft raised it even higher trying to retain those subscriptions past the point where people were willing to pay, and soon everybody will be able to reap the benefits of the bar being jammed as high as it’ll go. =)

         Reply
         1. 

            jellyarrow

            November 30, 2012 at 1:23 pm

            ” while XBOX Live Gold will become more of a luxury package like PSN+. It’s already started to happen,”

            I don’t think Gold is anything like PS+ at the moment. I can’t think of one way in which they are similar. PS+ is more content driven; free games, discounts, early betas/demos, full-game trials and cloud storage. Live is a subscription for MP. Sometimes they restrict demos to Gold members, The Darkness 2 Demo was restricted to Gold members, for example, and lock apps away, like I.E., for Gold members.

            I also think that the sorts of reductions in price we are seeing are happening because the life-cycle of the console is coming to an end. MS might have to offer Live cheaper now than they have in the past, but I think when the next-xbox releases those subscription prices will shoot back up.

            It’s profitable, they’re not going to ditch it. They might expand it, something like PS+, but then it will be Sony who have influenced MS to be more generous with the content of their subscriptions. Cloud storage was something PS+ members had before MS offered it for Gold members, for example.

            Just my 2¢

            Reply
4. 

   tehmothay

   November 30, 2012 at 9:35 am

   Umm, don’t you mean december 2?

   Reply
5. 

   Old Mate

   November 30, 2012 at 9:47 am

   I’m confused.. Is it free starting this weekend until September? Or only free for this weekend?

   Reply
6. 

   Prof. Ake

   November 30, 2012 at 9:51 am

   You mean December 2 right?

   Reply
7. 

   puck

   November 30, 2012 at 9:58 am

   I took advantage of that Dick Smith pricing error (3 months of Xbox Live for 1 cent) and topped up my account to late 2015… so I kinda hope that the next xbox still uses the same Live account 🙂

   Anway, I feel like I have enough xbox live for now, so here’s a spare 3 month code if anybody wants it – please comment if you’ve grabbed it so other people don’t waste their time:

   HT7BK-GRG28-PX448-GFCTX-MWX67

   Reply
   1. 

      lambomann007

      November 30, 2012 at 10:21 am

      You sir, are a fine and generous fellow.
      The code has been claimed. Not by me, it was already claimed by the time I tried it.
      But yeah, thumbs up to you 😀

      Reply
      1. 

         puck

         November 30, 2012 at 10:28 am

         …Or maybe I’m not generous, and I just pretend to give out fake codes to waste people’s time to give me some sick kind of entertainment… :O

         hehe no, it’s is/was a good code… hope whoever claimed it will enjoy it.

         I just kept adding 3 months to my account, got to July 2015 and thought “okay, that’s enough, I don’t really know if I’ll still be playing this console then”. If only I could be as sensible with Steam Sales I’d know when to stop buying games I won’t ever play.

         Reply
         1. 

            darthphikl

            November 30, 2012 at 10:44 am

            Pretty rude someone has claimed it and gave you no props or it

            Reply
         2. 

            Ladonta williams

            December 8, 2012 at 10:39 am

            Let me get some codes

            Reply
8. 

   Fun guy

   November 30, 2012 at 9:59 am

   I got excited for a second there!
   “The free Xbox LIVE Gold lasts from now until September 2. So have at it!”
   Shouldn’t that be December 2?

   Reply
9. 

   Dillon

   November 30, 2012 at 10:14 am

   Isn’t that meant to say December 2nd? Otherwise Microsoft is being extremely generous.

   Reply
10. 

    rize

    November 30, 2012 at 10:36 am

    Guessing this is a little step towards taking some of the spotlight from the Australian Wii U release.

    Reply
11. 

    os42

    November 30, 2012 at 11:30 am

    Mine auto-renewed… oh well, I didn’t need that money, anyway… Auto renewal should really be an optional “feature”.

    Reply
    1. 

       jaykay

       November 30, 2012 at 12:01 pm

       You can turn the auto feature on and off. I did (getting back into studies meant i would be wasting my money) its a bit of a tedious process but it is doable.

       Reply
       1. 

          mauklin82

          November 30, 2012 at 12:32 pm

          I think os42 is referring to the fact that it’s opt out rather then opt in.

          I know last time I renewed my subscription (through the xbox live website) auto-renewal was forcible turned on and I had to go back into my account afterwards to turn it back off. I also paid through paypal and had to go in there to remove the payment agreement (or whatever it was called) that was automatically setup as result of auto-renewal as well.

          Reply
       2. 

          os42

          November 30, 2012 at 1:10 pm

          Cool, didn’t know that. Thanks for the tip!

          Reply