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Tom Warren: Microsoft has confirmed it's rebranding Xbox Live to just Xbox network to distinguish from Xbox Live Gold

FairFight

FairFight

Member
Oct 27, 2017
794
Chandler, AZ
Defect said:
Xbox Live just sounds better
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It really does. There's so much brand recognition that goes with it as well. Very surprising news. I'm guessing they'll stop trying to sell the "service" of Live and focus on Game Pass as the service moving forward. That would only really make sense though if they made the online component free. But then what becomes of Game Pass Ultimate?
 
THE RABID MOOSE

THE RABID MOOSE

Member
Oct 25, 2017
1,281
Worst change ever. You have the best name of the online services and our rebranding to distinguish from a subcategory of it (which they are making moves away from as noted by the attempted price hike to make way for game pass)?
 
Dust

Dust

C H A O S
Member
Oct 25, 2017
32,169
This doesn't really matter overall but Xbox Live was kinda a brand in itself. Weird choice, I guess they might want to futureproof the umbrella of Xbox services.
 
bsigg

bsigg

Member
Oct 25, 2017
22,543
Watch them make Xbox Live the game streaming/multiplayer naming for maximum confusion.
 
ghostcrew

ghostcrew

The Shrouded Ghost
Administrator
Oct 27, 2017
30,351
THE RABID MOOSE said:
Worst change ever. You have the best name of the online services
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Xbox Live, the online service, (the Xbox version of PS+) will still exist with the same name.

They're rebranding the network/infrastructure (the Xbox version of PlayStation Network) to the Xbox network.

They're splitting the names. Probably so that PC and Cloud users don't have to keep reading about and seeing the term 'Xbox Live' on their apps/stores and getting confused as to whether they need to sub to Xbox Live or not. It's a name grouping that doesn't really work anymore.
 

darkazcura

Member
Oct 25, 2017
1,885
Soo...I plan on buying an Xbox at some point whenever I can find stock at Target (gift card). I wanted to jump in primarily for the Xbox Live for 3 years (~$150) > GCU upgrade for a $1. I'm not as interested in doing this is going away somehow...has there been any discussion on this pricing going away with this rebranding?
 
Lkr

Lkr

Member
Oct 28, 2017
9,513
darkazcura said:
Soo...I plan on buying an Xbox at some point whenever I can find stock at Target (gift card). I wanted to jump in primarily for the Xbox Live for 3 years (~$150) > GCU upgrade for a $1. I'm not as interested in doing this is going away somehow...has there been any discussion on this pricing going away with this rebranding?
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they tried to raise the price just a few months ago, so I doubt removing it altogether is on the table
 
Gay Bowser

Gay Bowser

Member
Oct 30, 2017
17,661
darkazcura said:
Soo...I plan on buying an Xbox at some point whenever I can find stock at Target (gift card). I wanted to jump in primarily for the Xbox Live for 3 years (~$150) > GCU upgrade for a $1. I'm not as interested in doing this is going away somehow...has there been any discussion on this pricing going away with this rebranding?
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No, because Xbox Live Gold, the paid subscription service, still exists unchanged.
 
Delusibeta

Delusibeta

Prophet of Truth
Banned
Oct 26, 2017
5,648
ghostcrew said:
What's Discord?
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See also the 'Discord's up for sale for ten billion' thread. Not a lot of companies that can spend ten bill on an acquisition, and this rename strikes me as the sort of thing that might be laying the expectations for a future whereby Xbox's chat features is replaced with Discord. It's all speculation at the moment (I think Tencent's a more likely suitor, since it'll give them a western audience that WeChat likely will never get).
 

pappacone

Member
Jan 10, 2020
3,140
I've never heard anyone complaining about Xbox Live and Xbox Live Gold namings
This change is really strange since it's coming from the same company that named its consoles Xbox One S, Xbox One X, Xbox Series X and Xbox Series S
 
Strat

Strat

Member
Apr 8, 2018
13,329
Whenever my friend group gets to together it's always
"Live?"
"Jumping on Live"
"Live in 10"
Etc etc.
End of an era. We've been saying that stuff for well over a decade, so I imagine it's not going anywhere, even if the name changes.
 
riotous

riotous

Member
Oct 25, 2017
11,325
Seattle
Strat said:
Whenever my friend group gets to together it's always
"Live?"
"Jumping on Live"
"Live in 10"
Etc etc.
End of an era. We've been saying that stuff for well over a decade, so I imagine it's not going anywhere, even if the name changes.
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The paid service you use to play online is still Xbox Live Gold.

