For years now, people have assumed that Xbox Live would eventually go free. Neither Nintendo or Sony charges for the ability to play games online and the dream was that eventually Microsoft would have to level the playing field. Well, it’s time to give up that dream as Microsoft has announced that starting on November 1st, 2010 the price of a gold membership will go up. A 1 month membership will now cost you $9.99 up from $7.99, a 3 month membership will now cost $24.99 up from $19.99 and a 12 month membership will cost $59.99 up from $49.99.
Microsoft is showing some mercy though as between now and October 31st you can buy a year for $39.99. Remember gold time stacks, so even if you just recently bought a 12 month subscription you can buy another one for $39.99 and add that 12 months to the current time you have left. I haven’t actually paid for Xbox Live in well over a year, my subscription is up sometime in November. Which means I should probably get in on this action.
Interestingly enough Xbox has created a page to show you why being a gold member is a good deal and on that list is VideoKinect. The video chat service that Microsoft showed off at E3 this year is a gold member exclusive. To be fair to Microsoft the price of things like this go up all the time, and this is the first price increase since the service launched in the Fall of 2002. I imagine that many of you, still aren’t going to be happy about this.