Xbox Live Silver to be called 'Xbox Live Free Membership'

by JC Fletcher on Oct 20th 2010 5:20PM

Microsoft is renaming its (free) Xbox Live Silver service to "Xbox Live Free Membership," according to a tweet from European community manager Graeme Boyd. This comes alongside the refreshed Xbox.com and, of course, the Xbox Live Gold price hike, as part of an apparent pre-Kinect relaunch of the Xbox's online presence.

The new name no longer emphasizes Silver's status as subordinate to Gold, but rather highlights the advantage of that level of membership -- the fact that it's free. In a followup tweet, Boyd clarified that the feature set for Silver won't change and neither will the name for the paid membership. If you're Gold now, you'll stay gold.

Via: 1UP
Source: @AceyBongos

Tags: graeme-boyd, membership, microsoft, xbox, xbox-live, Xbox-Live-Free-Membership, xbox-live-silver

Reader Comments (78)

Eh, makes sense.

I don't know why it wasn't called this in the first place...

@LosEndos Because the top-tier was "Gold".

@LosEndos

Next step: call Gold -> $

In other words, the money sign.

WARNING: Watch your XBL Accounts. My acccount was set to "Auto-renewal" after the xbox.com upgrade.

@(Unverified)

THIS IS TRUE, just checked mine holy crap thanks dood! What a bunch of greedy douchebags!

@(Unverified) You sure you didn't sign up for one of those $29.99/$39.99 Gold deals offered a few weeks back? That would cause it to be on.

If not, that would blow. Dunno why they'd do that.

@(Unverified) They can try and autorenew if they want....that card no longer works....lol

@(Unverified)
I just checked mine and auto renewal was still Off...

@Mystictrust

I think you've got the right idea; my account definitely was not set to auto-renew.

The again, I've always used pre-paid cards to auto-renew, so maybe they just don't have any of my card info?

@(Unverified) Checked mine, still Off......

@(Unverified)

Mine is set to auto-renewal, and i don't seem to be able to switch it back to off.. And m membership runs out in 5 days...

LET ME OUT MS, LET! ME! OUT!!!!

@Chris DPSN AggieCEO XBLThe Aggi

my credit card had expired when my live ran out the one time a few years back, but somehow the microsoft ninjas managed to get the payment to go through. this resulted in a headache trying to deal with the people at visa and microsoft to figure it out....the end result was i cancelled the account and had to start over. its all prepaid cards for me from now on.

Just checked mine, and you're right. I had to call them to turn it off last time because they had charged my card without my consent. I hadn't even purchased the subscription online initially but since my card was on file for other (MS Points) purchases they felt they could just go ahead and charge it...infuriated me! Anyway...proof of point: http://www.beckerist.com/images/autorenew.png -- having already called them once on this I'm very surprised to see this crop up again. Thank you for the heads up!

@(Unverified)

Mines still set to off.

@(Unverified) If you signed up for one of the renewal deals auto renewal is on but what really pisses me off is how theyve redone the site when you want to access your "cancel renewal" page it tells you that you have to go thru xbox support and for the last hour and a half that particular part of the website has been down for me. it was bad but nothing like this before the update :(

@(Unverified)

Thanks for the update cause i went to check and now I can actually turn off autorenewal when Canadian users couldnt before on the website

@killploki it don't matter if the card is expired or not as long as the account still open and has funds they would run it. The system might be set to run a credit card 1 yeard a head of the current date.

Way to make the XBL Silver member feel apart of the community Microsoft...

/sarcasm

@PlatinumSkeet
Yeah, I'm feeling less than others. Even after paying 300$US for an Xbox Elite, after all i have a Free Membership.

I like it better as Silver.

I wouldn't even bother hooking my box up to the internet for a Silver membership. Its a joke.

@BlackedOut well i am a silver member all i need xbox live is to buy DLC and thats it! there is no way i pay for my online gaming especially because right next to my xbox there is my PS3 with free online play and still i don't use it much maximum is once a week when my frinds and i get together for a multiplayer evening where nobody insults anybody and it's a ton of fun.

@BlackedOut Well, I guess if you don't like game demos and free gold weekends and entering download & win contests and participating in voice chat with a friend/family member and free movie trailers and DLC and such... then yeah.

Let me clarify. If you own a PS3 as well and that is your main console, of course Silver is the way to go. If you only own an Xbox and it's Silver, you made a bad decision.

