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Reader Comments (94)

Posted: Dec 11th 2007 9:46AM (Unverified) said

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if only my gamerscore could be converted to m$ points :(.. what are all those achievements worth?

Posted: Dec 11th 2007 9:54AM imadogg said

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Means you have a large MicroCock
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Posted: Dec 11th 2007 9:56AM RangerPrimeX said

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I vote for changing MS Point to 1:1. I do not mind the point concept or buying point blocks but make it 1:1. Either readjust the points we have and the pricing on the marketplace.

Posted: Dec 11th 2007 10:11AM (Unverified) said

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This is nothing new. It protects them against inflation, transaction fees, and exchange rates.

Also, it makes you buy more than you want.

SAME REASON HOT DOGS COME IN PACKS OF EIGHT, but BUNS COME IN PACKS OF TEN!!!!

Posted: Dec 11th 2007 10:38AM R0ck said

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"SAME REASON HOT DOGS COME IN PACKS OF EIGHT, but BUNS COME IN PACKS OF TEN!!!!"

Just buy 10 packs of hot dogs, and 8 packs of buns! Simple! ^_^
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Posted: Dec 11th 2007 11:01AM (Unverified) said

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where'd that joke come from anyway? the hot dog buns at my grocery store are all in packs of 8
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Posted: Dec 11th 2007 11:04AM Crono141 said

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They didn't used to be. And I believe the "joke" came from the Dali Llama episode of Animaniacs.
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Posted: Dec 11th 2007 11:19AM (Unverified) said

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You know or you could do 5 hot dog packs and 4 bun packs.

But in my house we just bought 2 hot dog packs and 2 bun packs, and ate burgers on the last 4 buns.
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Posted: Dec 11th 2007 12:49PM (Unverified) said

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I'm pretty sure it was in Father of the Bride, before it was in animaniacs. Steve Martin is in the grocery store, ripping hot dog buns out of the packaging, and tells the clerk:

"I'll tell you what I'm doing. I want to buy eight hot dogs and eight hot dog buns to go with them. But no one sells eight hot dog buns! They only sell twelve hot dog buns. So I end up paying for four buns I don't need. So I am removing the superfluous buns."
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Posted: Dec 11th 2007 10:13AM FluxDF said

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I call BS. The reason you can't buy the exact amount you want is so you'll have just a little MS points left over so you HAVE to purchase more. Leaving a small amount after each transaction lends itself to future purchases.

Posted: Dec 11th 2007 10:19AM borland502 said

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I'm not sure if it was planned, or a glitch, but the PSN occasionally allowed me to fund exact change for a purchase. Good times, good times when I don't have to let a corporation get interest on my own money.

Well, gamers have their own brand of stupidity regardless of platform. PS3 fanatics kept the platform alive through colossal marketing blunders, high cost, and few games. 360 fans kept the faith through atrocious console failures, disc scratches, and a diabolical points scheme. Wii fans will say they love their console even if it hasn't been touched in months and requires arcane rituals to play with friends over the internet. PC fans will pay out the ass and thank the gaming Gods for the privilege.

Posted: Dec 11th 2007 10:32AM (Unverified) said

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No the PSN always lets you do that. I keep $0 in my wallet, then when I go pay, it says -$5.99, then it lets me add $5.99 to my wallet, then it's back to $0.
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Posted: Dec 11th 2007 10:41AM (Unverified) said

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JPN - well, yes, but if it's 3.99 and you have 0, they make you put $5 in your wallet. I think the way that it works is that you can put in exact change as long as the purchase is over $5, even if the money in your wallet means you need to add less than $5.
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Posted: Dec 11th 2007 10:41AM (Unverified) said

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I don't think it was a glitch. As I mentioned above, I had the same thing happen. I think it charges you the minimum $5 or whatever your purchase costs.

If you got the Flow expansion for $2.99 (or whatever it actually costs), it would add $5 to your wallet. Then later, if you bought something that was $9.99, it would just charge you $7.98 to make up the difference between the price and the $2.01 from your wallet.

This "add the minimum amount for your purchase" thing is pretty awesome in my opinion. I hate having leftover money/points/whatever that technically aren't mine, but aren't worth enough to get anything out of.
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Posted: Dec 11th 2007 10:58AM Vidikron said

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On PSN $5 is the base amount you can add to your wallet. But if you purchase anything over $5 you can add exact change. The way things are actually paid for on PSN is worlds better than how MS and Nintendo handle it.
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Posted: Dec 11th 2007 11:15AM borland502 said

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"But if you purchase anything over $5 you can add exact change."

That explains it then, because most of my purchases have been small of late.
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Posted: Dec 11th 2007 10:38AM (Unverified) said

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The 80 to 1 ratio for Points:USD is the most annoying thing about the Live store. I don't even have an XBox,and it bugs me.

