With its new On Demand service Microsoft is taking a step away from the world of fictional currencies into the realm of actual monetary amounts. Does this spell the end of Spacebucks?
If you took a roomful of Xbox 360 owners and asked them “Do you like Microsoft Points?” I’m guessing that the good majority of them would say no, and the ones who said yes are either crazy or get some kind of Rain Man-esque pleasure from doing mental conversions of real money to fake money whenever they want to figure out how much money they’re spending on horse armor.
Now, finally, Microsoft is responding to the widespread opinion that Microsoft Points are for the birds. In their upcoming On Demand service, which will allow players to purchase and download full retail games over Xbox Live, prices for games won’t be listed in Spacebucks, but real dollar amounts, according to MTV Multiplayer. Users will still be able to configure settings so that they can view prices in MS Points amounts, but yeah, you’d have to be nuts to do that.
So does this mean that Microsoft is going to be bucking the MS Points thing all over Xbox Live Marketplace? I doubt that the company is going to stop selling Points in annoying amounts to force users to spend more money than they want to, but just listing prices as dollars is better than nothing, and apparently could happen.
“If there’s enough demand for it, it’s certainly possible,” said Microsoft’s Scott Austin.
