Why Xbox Live Doesn't Take Exact Change 233
With ever-more tempting content on Xbox Live (like the awesome Exit), it's really frustrating to have to 'overpay' and buy Points in bulk. 1up got an official response from Xbox 360 group product manager Aaron Greenberg on that issue, explaining why the service always leaves you with a little bit left over: "The reason why we do that, the core reason, is around credit card transaction fees ... If we do this in bulk, we don't have to burden the consumer with the transaction fees, or ourselves or publishers. It's about keeping infrastructure costs down and I know sometimes it's frustrating because you end up with odd points, but we don't have any plans to change that." Greenberg also addressed why the service limits you to 100 friends on your friends list.
Translation (Score:5, Insightful)
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let users run a tab, and bill their card when the tab hits a certain amount.
set up a bank. don't charge yourself for credit card processing.
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A more rational point would be a minimum purchase: If a point is $0.01, then a minimum of 500 points per purchase is allowed.
But actually, the assumption of MS is probably this:
1) The users won't use less than $X to reinvest and make money off of it anyway
2) n users * $X = a fair
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Setup a bank? Are you fucking kidding? Did you realize what sort of infrastructure CC companies need to have? You don't just "set one up because we want to save some dough on MS Live".
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Anyway, banks are bad enough without Microsoft running one...
E-commerce does vary and does have many per transaction set ups but I fail to believe MS would not have a more preferable contract.
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IF it was really 5% they might not have one or you had very little CC business. CC processing sucks, there are 29 different classes of CC with like 8 different % on our statement describing ONLY visa/MC (no discover or AmExp)
FYI. Ours came to 2.53% overall (includes $.05 per) on 10k
Try to spend $1 and $10 and $100 (our ave is $50+)
Plan A costs $.05 and $.50 and $5
Plan B costs $.07 and $.30 and $2.55
easy to see wh
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What if that person doesn't update their card or get enough money after that? Are you going to eat the $5? Pay a law firm/collection agency to recover the funds? Now take that times how many people won't pay out of your client base of millions. Can you spell "loss"?
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iTunes Music store. Billions of dollars worth of music sold. Credit card companies charge fixed percentages. a $.99 charge costs $0.02 for the transaction.
Also the xbox live credits aren't full dollar amounts either. So you can't get a one-one price ratio. MSFT did this to appear to be cheaper when they really aren't.
This is only about MSFT greed and nothing more. MSFT can collect interest on your money sitting in their bank accounts while you try and figure out a way to spend it.
Re:Translation (Score:5, Insightful)
I imagine with the Xbox marketplace people tend to make small purchases here and there, not a bunch of little purchases in the same day. So you prepay and the credit card transaction happens just once.
Finally, all of the complaints seem to be very US-centric. With the point system, MS can post a piece of content globally and list the price as 400 MS Points. In the US, I know this is $5. Somebody in another country knows how much points cost in their country. So they don't need to know today's exchange rate, content stays a fixed price, and MS doesn't need to come up with dozens of local prices for each and every piece of content. Right now the only content that isn't a global point value is the video marketplace, since the licensing fees vary by country.
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Yes they do, but...
With the point system, MS can post a piece of content globally and list the price as 400 MS Points. In the US, I know this is $5.
As you note, a price of something on live is around $5 or so. Are people, on average, buying more than five songs per day from iTunes? I doubt that is the case.
They al
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The point here is not the transaction fee, it's that you have committed to spending lots of money in one place.
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Sony seems to do a better job here by taking exact change or letting you add as much as you want. Except you can't get a gift card to the playstation network, which I guess is bad for the kiddos.
Microsoft could easily allow you to buy 100$ gift cards at a 5% discount, and also take exact change (but everything in the store is not 5% more expensive). That way, everyone is served. The current scheme
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McDonald's, Burger King and Taco Bell must not have gotten the word on micropayments not being viable. Sony must be ignorant of this as well, because they've always taken exact change on the PSN.