I like the PSN's real dollar amounts, and I totally understand the minimum purchase on both stores. Credit card fees have a baseline fee plus a percentage, and that baseline fee makes it incredibly inefficient to take credit card purchases of small amounts. I don't know exact amounts, but it's something like 30 cents plus 2% per transaction... so if you purchase only a dollar's worth of stuff, they take 32 cents. Whereas if you purchase 10 dollars, it's only 40 cents. Big difference in percentages, and with both stores many low-priced games, it translates to a huge loss of money if they let you buy $1.99 at a time.

Posted: Dec 11th 2007 11:30PM (Unverified) said

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I know at the gas station I worked at a few years back it was a fixed 3.5% for Visa and 3.0% for Mastercard, plus a little something per month for each, 30-40$.

The fixed rate per transaction is only available for very small locations where it actually costs Visa,MC more to give you the machine then you bring them back, see corner store.

My guess would be Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo are all big enough companies to have the majority of the costs dropped off, not to mention they aren`t really selling you anything... its just data.

Microsoft is not going to change, it just wont happen at this point, I can see Sony maybe adopting the same strategy if only because then its easier to sell in store.
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Posted: Dec 11th 2007 10:43AM Eugimon said

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here's my MS points SUCK ASS story.
My Live Gold account was paid for with a pre-paid subscription card... And I bought 2000 pts to buy Lumines live when the price dropped to 800 which should have left me with 1200 pts. Never bought anything else.

Recently I tried to buy something else... but wait a minute, no points. So I call up MS, "where's my 1200 pts?" Their answer, "well, it looks like you bought a forza track and some aracade game." Okay... but I never did and I don't even own forza and how come I don't see either of those on my xbox? Well, too bad for me, they think my account might have been hacked and they'd be happy to suspend it for me.

Which is complete BS because my account is paid up for 13 months, not month to month. That means to keep playing, I have to spend another 40 bucks for the year. Never mind the 25 bucks just gone in virtual land.

It's just a racket.. here, we'll take your money and won't let you verify how it's being used, we won't let you contest the charges and we won't offer any sort of customer support on this, other than to tell you "sorry".

Posted: Dec 11th 2007 12:07PM Vidikron said

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That sucks.

Thanks for the the Forza tracks and arcade game though!



j/k
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Posted: Dec 11th 2007 10:44AM (Unverified) said

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This really doesn't bother me...I mean yeah its hard to find cash with all these great games out for the 360 and Wii but I'm not gonna freak out of stupid MS points...

Unless I'm dirt poor (in which case I should probably use that money elsewhere) I don't see the point of bitching about this.

Posted: Dec 11th 2007 10:50AM (Unverified) said

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Here's one for you.

What am I supposed to do with the 60 or 70 MS points that ALWAYS seem to be lying around in my account.

If your going to make us buy them in large amounts, at least make it so the prices of stuff on the marketplace evenly go into what your selling so I don't have left over points that I can't spend on anything all the time. At least having a quarter or two in pocket in real life serves a purpose. On XBL it's just dead weight sitting in my account.

Posted: Dec 11th 2007 11:10AM Duke said

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"On XBL it's just dead weight sitting in my account."

How dramatic. Left over change happens, as do left over points. How does it weigh anything down. Maybe in a perfect world everything would be set as you wish it, but don't you think you are bitching about a pretty tiny problem?
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Posted: Dec 11th 2007 12:11PM Vidikron said

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@NATO

But the issue here is how can you use those extra points? Spare change is yours. You can put in jar if you want or use it to make exact change on another purchase. Not so on Live. AFAIK there is no way to collect that money... is there? And since you have to buy points in blocks you would have to do some planning ahead on future purchases to actually be able to zero out your account.
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Posted: Dec 11th 2007 1:26PM Duke said

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True. I just don't think its that big of a loss for anyone. You can get some items for 80 pts. So, it seems to me that we are dealing with an amount of points worth cents being left over.

Though it may add up to more profit for them - I just don't think its that big of a problem.
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Posted: Dec 11th 2007 2:12PM borland502 said

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@NATO_Duke: Plus, while all corporations are greedy, you can make a surprising amount of money from the collected "change". How many Live subscribers are there?

More than a few cents lost change, which happens even under the PSN system, it's dollars multiplied by that many users. So part of my objection is personal (my money, etc.), some of it regards points like tokens in the old arcades, and some just hates enriching a corporation like that for nothing in return: Like a gaming tax.
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Posted: Dec 11th 2007 3:30PM Duke said

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Agreed. They would make a pretty penny over the left over points, as do the other companies. I have extra points in my Nintendo account, and extra $ in my PSN account to. If I don't use them, yeah, they make money for nothing. Its not ideal for consumers, but I guess I don't see a better way to do it unless you do direct charges from a CC with each purchase.
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Posted: Dec 11th 2007 11:02AM (Unverified) said

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But 1:1 means that a lot of work has to go into pricing each individual item seperately in each territory and has to take into account fluctuating interest rates etc. By charging 200, 800, 1200 points etc across the board the only item that needs pricing is the points themsleves.

Also because some countries (britain) charge VAT on certain purchases MSpoints mean that the 17.5% is paid on a lump sum (the card, points etc) rather than each individual purchase which works out much better fo the sonsumer in the long run.

