Should Microsoft Offer Free Xbox Live To Playstation Network Users?

Microsoft may entice existing Playstation Network users with free Xbox Live membership in order to benefit from the three week period that Sony estimates will be necessary to restore full service to PSN.

The current going price for the annual Gold subscription for the Xbox Live currently stands at £29.97 at Amazon, and it would make plenty of sense for Microsoft to give it away for free given the amount of new business this could generate.

[NYC_Gamer]

why?that means they would have to offer this service free to all 360 owners and MS wont take that huge lost in $$$

[SixZeroFour]

in fact, if they did this, they might see an increase in console sales cause i know a bunch of ppl that havent bought a 360 cause psn on ps3 is already free

edit: and just to clear things out, im talking about making the service free all together, not just for psn users

[tehpees3]

I wouldn't say free for PS3 but it should be free for xbox

[Active Reload]

"Should Microsoft Offer Free Xbox Live To Playstation Network Users?"

They would and could, going by the name Xbox Live Silver. Seriously, stupid title--me thinks--leads to stupid article.

[Wobbuffet]

If your considering spending over £200 on a new console then i don't think free trial of xbl will be a deal breaker.

If people want a 360 and xbl then they will get it regardless, just my view on it.

[ExposingLames]

it is to me and i just bought a brand new PS3 and 4 games 2 weeks ago. Its not just about the money.

i dont want to be milked for stupid stuff, if you would give me an option I would pay attention. Most of the features Live offers over PSN dont matter to me anyways and im not gonna pay for em and im damn sure not gonna pay to play games online, especially when i already pay for so much more.

[Wobbuffet]

@ ice pick, fair point man, i will give you an agree on that one.

[RankFTW]

What a stupid article, who approves this guff (I know who approved it so don't reply with a list of names (and this is just to cover the person who does post a list of names))

[M-A-R-S-H-A-L-L]

...*facepalm*

...What?

[zeal0us]

W8 what?

[Blaze929]

what they should do though, is make Xbox LIVE free for all users until PSN comes back online. That would be the smart thing to do to reach out to PSN users and possibly draw them into Xbox LIVE

[ZugZug II]

Huge loss in money?

>Microsoft makes there service free to ps3 users
>Ps3 users switch over to xbox
>Xbox users > Ps3 users
>???
>Profit

[RSPproductionz]

for the fourth point with the three ??? you can out "I'm talking shite"

[lil Titan]

it wouldnt make me buy an 360 so i dont know why they should, im still waiting on PSN services to come back on regardless of what any body say

[ksense]

well if I get to play uncharted, infamous, resistance, last guardian, twisted metal etc... I would take the bait but that ain't gonna happen so whats the point.

[FAGOL]

Well some sort of trial will boost business for Microsoft incredibly. But it's a bit late now. PSN should be back up in a few days.

[omi25p]

Rumors are that it wont be up till may 30th

[Fishy Fingers]

Would be kind of a piss take to your 20+ million paying subscribers.

[rabidpancakeburglar]

That would not be a smart move, it would betray customer loyalty

[Godmars290]

Throw in a free Xbox? Sure!

[guitarded77]

At Godmars... true story: Dell.com f'd up on their listing and I scored an XBOX slim, Kinect, Kinect Adventures and Dance Central for $47 and some change with free overnight shipping. So I pretty much got a free 360... can't believe they lived up to the offer. I was gonna PS3 mail all you guys on my friends list, but they removed the offer in less than 45 minuets. Somebody lost their job that day. I have 2 PS3's (slim and b/c fat) and 2 XBOX's (fat Jasper set and slim) but at the end of the day, I have more friends on PS3... I can turn on both consoles and have at least 10 friends online on my PS3 at any given time, and only a few on XBOX. I miss PSN :(

[SonnyD]

I miss PSN to. What's your XBL name so we can game together?

[guitarded77]

@ Sonny D
I'm guitarded77 on both LIVE and PSN and Steam too, but my computer sucks... I'm gonna try and buy a new computer once I figure how much my wife's summer tuition is gonna cost me.

[Highlife]

If i got xbox for free too then I would donate it to some charity and make some kid happy cause it wouldn't make me happy!

[Emilio_Estevez]

That would piss existing users off I'm sure. Also, MS loves $$$, so they wouldn't do that.

[guitarded77]

If they did it, you could just create a new account and get it free.