My understanding is that Visa charges between 1.5% and 2% plus a transaction fee of four cents on purchases under $15. My info is a couple of years old so it may be a little different now, but the basic gist of it is that if you buy a
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charging a business 15 - 20 cents per transaction and also charging the cardholder 20 - 25 percent interest.
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If you order a $0.99 track on iTunes, they'll not bill you for a few days in the hopes that you order more tracks before they get around to billing and can save a bit on the transaction fee. If you go about 48-72 hours without buying anymore more, though, they just suck it up and pay it. I wonder what percentage Apple's throwing away in credit card transaction fees compared to, say, Amazon. Or Xbox Live for that matter.
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Also, I know someone that takes debit / credit cards; he prefer I use debit over credit because there are less fees to take debit vs. credit.
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I went to a store once,a nd they charged $1.50 for any purchase under $5.00 on a credit card.
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That's just unfair. (Score:2)
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Huh? The Wii Shop Channel lets you buy points in amounts of $10, $20, or $40. Or you can buy cards with points at retail stores. How else are you buying points?
Re:That's just unfair. (Score:5, Insightful)
Oblig. Penny Arcade (Score:2)
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Similarities (or trolling, here in /.) (Score:2)
Why are the Nintendo VC games so overpriced, or the Wii points.
Seriously, with great things as Emulators and torrents I do not understand why do they sell games at £7 each!
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What a load of crap! (Score:4, Insightful)
The iTunes store doesn't have an issue selling me downloads a buck at a time, obviously the credit card fees aren't breaking their balls. WTF Microsoft?
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Naw, MS is doing what it usually does, bilking you with sleazy lame deals like this. Since I bought my first game online for my 360, I have NEVER had a zero balance again. Since I bought my PS3, I have always had a zero balance.
MS could easily incentivize buying in bulk without screwing customers with useless change. Just give a 5% discount on 100$ "gift cards" and charge 5% more for everything. They don't do that because
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Re:What a load of crap! (Score:5, Informative)
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No, there really is something to this (Score:4, Insightful)
So, suppose MS allowed you to buy points in arbitrarily small amounts. This is going to decrease the amount they make because people will do it. There will even be transactions (like people buying 1 point) that they lose money on. This means they have three choices:
1) Make less money. They aren't going to pick this. XBL is not run as a public service, they are in this to make money. As a practical matter they need a net profit here to help offset the costs of the Xbox hardware.
2) Pass the costs on to their developers in the form of lower payments. Bad option, you don't pay enough, people just won't develop for XBL.
3) Pass the cost on to the consumer. This is what would happen.
It is the same problem with micro-payments you've seen elsewhere. If you want to have small payment increments, credit card fees can kill that. This is one solution to the problem. Maybe not the best solution, but then if you've got a better one perhaps you should propose it to them? "Just eat the fees and make less money," isn't a solution.
Please remember: If you disagree with their business model, you are free to not buy their products. The Xbox in general, and certainly XBL and the marketplace, are not necessary to life. You can just not play their game if it is unacceptable to you.
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Rob
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Not as low as 1 point, but I've seen some things on XBL marketplace for 20 points. That works about to about $0.25. Not exactly cost effective to handle as a credit card transaction.
So assuming that Microsoft doesn't want to hand out credit to every xbox live member, there are only two practical wa
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Rob
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3) Deduct credit card monthly. If it's too small in any one month let it roll over to the next month or drop it for the good will. Just like the phone, utility and every other service company on the planet.
4) Pass on any extra costs to the customer, give the customer options and let the customer decide. Just like every mail order company on the planet.
This is not rocket science. This is typical M$ "I don't mind and you don't matter" manipulativeness. No wonder many people detest them.
