Today it was announced that Amazon Instant would be available starting today on XBOX 360. You can download the app on the XBL app store and start watching your movies right away…at a cost. The Amazon Instant service for the 360 requires an XBOX Live Gold account. Yeah, along with the $80 you shelled out for prime you have to shell out another $50-$60 (depending on where you get your membership) just for a twelve month XBOX Live Gold subscription. That comes to a grand total of $130-$140 that you’re spending a year just to watch videos using Amazon Instant. I know that’s a steal to watch tons of free movies at your fingertips but hear me out.
The XBOX Live Gold membership is nothing but a scam. Why can’t Microsoft offer a free service like the PlayStation Network? They’ve got billions of dollars at their disposal, why must they be so greedy? Especially when that $50-$60 could go to a new video game or better yet, bills.
I didn’t get on Microsoft’s case about this before too much because it didn’t matter to me. Everything I needed entertainment wise I was already payed for and I had easy access to it. However, when I discovered today that Amazon Instant was going to be on XBOX Live I was elated. For quite some time now I’ve been wanting to find an easy way to watch instant on my uncle’s big screen television. Sure I could hook up my desktop to the T.V. but that’s a lot of wires to mess with. So this would be something that I would have loved to take advantage of. However Microsoft needed to stick their money-grubbing hands in my money pie and say “OH HAI, YOU NEED XBOX LIVE GOLD FOR THIS. U MAD BRO? :D”
I just have to say fuck you Microsoft, fuck you. I’m tired of this crap. I could care less that I can’t use my XBOX 360 to watch Amazon Instant videos, I really could. However, it’s the whole XBOX Live Gold situation that has me upset. It’s not that much, really I know. It’s just that I don’t understand why they need to charge me to use services, especially services that I ALREADY HAVE TO PAY FOR. Why would I want to pay for Netflix or Amazon Prime AND XBL Gold? Why?
More importantly why are we not standing up to Microsoft about this? We’ll bitch and moan about Final Fantasy Versus XIII not being out, Mass Effect 3’s ending, and Minecraft not working properly on our XBOX 360 but we won’t put our efforts into what really matters. Are we all just going to be lead on like sheep and continue to let Microsoft keep on taking advantage of us like this?
Again, I ask you: Why pay for a service that you can get free elsewhere? I’m so close to selling my 360 to GameStop and using that credit towards getting a PS3.
Source: BGR