[Emilio_Estevez]

Yup, or if they offered free cards then people would just stockpile them

[ThePsychoGamer]

Maybe a free to play week event would work better. I'd love this, I can't get Netflix to work on my PS3, and I don't like the Wii Netflix's interface. (then again at this point I'm almost ready to pay for a month of gold )

[artsaber]

All you have to do is:

1. Run Netflix
2. You will get a sign on to PSN message
3. AGREE to sign in
4. You will get the PSN is down for maintenance error
5. Agree by hitting OK
6. Netflix app will run ANYWAY
7. A PSN sign on request may appear a 2nd time, if so agree to sign in like before.
8. The netflix app will remain open after error messages, etc., goes away.
9. You can browse Netflix and play your movies, enjoy.

This has been working for me for quite some time, I thought everybody knew how to get on to PS3 Netflix by now.

On topic: Microsoft should just do a 2 week XBL free trial or something to pull people in. You can't piss off your loyal paying customers. But if MS is feeling generous, they can offer a free XBL game to their loyal Gold members during the same time period.

[ThePsychoGamer]

I know about the work around, and no it has yet to work with my PS3, I can see what movies they have up, but when I try to stream a movie it wil give me a message that I need to sign in again, agreeing this time will give me a message that Netflix could not connect to the PSN please try again later. I've read theories about why, some say that there are multible versions of the app, and only certain versions will work, others say that it will only work with certain PS3 models, one place said one needs to turn off there PS3 then try again when this happens.

As of yet, after several attemps I've yet to get Netflix to work on my PS3,

[Troll_Police]

Throw in some exclusives and I'm in.

[GrayFox]

Sony should give Microsoft a free PS3, show them how to make a reliable console.

[ksense]

not a good time to be posting this while psn is down lol

[Loner]

Except its 2011 and the 360 slim is more reliable than the PS3.Nice effort though.

http://www.gofanboy.com/hom...

@ Captain Obvious below

What do want them to do.Use a time machine to go back to 2006 and fix it.

Point still stands the slims are more reliable than the PS3 now

[M-A-R-S-H-A-L-L]

That doesn't mean that RROD is gone completely.

Try again.

[ZBlacktt]

"After putting the consoles in barely ventilated cabinets, the tests finally “heated up”. In every slim model tests, the PS3 models shutdown first. This occurred multiple times as we tested each pairing three times. This doesn’t mean the PS3 models are faulty by any means. It simple means they’re designed to shutdown at a lower temp or possibly they heat up faster. Even after multiple tests in identical situations with high temp exposure, not a single console showed any sign of damage after rebooting. The “fat” models however were a much easier test in terms of time and results. The PS3 160gb won this test in under five hours. Sadly the 360 Premium (fat model) was under able to reboot as we got red ring and boxed that one up."

A heat test? This is what you are proving? Did you even read it son?

[Whackedorange]

And Ms should show Sony how to make a reliable network service

[karl]

yeah... because This has happened to sony so many times before right?

and MS keeps gettis this hacker attacks that dont seem to affect XBL at all.. marvelous

/s lol

[ExposingLames]

i see the humor in this but my 40gig died a few months ago and completely put an end to my gaming....i recently bought another and got back into it tho. wasnt the YLOD...according to the net it was my GPU that went.

not happy tho.

[Mister_G]

Not even gonna click that link!

[ExposingLames]

i've been a Playstation gamer all my life, i played xbox a ton but never owned one myself, but i pay for TVs, Internet, Consoles, Games, Accessories, etc. etc. im not paying another fee just to simply play your games online especially when you want to charge me for "DLC" thats small or even ALREADY ON THE DISC

however, if you want to let me play online for free then i might just end up with an XBOX now and in the future. But we do have to do something about these kiddie games you have :P

the whole RRoD thing needs some attention to btw, im the type of person that likes to go by my own experiences tho so i would atleast try it if they want to give a little incentive

the game i own Playstation for has been ruined and turned into trash anyways.

[iTwisteDi]

And wat game do u own the ps3 for?

[ExposingLames]

i used to be are pure SOCOM gamer back in the S2 days....and even S3 and CA even though they werent all that great, but after this Confrontation and S4 outcome im done with that trash.

and most games i enjoy these days are multiplat such as battlefield and assassins creed.

[pneboy]

hurr hurr xbox live codes wont work on psn

[mendicant]

No

[ZBlacktt]

I have Live. It's truly a glorified Wii step up. Same cute little people and cute same little sounds. Very simple layout. Never understood why people rave so much over this for. Seems very kid friendly. Where my PS3 seems more older gamer group.