So there's no reason for the term to really go away.
 

Deleted member 22750

Oct 28, 2017
13,267
xbox network should be their network

xbox live should be the streaming name...but its confusing anyway
 
HiLife

HiLife

Avenger
Oct 25, 2017
39,625
Strat said:
Whenever my friend group gets to together it's always
"Live?"
"Jumping on Live"
"Live in 10"
Etc etc.
End of an era. We've been saying that stuff for well over a decade, so I imagine it's not going anywhere, even if the name changes.
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I'm still referring to it as Live anyway. Lol.
 
riotous

riotous

Member
Oct 25, 2017
11,325
Seattle
Ariakon44 said:
Yeah, it seems like Live is MP for consoles, while Xbox network is the online services for every platform, like Cloud and PC.
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Yeah downloads, sending messages.. all the stuff that is "free" on XBL is just Xbox network.

Not actually a service, hence the lowercase n. Xbox Live Gold is the service offering.

My guess is they'll refer to accounts as "Xbox accounts" continuing forward as well. Or maybe they already have been doing that.

An Xbox account to access the Xbox network; you subscribe to Xbox Live Gold to play online.
 
HorseFD

HorseFD

Member
Oct 25, 2017
2,024
Melbourne
I think the lower case n in network means it's not really supposed to be thought of as an entity known as "The Xbox Network" like Xbox Live was, it's just a network and Xbox is the adjective describing it. I don't think you're supposed to put too much thought into it, it just exists in the background away from the user.
 
Vinc

Vinc

Member
Oct 25, 2017
7,387
It makes a lot of sense and is yet more evidence that XBL Gold is going away sooner or later.

I like the sound of "Xbox Live" more, but network is a lot more descriptive and all-encompassing, and it's also not a "brand" in itself. Xbox is the brand, as evidenced by the lowercase n. Xbox Live sounds like a streaming service ala Twitch nowadays, so I get it.
 
THE RABID MOOSE

THE RABID MOOSE

Member
Oct 25, 2017
1,281
ghostcrew said:
Xbox Live, the online service, (the Xbox version of PS+) will still exist with the same name.

They're rebranding the network/infrastructure (the Xbox version of PlayStation Network) to the Xbox network.

They're splitting the names. Probably so that PC and Cloud users don't have to keep reading about and seeing the term 'Xbox Live' on their apps/stores and getting confused as to whether they need to sub to Xbox Live or not. It's a name grouping that doesn't really work anymore.
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How is two different name for what is essentially the same "network" not confusing?I'm pretty sure PC and Cloud users would know the difference between Xbox Live and Gold as the subscription service. Having it all under Xbox Live is much more straight forward. Also they use Xbox Live Gold as the PS+ variant , Live gets referred to the whole service by vernacular at this point. It seems redundant tbh.
 
ThereAreFourNaan

ThereAreFourNaan

Member
Nov 8, 2017
13,099
THE RABID MOOSE said:
How is two different name for what is essentially the same "network" not confusing?I'm pretty sure PC and Cloud users would know the difference between Xbox Live and Gold as the subscription service. Having it all under Xbox Live is much more straight forward. Also they use Xbox Live Gold as the PS+ variant , Live gets referred to the whole service by vernacular at this point. It seems redundant tbh.
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We used to differentiate between Xbox Live Silver (free features, basic infrastructure) Xbox Live Gold (paid multiplayer, premium features).

They eventually dropped this branding and just had Xbox Live (free features, basic infrastructure) and Xbox Live Gold (paid multiplayer, premium features).

Now they seem to be moving to Xbox Network and Xbox Live (or Xbox Live Gold, maybe still). But it's all the same thing.
 
Vinc

Vinc

Member
Oct 25, 2017
7,387
ThereAreFourNaan said:
We used to differentiate between Xbox Live Silver (free features, basic infrastructure) Xbox Live Gold (paid multiplayer, premium features).

They eventually dropped this branding and just had Xbox Live (free features, basic infrastructure) and Xbox Live Gold (paid multiplayer, premium features).

Now they seem to be moving to Xbox Network and Xbox Live (or Xbox Live Gold, maybe still). But it's all the same thing.
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My guess is they're pre-emptively doing this so that "Xbox Live (Gold) is going away!" articles a few months from now don't seem as confusing.
 
