Microsoft unveiled a subscription XBOX 360 this week, where instead of a single payment, monthly instalments would be paid for your hardware and services much like a phone contract.
The actual Microsoft subscription was a 4GB Xbox 360 kinect bundle that would be contracted for 2 years where you would have to pay a small fee up front, $99 in this case, and then a reoccurring payment of $14.99 every month for the next two years. Bringing it to a grand total of $458 for a 4GB Console with Kinect and two years worth of XBL Gold subscription.
The cost is roughly the same as buying a 4GB XBOX 360 console and Kinect separately so its a good deal as the initial forking out of a large sum of money can be a large deterrent for many consumers. So customers benefit but so do Microsoft who make a big more money out of letting you pay over a period of time.
This is currently only available in America as a “trial” run to see if the scheme will be popular. Personally I believe that if the next generation console were released with a similar marketing strategy it would do wonders for the console market. If it men’t I was paying, say £50 extra over a 2 year period then I would definitely prefer it over spending £300 on the XBOX 720 or PS4 and going hungry for a month.
However the 2 year contract for a XBOX 360 seems a little risky when there is so much rumour surround the XBOX 720, but perhaps they were not lying when Microsoft said that they were not working on the next console.
Console sales have rapidly been declining of the last few years and many critics believe that the Home video games console market is pretty much dead, though many people like to play video games on there big screens at home the evolution of alternative means to do so is having a major impact on the market.
Would you think about taking a contract for a console and the use of its services? let us know!
The game Call of duty game is believed to be “Black Ops 2″ and it has been suggested that it may well be set in the near future. The official 