But I really value multiplayer gameplay so you'know.

@BlackedOut Uhhh we still get game patches, demos, videos...and more....shit I was streaming netflix via play-on

@DokiDokiBawanga

I despise silence in games. I like it when you meet up with a good group of people and there's a little bit of trash talking both ways. As long as it's not a little kid I really have no problem with anyone saying something on XBL. I'm a PS3 owner too and I feel that PS3 community would love to have most of their community talk (it helps out tremendously in multi-player). It's just they don't have it so they choose a reason to hate it.

Like Trophies/Achievements I remember hearing so many PS3 users trash talking them until Sony added it then it all changed. When PSN has 90% of users having headsets I think the mood towards PS3 players and headsets will change...

@PlatinumSkeet

People are different and like different things cos I definately prefer silence in games (most FPS atleast) the first thing I do in MW is mute everyone it becomes a race to see if I can mute them all before I get locked out cos the match is about to start

@PlatinumSkeet

No one talks on PSN because it takes one complaint, an unwarranted one, to be baned for up to a month. PSN moderators are more sensitive than hipsters.

@zefur

If you don't like talking to people in FPS's why not............. just play bot matches? Or any game on PSN rather.

@Anticrawl

Actually, PSN mods are LESS sensitive than XBL mods. We all know the stories with XBL mods. Never heard one about PSN mods.

@PlatinumSkeet

Nope I hate hearing anybody in voice chat. They make it pain in games and you have to constantly set the mute to "ON". Some games don't even have a MUTE ALL button. There should be a NO VOICE CHAT in the XMB so I don't have to figure out where it is in every game. I don't want a 13 year old screaming in my living room racial slurs. Never once heard anything useful while playing. 99% of the people in the world are worth listening to.

@FriedConsole

Entering a party by yourself should mute all players. With the possible exception of games like Halo that have proximity chatter come through the speakers.

@zefur
I prefer group coordination when I play MAG, largely because I play to have fun and having a well-coordinated group makes the experience more interesting.

That said, I'm still running around as a full-resurrect medic/engineer. It's kind of amazing the number of friend invites you get from playing as a dedicated medic/engineer.

Still get the shit end of the stick though

To me, just doesn't make sense " free and gold"? just leave it in silver and gold please...maybe it's just me

@NoirR

It's probably more of Marketing. With MS having "free" the name it makes customers feel like they're getting something for free... =P

Who am I kidding? I think the Silver and Gold makes a whole hell of a lot more sense than free too...

@Skeet
True, but I think 'Free' and 'Gold' fully illustrates the chasm of features and money spent between the two subscription models.

Free... but still fairly useless.

@PreGHz Fairly? Without multiplayer it is useless! Thankfully once my subscription runs out I won't care since I have a PS3 as well.

@PreGHz
True. It is useless. and charging for Facebook, Twitter, Netflix. But MS should make the Free membership=Free multiplayer on weekends.

Huh. I figured they would keep it Silver for the precise reason that it's subordinate to Gold as a means to subconsciously encourage users to upgrade.

wow they really dont want u to turn auto renewal off. i went through 4 pages before it let me turn it off.

@xbashingx yup. My brother got so ticked that by the time he turned it off, he decided that he would never get Live again. It's just so ridiculous because it's hard as crap to find it online anyways, and then they're like, oh, so by clicking i want to turn off autorenew, did you actually mean that you want to buy more Live? No? But we have MW2!

It's stupid to make something that you pay for such a hassle.

@chimpsmith

"i went through 4 pages before it let me turn it off."

Holy shit, I thought you meant 4 pages to get to the screen where you could turn it off. I navigated through the site, traversing a lot more than 4 pages until I found the page where the tiny ON indicator by Auto-Renewal changed from black to dark green, meaning I could click on it.

Then, like you said, I had go through 4 PAGES of Microsoft telling me how f*cking empty my life would be in an alternate reality where I had no Gold and I couldn't access an awkward Twitter interface through my console.

I, too, had become filled with rage by the time I got to the end where I could click "I want to turn auto-renewal off because I have no penis" or whatever.

Every other page on this site was lightning fast until I clicked turn off auto-renewal. Now it was just sitting there with the page-load for over a minute, until, wait for it...

Wait for it...

http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1049/5100891992_c402e7920c_b.jpg

@copa

I am going to kill someone.