---
Astroturfi [wikipedia.org]
That forces minimum prices (Score:2)
As an example: Suppose you offer something for download from your site. You want to try to recoup bandwidth costs, which you calculate to be about 2 cents per DL. So you charge people for it. No big deal
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Because then you are extending credit (Score:2)
What you are talking about reverses it though. You get the items (or rather the bits) first, then only later do you have to pay for them. Same system as a credit card, buy now, pay later. Ok fair enough but the
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Puh-leeze. You make it sound like postpaid services are some crazy exciting new field of economics that Microsoft is just not capable of dealing with. They're not selling cut gems, they're selling bits that cost them a fraction of a penny to push over a wire, and they can easily turn them off over the
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What a load of PR crap! We know why you can only "buy in bulk", it's because very few things on XBL come out in 500 point increments. You almost always buy more than you need, but then next time if you're 20 points short for what you want to purchase, you get more and have a 480 point surplus. It's obviously specifically designed to be a vicious cycle of always having either too much or being just short.
Hm, I bet it's a conspiracy. Probably the hot dog people are involved...
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Plus they've got the crappy little skins and suchlike for you to spend your surplus points on, to try and discourage you actually accumulating your leftovers into a useful amount.
100 friends is harcoded client side (Score:2)
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Could work around that though (Score:2)
Thus allowing you to have different groups for different kinds of games you were currently interested in.
Or, they could have one user called "other" that they could proxy in messages from friends not in the "100" to you through.
Carnie System (Score:4, Insightful)
Live and credit cards (Score:5, Interesting)
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I'm disappointed that I still can't do something similar with the PlayStation 3. Sony seems incapable of understanding that some of us are still paid in cash.
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What does being paid in cash have to do with anything? It reminds me of a caller to a radio show talking about the housing market. There was an expert on and the caller said something to the effect of, "I have undocumented income that makes it hard for me to qualify, what do you suggest I do?" The response was a polite way of saying, "If you'd stop committing tax fraud, your problems would be fewer." Your statements reminded
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It means that online purchases made with it require that I deposit it into my bank first.
"If you'd stop committing tax fraud, your problems would be fewer."
The ability to buy a prepaid card allows sales tax to be collected on the purchase, rather than burdening an honest person with the paperwork of paying the use tax required for online purchases.
"the only reason you would think that is beacause you are averse to having any relationship with a regulat
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You are required to pay taxes for online purchases? Last I paid attention, the rules were the same as mail order, that is if they had a physical presence in the state, the purchase was taxable, otherwise it was not taxable. But that's in places with a "sales tax." Perhaps you live in one of the places with a "us
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Yes. [wikipedia.org]
"Last I paid attention, the rules were the same as mail order,"
Exactly.
"that is if they had a physical presence in the state, the purchase was taxable,"
If they have a physical presence in the state, they are obliged to collect the tax from you at purchase. Absent that, you as the purchaser are obligated to pay it to the state.
"Perhaps you live in one of the places with a "use tax.""
Unless you live in a state that doesn't have sales tax, you also are
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And you assume the quick procedures are doing anything more than hiding it from you?
Need i be subject to 2 verifications of information, being forwarded through 3 people. 2 of which ask for exactly the same information and a 30 day delay to remove a credit card? I don't think it's merely hiding the details. They made an intentional choice to make removing hard. A while ago I worked for a regional telecom in the call center, we took CC for pre-authorized payment. to remove it you need 1 piece of strong ID like driver licence if on account, account number if they had it, sin if on account,
Change in Microsoft's pocket (Score:2, Insightful)
Microsoft isn't the only one who does that (Score:2)
OK But (Score:2)
OK, I'll accept that. The Wii works the same way, after all. Now how about telling me why you can't peg points to the currency like Nintendo does with the Wii? Why is it that MS points are 80 for $1 [wikipedia.org] in the US? Why the weird exchange rate? Why can't it be 100:$1 like the Wii? Or at least something I can do math with easier, like 25:$1?
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What I want to know (Score:2)
That said, we're talking about a grand total of a few bucks here. I put more stock in the whining about paying for online access.
Full disclosure: I am a XBL subscriber and I want new rock band songs!
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The answer lies in the interest... (Score:4, Insightful)
By the way, this is the same reason the Fed's are quite happy to help you over-estimate your income tax burden when you prepay.
