Editorial: Why Microsoft Points Don't Make Sense

Okay. Many complaints have been given about Microsoft Points for the Xbox Live marketplace. They help Microsoft avoid excess credit card transaction fees. You can only buy in batches. For some reason, 80 points equals approximately $1 US. But my main complaint - the bulk purchases don't follow typical bulk purchase mentality. Buying more in bulk actually costs you more!

I can buy 400 points for $4.99. 800 points costs $9.99. 1600 = $19.99 and so on up to 6000 points = $74.99.

These numbers make absolutely no sense. People don't typically buy the 24 pack of toilet paper because they're going to need that much toilet paper tonight(unless they are TPing some jerk's house). They buy it because bulk is cheaper and then you have it when you need it.

If I bought 6000 points at just 400 points each, it would only cost me $74.85.

Sure it's only $0.14 cheaper, but the point is that the bulk purchase should be the cheaper option!

Come on, Microsoft! Bulk should always be cheaper!

Give the Gift of MS Points

Well, you could always give the gift, but it used to only be in these gift card forms. Now Microsoft is allowing US members buy Microsoft Points for other gamers, as long as they know those gamers' Windows Live IDs.

Unfortunately, you can't yet buy M$ points for people just by knowing their Gamertag(which would make more sense).

You can buy and give the points from Major Nelson.

Microsoft/Xbox bragging rights

Microsoft has released a stats sheet letting everyone know how well they're doing.

Some interesting things I saw were that since the 360 came out, over 300 million achievements were achieved for over 7.5 million gamerscore.

Also, more than 6 billion Microsoft Points have been purchased. After using the handy Microsoft Points Converter website, I found out that 5 billion MSP is equal to $62,475,000. (I also discovered that the converter doesn't covert numbers higher than 2,147,483,647.)

And out of the 10 million Xbox 360s out there, 6 million of them are members of Xbox Live.

Most the stat sheet boils down to "Yay! Xbox Live kicks ass!" And I actually agree. Here's to you, Microsoft.