@copa

I know I shouldn't laugh, because that's ridiculous and pretty lame on MS's part, but your post me chuckle :)

Can't fool me Microsoft!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oMlqn_Hjyi8

I still think they should put the 1 month free gold for a free sign up. It not only increases the number of live member (for people who constantly want to make free accounts to get XBL for free) but it let's the user decide if it's really worth the hassle to have to change accounts & make new emails 12 times a year. I think they'll eventually go to just paying for Gold.

Think this is a way to make people upgrade due to the whole xbox live FREE membership name being equal to a neon sign above your head that your a cheapskate, and therefor make you pay to not be labeled as so.
That's just my opinion of Microsoft, not my opinion of free users.
I do pay though lol

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Xbox Live Silver to be called 'Xbox Live Free Membership'

Reader Comments (78)

Posted: Oct 20th 2010 5:22PM LosEndos said

Posted: Oct 20th 2010 5:28PM (Unverified) said

Posted: Oct 20th 2010 7:52PM Ballistic H said

Posted: Oct 20th 2010 5:26PM (Unverified) said

Posted: Oct 20th 2010 5:31PM xbashingx said

Posted: Oct 20th 2010 5:47PM Mystictrust said

Posted: Oct 20th 2010 5:48PM Chris DPSN AggieCEO XBLThe Aggi said

Posted: Oct 20th 2010 6:23PM Nirvash Planeteer Power of Capt said

Posted: Oct 20th 2010 6:24PM Acosta02 said

Posted: Oct 20th 2010 6:37PM Quinion said

Posted: Oct 20th 2010 7:04PM WolfForager said

Posted: Oct 20th 2010 7:31PM killploki said

Posted: Oct 20th 2010 7:33PM beckerist said

Posted: Oct 20th 2010 7:46PM This Little Man Says His Name Is said

Posted: Oct 20th 2010 7:54PM skelbono said

Posted: Oct 21st 2010 1:06AM KinseySS said

Posted: Oct 21st 2010 1:56AM Espada said

Posted: Oct 20th 2010 5:26PM PlatinumSkeet said

Posted: Oct 20th 2010 8:02PM (Unverified) said

Posted: Oct 20th 2010 8:02PM (Unverified) said

Posted: Oct 20th 2010 5:26PM BlackedOut said

Posted: Oct 20th 2010 5:39PM DokiDokiBawanga said

Posted: Oct 20th 2010 5:42PM Mystictrust said

Posted: Oct 20th 2010 5:48PM BlackedOut said

Posted: Oct 20th 2010 5:49PM Chris DPSN AggieCEO XBLThe Aggi said

Posted: Oct 20th 2010 5:53PM PlatinumSkeet said

Posted: Oct 20th 2010 6:10PM zefur said

Posted: Oct 20th 2010 6:34PM Anticrawl said

Posted: Oct 20th 2010 6:40PM Anticrawl said

Posted: Oct 20th 2010 7:41PM Ballistic H said

Posted: Oct 20th 2010 7:50PM FriedConsole said

Posted: Oct 20th 2010 9:41PM Acosta02 said

Posted: Oct 21st 2010 1:32AM mahouneko said

Posted: Oct 20th 2010 5:27PM PR0F3TA said

Posted: Oct 20th 2010 5:27PM NoirR said

Posted: Oct 20th 2010 5:38PM PlatinumSkeet said

Posted: Oct 20th 2010 5:51PM BlackedOut said

Posted: Oct 20th 2010 5:29PM PreGHz said

Posted: Oct 20th 2010 6:00PM The angry pro consumer gaming ga said

Posted: Oct 21st 2010 12:53PM furious said

Posted: Oct 20th 2010 5:30PM Fish Face McGee said

Posted: Oct 20th 2010 5:34PM xbashingx said

Posted: Oct 20th 2010 6:22PM chimpsmith said

Posted: Oct 20th 2010 7:02PM copa said

Posted: Oct 20th 2010 7:03PM copa said

Posted: Oct 20th 2010 7:21PM ts8lemonade said

Posted: Oct 20th 2010 5:35PM Hayatoblaze91x said

Posted: Oct 20th 2010 5:38PM Burnflare said

Posted: Oct 20th 2010 5:39PM Prboi said

Posted: Oct 20th 2010 5:42PM Pete207 said

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