Posted: Dec 11th 2007 11:25AM Crono141 said

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No it doesn't. It just changes the exchange rate for other countries. Instead of being 60 points to a rupee, its now 75 points to a rupee. But its still 100 points to a dollar in the US, MS largest market.
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Posted: Dec 11th 2007 11:33AM (Unverified) said

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so in that respect you are saying it should be 1 to 1 in america and whtever the exchange rate equivelent is elsewhere?

errr...okay suits me...turns out that everything will cost me much much less if thats the case
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Posted: Dec 11th 2007 11:43AM hvnlysoldr said

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I love having many extra Wii points. I don't see why everyone wants to keep a clean slate every time to buy something. Although I really don't use credit cards either hmm.

Posted: Dec 11th 2007 11:47AM (Unverified) said

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"and as for cc transaction fees in retail stores...have you ever been to a store and see signs that a minimum cc transaction is $10, that's because anything less than that and the fee charged to the retail outlet eats too much into profits."

Sorry to go a bit off topic here, but this practice is against Visa and MC regulations. Merchants are not allowed to set a minimum price for CC transactions.

Posted: Dec 11th 2007 5:25PM (Unverified) said

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Yeah, but if they bitch, the store can just stop taking them. I bet this is why dsicover and AMEX aren't taken at as many places, they must have a pain in the ass policy.
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Posted: Dec 11th 2007 12:56PM ZippyDSMlee said

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MS likes its money...like its not gettign enough off yearly live subscriptions...

Posted: Dec 11th 2007 12:58PM Xaijin said

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Crono, you're mistaken about how credit card surcharges and fees are applied. Simple fact is, a business can say they're giving a discount on cash transaction and the credit card transactions are the actual cost, and they can completely get away with that. I know, I've worked for a Visa/MC. It is correct in that you cant set a minimum cost on a transaction, but MS can get away with this because you can only buy set amount of points, you arent purchasing the games directly with your credit card. Also, the card acquiring industry is not regulated by the government yet, they can certainly take legal action against V/MC, but businesses still do this practice because they want their business. And if every small business closed down, they'd go bankrupt.

Posted: Dec 11th 2007 1:28PM Duke said

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Yet they do. I see those signs each day.
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Posted: Dec 11th 2007 2:54PM (Unverified) said

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But the example you give is not the same thing as part of what Crono mentioned.

Yes, it is permissible for a merchant to give a discount to cash customers and to charge credit-card customers full price. And it is also a violation of the TOS for the merchant to add a surcharge for CC customers or to pass along any part of the transaction fee to CC customers (which you should already know if you have worked for one).

Now, how Visa/MC would distinguish between the two, I have no idea.

Also, the existence of merchants who require minimum purchases and/or add surcharges to credit-card purchases doesn't mean it's acceptable practice. It just means there are merchants willing to gamble that customers won't report them.
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Posted: Dec 11th 2007 5:51PM Xaijin said

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The thing is, V/MC cant distinguish between the two by merely looking, which is why many businesses get away with it (the smart ones anyway). They can pretty much say the prices posted is the cash discount price. They would literally have to sit and investigate. And many cases, even when the consumer reports them, it goes without punishment (not even the mandatory warning).

It's not acceptable to put a minimum purchase, but guess what? Go into 90% of chinatown restaurants, there is a good number of restaurants with minimum purchase that has been around for over 20 years. I dont think the government or V/MC would be very happy to lose those merchants that do $11+ million a year, especially since the government has an easier time on tracking the merchants that are "creative" on their taxes, and V/MC would take a nice hit if they were to lose the right to process cards.

I myself have probably reported this one merchant dozens of times to no avail.
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Posted: Dec 11th 2007 1:02PM Vegeta has a ps3 said

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sigh, seriously does anyone really care about this? Or are you all bitching just for the sake of bitching? It seems this is one of those "issues" that only gets brought up when there's an article on it, and gets promptly forgotten about a week from now.


Posted: Dec 11th 2007 1:27PM Duke said

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Its been a slow week for fighting around here. Roll with it.
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Posted: Dec 11th 2007 2:18PM prime8 said

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when there's an article on it is pretty much the only time people can bitch about it around here...
you would look like an idiot bitching about MS points in a review post about the new Pretty Pretty Pony game or a news post about how Jack Thompson was hit in the face with a shovel.
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Posted: Dec 11th 2007 7:33PM Ghengis said

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I hate MSP until TRU or CC or some such has a "buy one get one" sale on "accessories" and forgets to exclude virtual currency cards. I never bought MSP or Wii Points at retail price, and I'm damn proud of it.

Posted: Dec 12th 2007 6:51AM BurntMeatloaf said

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Why doesn't Microsoft make things REALLY easy and just buy Visa?

Posted: Dec 20th 2007 8:37PM Trojan said

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The MS points system sucks. There's no good reason that 1 point shouldn't equal 1 cent (or use the PSN system where money is money, plain and simple). The only thing this system accomplishes is to confuse people (possibly in MS's favor so that they don't realize how much they're actually spending on things).

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