[th3_d3an]

when it RROD? will u get a new system yet? nope ok

[user8397144]

MS giving out free stuff? Lol

[Simco876]

Beat me too it.

Microsoft and Free don't go together (unless your talking about MSDN)

[iTwisteDi]

Y would some one even post this stupid story! !!.. it will never happen.. Sony will charge for there service before that happens

I mean not make it an option .. make it mandatory

[ExposingLames]

they already do, but its an OPTION, how it should be.

[Bzone24]

Live Gold is an option. You don't have to buy it to play games.

[madjedi]

@Bzone yeah it is an option, but if you want to play 360 games online it's a necessity, nice attempt at spinning though.

[Bzone24]

How is it spin? ice pick is saying eluding to Live Gold not being an option. It is.

Same thing can be said about psn plus. If you want the stuff they are offering then it's a necessity.

[regofar]

In my opinion there is no substitute for quality regardless of this outage. PS3 users switching to xbox I only ask you this. Can you really leave behind a console that gave you titles like Metal Gear Solid 4, and Grand Turismo. These two titles alone without any other mention of PS3 exclusives is enough for me. Not to mention all of the games that are cross-console look much better on PS3

[Trroy]

How about they offer free gameplay as a part of XBL Silver instead, and for ALL 360 owners? And free Netflix? Oh sorry, "XBL Free" or whatever it's called now.

Then how about a XBLA discount program, and free downloadable stuff, for Gold subscribers, since Gold is basically just "pay for gaming and Netflix surcharge" right now?

[matti42]

Dear god the hysteria is getting ridiculous...

[Veeger]

No, thank you. Keep it for your fanbase.

[TBONEJF]

Why? I dont even own a Xbox I own a PS3 and I dont think M$ would give away free service

[A LIVING LEGEND]

wasted good will gesture,focus instead on procuring some worthwhile studios.

[tudors]

Off topic, has anyone posted this http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/b...

? I have not set up publishing rights on N4G.

[OC_MurphysLaw]

Actually they do... Xbox Live Regular is free to all. Now if you want to play online...well... you gotta shell out the duckets.

[A LIVING LEGEND]

If they included a free Robostir,I would gladly accept.

[JMyers]

No. This would really piss off their current fan base.

A good strategy though would be to offer a limited discount alternative scheme, where you try the service for a few months at a lower price, then if you decide to stay, you just pay the difference for the rest of the year. Many people may sign up to that, as they'll have the ability to play online, but not tied to XBL for the full year, yet still have an option to stay. A good business decision I say.

[undercovrr]

Ok lets say they offer a limited discount like NoeloAngelo suggested. What then? Will that many people move to xbox? I doubt it because they don't really have many exclusives to look forward to this year.

[SpLinT]

just by looking at the agrees and Disagrees, you can tell this website is mostly PS3 fanboys

[MeNoRasta]

No it wont happen because ps3 cant handle xbox live.
Ps3 needs about 10 servers just to handle xbl.

[Mindsucker]

yea that would be sweet let me use My 360 untill the PSN is back then I happly thank MS for the free service and return to were my money has been well spent :)

[TiTAnX]

First off this isn't a stupid article If you have read the articles of websites polls are showing that 20 percent are considering the move.. There is no fact of loss of money in the end ts a profit. Assume that out of the 20% that half convert to xbox that makes it roughly about 7-10 million users multiply that by 3.5 (350$) that's 350 million take away the amazon live yearly subscription that's about 30million. Now take into account you'll want to buy games and extra controllers the profit margin is through the roof.. You only have 20million users Ps3 has 77million to 100.. You guys could use extra users an many frustrated ps3 owners could use a stable network.. The online gaming and competition is slightly better on xbl also. I am one of many millions of users that are frustrated about psn I bought 8 games 3 controllers and turtlebeach headset.. Easily spent over a 1000$ in the past couple months not to mention guitar hero bundle pack.. Xbox has a golden time to get users offering me a free subscription could be the candy needed for the baby to switch homes as you can see it isn't about the money but appealing to those suffering from an unreliable network would show a warm heart. There is NO excess time including sometime this week as to when it will be back up tbh officially they said promised to be up may 31st.. It's so sad there is a website called istheplaystationnetworkbackup. info gives you an answer yes or no. My last point is Netflix is not working on ps3 there are the lucky few that can still access it by the method mentioned above but for many including I, cannot access it by that way. It will do as the other poster mentioned and kick you off because your not signed onto PSN.