Xbox 12 Months Subscription - Is It Really Worth It? (Xbox Live 12 Month Subscription Plan)

Member Name: danieljamesphoto

Product:	Xbox Live 12 Month Subscription Plan
Date:	21/04/09 (62 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: 11p a day gives you worldwide competition

Disadvantages: the only next gen system to need payment to play online

Initial Thoughts/What It Is

£39.99 for xbox/360 online play (r.r.p), 12 months worth of Gold membership gives you discounts for certain games or arcade downloads and the ability to play with worldwide players online on selected games such as Halo 2/3, Grand Theft Auto IV, Lost Planet and many many more.

Initially the ability to do this sounds fantastic, interaction, whole new level of gameplay...but then you realise Sony and Nintendo offer this service FREE of charge for life on their consoles. So the question is, is it worth the £39.99?

Price

£3.33 per month or around 11p per day means for most this is not stretching too much and I would say for those playing a few times per week for a few hours at least then it may be worth it.

Competition

So why not get a PS3 or Wii to play for free? quite simply, the Microsoft paid subscription service has enabled it to deliver updates and new features to keep the console bang up to date and the online service running smoothly. Having never sampled the PS3 online for any length of time I cannot comment on the performance of that however the Wii is at times buggy and very slow with connecting to players, additionally the vast owners of Xbox's means you'll rarely struggle to find an opponent on most of the big games (around 20-30,000 people on Halo 3 at any given time from my experience)

Reasons For Buying

International friends/family? online gaming means you can play against them in real time to play co-op games, team up against others or even challenge each other on games and using headsets you can even talk to each other whilst playing.

Summary

Ok so i've listed what it does and the break down of costs but is it worth it, really? personally I put buying this off for around 3 years (of having an xbox) as i thought i would a) never use it and b) outraged at the price when its free for other consoles. I finally gave in and paid the current offer price of £34.99 and have honestly never looked back. It delivers stunning performance online and really breathes new life into games you may not have played for a while by bringing a constantly unique game each time you load it up, trying to beat friends and even make friends by chit chatting whilst you're eyeing them up with a sniper rifle (in game only of course!).

Microsoft have done a sterling job of the online system with messaging in both voice and text form, nice non-distractive messages telling you who's online and if a friend is playing a game you're on (handy to invite them for a game without having to find out if they're on it).

The only thing I would say is to be careful as if you pay by card and not buy a gift card for the 12 months then they'll automatically renew your subscription when it comes due without warning.

Ok so it's not free but for 11p a day this gives you access to worldwide competition, gotta be worth it!

Summary: Yes Microsoft should have this for free but until that day, £3.33 a month isn't that bad!