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Microsoft's Craig Davison: Xbox Live price hike is about maintaining 'consistency'
Sure, raising the price of your online service by 20 percent seemingly out of nowhere could be classified as anything but consistent, but Xbox Live marketing senior director Craig Davison says it isn't like that. During an interview with Gamasutra, Davison recounts how the service has grown in its near six years of existence and how the "infrastructure costs" have gone up. "As you can imagine, the costs associated with maintaining a service at that level and making sure all of those features are consistent, we're hitting that quality bar, we're adding the customer service infrastructure necessary, we're accommodating all of the same social features and functionality too, there's a cost. Infrastructure costs, of course." Davison added that the consistency across all "entertainment applications," whether it be games or things like Netflix and Zune -- which Davison reveals usage has doubled among Xbox Live users over the last year -- is a big part of it. Davison doesn't only address the Xbox Live price increase in the Gama interview, but also addresses this week's launch of Kinect and the Xbox 360's rise as an overall entertainment solution outside of games. Hit the link below to read more.
