If you haven’t already, when you connect to Xbox Live today, you’ll get the console update that finally does away with Microsoft points. I logged in just now and had 680 points turned into $US8.50.
Microsoft has said this was coming for some time, but now it’s official. There are still a few quirks with how Xbox Live will handle this converted money. For starters, any points balance turned into real moolah is valid until June 1, 2015. Second, anything you buy with that converted currency will not be subject to sales tax. However, Xbox Live will charge local sales tax on future transactions.
What about points cards? You may still buy and convert them to real cash. An FAQ (yes, I love saying “an FAQ” just to confuse those who read that word phonetically) on the conversion is here to answer all of your questions.
Now, to see if I can convert this Confederate currency into Microsoft points into real dollars ….
Comments
25 responses to “Your Microsoft Points Will Be Exchanged For Real Money Today”
Interesting to see how the “sales tax” thing works in AU. The government love a good chance to double dip.
Sales tax is a US thing, each state has differing amounts of tax for different items. All prices shown online for items for US customers don’t include tax as this is added generally at the point of purchase.
You already paid the Australian tax aka GST when you bought the points card the first time. You don’t get taxed GST until you purchase items in one transaction over $1000 if I recall correctly.
There’s no sale tax. Our games are now the same price as Americans. So is a game is $10US, it’s also $10AU
I’ll believe it when I see it, publishers love to rape Australians on retail game pricing, now they’re free to do it for downloadable content as well – like they already do with GonD titles.
I’ve been in the beta for weeks now, I’m speaking from experience.
Has anybody else noticed how cheap the DLC and arcade content is compared to the PS Store and even Steam on the Xbox Marketplace now?
Not sure if it’s an error or legit, but there are a lot of items that are basically the same price as the AU Steam store and in some cases considerably cheaper! Weird…
Yep
State of Decay (price before 1600pts $27; price now $19.95)
Basically were now paying the American prices!
Good times!
Fuck der microsoft…. Oh wait…
Can we still activate points cards? I might need to stock up on cheap cards for BF4 season pass before being forced to pay full price.
680 points turned into $US8.50?
That’s 1.25c per point. Thus 1,500 points should cost $18.75
Ah well. We got slightly ripped off given that 1,500 points cost $25 odd. But then people are saying that game prices are down which is nice.
This is seemingly a better rate than I received: 1360 Points $22.40 AUS
Roughly 1.64c per point or 60 points per dollar.
At this rate you are nearly bang on $25 for 1500 points.
Do 1500 point cards cost $US25 too?
Hmmm, not sure. But your rate was pretty much spot on with the current purchase price. I wonder why Owen got less.
I had 80 MS Points in my account before this. Thus I expect about $1.30 when I sign in now. 😛
I have $1.98 on mine.
and it shall be forever entombed there because I doubt I’ll be buying anything else on Xbox Live
If you don’t spend it by 2015, you’ll lose it.
I had 38 cents but immediately bought Far Cry Blood Dragon and Mark of The Ninja because I finally knew exactly how much they cost.
I had roughly 500ms points, but now nothing appears in my account. What happened?
You may need to try and buy something first, then a message will come up saying points have retired, you will have this much in your account. This is how I had the change occur but that was yesterday.
the prices have dropped on everything. 1600 microsoft points for State of Decay and Minecraft should have been over $25 but they’re $19.95, games like Bastion, From Dust, Pez and Dust: An Elysian Tale are only $14.95 and I assume DLC is cheaper too. I can’t wait for a sale.
They’ve got the Max Payne 3 season pass on sale today for $4.95 – for all DLC! I don’t normally buy DLC but at those prices I’m in!
I just sold my Max Payne 3 after all this time :'(
The game is also for sale (though not the cheap-ass $5 earlier in the year!)
Actually the issue I’m having us running out of storage – with GTA V looming and Splinter Cell apparently having a 3GB install then something has to give. Itight me time to delete the 11GB BF3!
The wallet still doesn’t work. I can’t use my MS account funds for anything that is GREATER than what’s in there and contribute the rest with PayPal.
Fucking sucks. Xbox Support on Twitter tried to tell me to use the website, but the site doesn’t even give the OPTION to use my MS account. My lord, never thought I’d see the day when Nintendo could implement something web based better than MS.
Just checked, a couple of updates, attempting to buy something and my 400 points became $6.60 which is $1.65 per 100 points which is what I paid.
didn’t get any messages when logged into XBL last night. Wanted to buy the new DLC for Black Ops 2 via the Xbox Website this morning and it doesn’t come up with my new balance. Only my paypal details. I can see I still have points under my account – billing history though… 1760 points. errrrrr?