As the fuss over Lumines Live! dies down (until they release another booster pack, at least), Microsoft's kicking up another bit of Xbox Live controversy as the fall gaming season kicks into gear by premiering downloadable content to XBL Gold subscribers before Silver members are allowed access. This practice started last night with the fantastic new Gears of War trailer.
"So here is the deal..Silver members WILL get access to this..probably in about a week. This is going to happen more and more (Gold getting things before Silver) so you may want to think about upgrading if you want all the latest and greatest trailers, demos etc." -- Major Nelson
Let's get this straight: out of nowhere, just as Microsoft's under close scrutiny for its marketplace content as it is, they decide to start charging for exclusive early access to downloadable content? At least Q Entertainment could've taken much of the blame for Lumines scenario, but not here. Scarier, the next step would be to start making content completely exclusive to paying members, rather than migrating the content over eventually.
View: Original Article & Discussion @ 1Up.com
Yeah, I agree, if I had a 360 I'd have a Gold membership anyway, and be glad to have a advantage over the freeloaders as I don't play online that much.
Also it's not like Microsoft is the first to do this, game news site super powers IGN and Gamesotp have done the same thing for years. And are more brutal about it with the addition of speed-caps, exclusive content, and reduced quality for the freely available content. at least your getting more out a Gold membership then better speed/quality/early access
Yeah, I agree, if I had a 360 I'd have a Gold membership anyway, and be glad to have a advantage over the freeloaders as I don't play online that much.
Also it's not like Microsoft is the first to do this, game news site super powers IGN and Gamesotp have done the same thing for years. And are more brutal about it with the addition of speed-caps, exclusive content, and reduced quality for the freely available content. at least your getting more out a Gold membership then better speed/quality/early access
Excuse me, i find that quite insulting to be called a Freeloader because i only have a Silver account, i don't enjoy playing online as much as i do offline which makes it pointless subscribing to gold if i don't use it.
-Spenser
I was just stating that i find being called a Freeloader because im not in with the elite gold subscribers, insulting.
I dont care about the premium content.
About time subscribers got more value out of there subscription - limiting content this way well mean faster downloads for the rest of us (sometimes download speeds can be really bad on content release; like with the Halo 3 trailer).
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