It Should Be An Option... (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm fairly confident the real reason they don't allow small increments is the same reason they use points -- to obscure the real cost from the consumer. As an engineer I have virtually no background in physcology, but I can say from personal experience, it's easier to spend 1000 points than $5 (even when the value of points is much greater than the dollar amount). I'm also confident that designing the system so it's easy to end up with an odd amount of points that requires a bulk purchase to do anything again was intentional (eg. I have 200 Wii points right now and the cheapest purchase is 500).
Re:It Should Be An Option... (Score:4, Interesting)
Visa (and I imagine MC) prohit a store from displaying the VISA logo and then refusing based on minium (or maximum) purchase prices. If the store refuses, you can contact your bank, who will contact Visa. Visa typically fines the stores that violate the policy.
I did this once, and shortly after the signs saying "$10 min. card purchases" was removed.
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The problem comes in with very cheap items that really don't make sense to price above the transaction fee. Would you, for instance, pay a couple of bucks on a piece of bubble
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It's called breakage (Score:4, Informative)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breakage_(accounting) [wikipedia.org]
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If you only purchase a song or two, Apple will hold billing for a few days, hoping you purchase more. I've had transactions sit for a week before processing.
Sadly Similiar in Nintendo's Case... (Score:3, Informative)
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Just be ready for this to get worse as the world gets mo
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Several reasons, including kids (Score:3, Insightful)
1. Is the per-transaction fee with the merchants, they don't want to do a bunch of tiny transactions and eat fees.
2. Breakage, every point on used in the system is excess profit.
3. Increase spending - companies found that the majority of gift card receivers spent MORE than the card was for. Makes sense, if you get a gift card for $25, and decide between $20 and $30 items, your choice is "lose" $5 and get
The hot dog problem. (Score:5, Funny)
I always end up with leftover buns or dogs, forcing my to buy more, over and over!
It's a conspiracy!
http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a2_350.html [straightdope.com]
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Privacy sucks, too. (Score:2)
I now get spammed regularly by microsoft, and their internal abuse mailbox is behind a filter that rejects all mail from me as "obscene". (Apparently this is moderately widespread; it's quite easy to be on a Class C shared with someone else who spammed them once, and they have no procedure for getting unblocked from Microsoft; Hotmail actually does, but Microsoft proper doesn't.) So I can't complain about the unwanted mailings...
Shee
PS3 doesn't do this (Score:2)
1) You have a wallet.
2) If you don't have enough money in the wallet, and it will take less than $5.00 to cover, then you will be charged $5.00.
3) If the balance is $5.00 or greater, you will be charged exactly that amount.
You will always have less than $5.00 in your wallet, or most times $0.00 in your wallet as I have personally found.
If Sony can do this, why can't Microsoft?
No one even cares outside North America (Score:2)
Yeah in any country except most of the world. The only place you can get decent content on Xbox Live is North America. Here in Japan, we can't even download Xbox Originals. Last night I tried to buy the original Halo (1,200 points). It's owned by Microsoft and published by Microsoft so there are no tricky third-party licensing issues. I can see it right there in the store tempting me. I can go through the ordering process. I can
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Rob
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It does have a $5 minimum though.. so you can't buy just one $1 item from PSN.
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The fees would be more like 30-40 cents. When I did a credit card processing system a few years ago, it was either
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And if you are responsible with debt, you should always use a credit card for major purchases. Not only is it easy to track and an additional proof of purchase, I have relied on credit card companies to protect me when a company has tried to screw me. I once had a defective purchase of over $1000, and when I complained, the store told me they just filed for bankruptcy and won't take my product back. One call to my credit card
rebates (Score:3, Interesting)
Phil
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I wonder why Microsoft cares to give the Dollar so much benefit. If Euros are worth more, they have no reason to devalue them.
I'm afraid MS is very US-centric. Sony is oddly doing much better outside of North America just as the dollar is not worth so much. I wonder if that's deliberate tactics on Sony's part to avoid this softer market. They do not hide values (but you have to have a credit card address in the market you're purchasing from if you buy a game from a diff