The Lord of Cereal

The Lord of Cereal

#REFANTAZIO SWEEP
Member
Jan 9, 2020
9,626
Honestly it makes sense. Xbox Live is a nice name but not really relevant anymore. Better to just be "Xbox" and when needing to refer to the online part in particular, Xbox network just makes sense.

Most people I know already say Xbox account instead of Xbox live account, and people only use Xbox Live these days to refer to Gold
 
THE RABID MOOSE

THE RABID MOOSE

Member
Oct 25, 2017
1,281
ThereAreFourNaan said:
We used to differentiate between Xbox Live Silver (free features, basic infrastructure) Xbox Live Gold (paid multiplayer, premium features).

They eventually dropped this branding and just had Xbox Live (free features, basic infrastructure) and Xbox Live Gold (paid multiplayer, premium features).

Now they seem to be moving to Xbox Network and Xbox Live (or Xbox Live Gold, maybe still). But it's all the same thing.
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Oh yeah I remember Silver which was always unnecessary, and confusing which adds to my point having two "names" for your online services is odd. Xbox Live is short, simple and to the point. Having the overarching network called Xbox Network then it's subscription subsidiary called Xbox Live Gold is more confusing to me because part of the name (Live) is what the whole service used to be called. Having it be Xbox Live for the whole network, then Gold for the premium features just makes more sense. Of course they're going to drop Gold probably within the next couple of years, and I'd imagine Game Pass get renamed at some point to have more name consolidation.
 
Windu

Windu

Member
Oct 25, 2017
13,622
riotous said:
Why do people think they'll get rid of such a cash cow?

It's the same price per month as regular GamePass with likely a MUCH lower cost.
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Xbox Live Gold has reached its peak. It's not going to grow any larger. PC and Mobile players are not going to be paying for online multiplayer. And neither should console players.
 
Jaypah

Jaypah

Member
Oct 27, 2017
2,866
I don't undet the confusion. In 2021 (and with the hope that they'll add new customers) this makes all the sense in the world. The lowercase "n" also makes sense when you realize that it's not the brand name, it's literally just the network for Xbox. At least that's how I'm reading it.
 
Iso

Iso

Member
Oct 25, 2017
1,188
riotous said:
Why do people think they'll get rid of such a cash cow?

It's the same price per month as regular GamePass with likely a MUCH lower cost.
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It's been theorized that the goal with the attempted Gold price hike was to try and reduce its value to try and push people towards Game Pass Ultimate. Every Gold > GPU subscriber they convert is one less sub they'd lose by killing off Gold.

At some point they will have managed to get enough current Gold members to upgrade to GPU, and at that point killing Gold makes much more sense. They'll simply replace its offering within GPU to keep the value the same.
 
jroc74

jroc74

Member
Oct 27, 2017
28,992
So Gold is staying (for now)...interesting.

Right now only Game Pass Ultimate has Gold bundled with it. Ppl that get just the console GP need Gold for online MP.

They have finally made F2P not need Gold. The threads about this were amazing with the ppl defending MS not making it free.

Now the question is whats the future for Gold.
 
riotous

riotous

Member
Oct 25, 2017
11,325
Seattle
Iso said:
It's been theorized that the goal with the attempted Gold price hike was to try and reduce its value to try and push people towards Game Pass Ultimate. Every Gold > GPU subscriber they convert is one less sub they'd lose by killing off Gold.

At some point they will have managed to get enough current Gold members to upgrade to GPU, and at that point killing Gold makes much more sense. They'll simply replace its offering within GPU to keep the value the same.
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I've read the logic you've presented before, I just disagree... it's a super high margin service, particularly at anywhere near the monthly price of $9.99 (which would have been the per-month price if their price hike had gone up for those paying for a 12 month card.) Likely a much higher margin that GPU.

Are they weighing the fact that hiking XBLG makes something like GPU more attractive? Sure.. but I don't see the logic for "dropping XBLG once enough people sub to GPU".

MS isn't betting on converting existing gamers paying for XBLG and buying games into GamePass subs.. they are betting on converting loads of consumers not currently in the Xbox ecosystem into GamePass subs.

And they'll raise the GPU price someday too..
 
XR.

XR.

Member
Nov 22, 2018
6,579
Ah yes, let's rebrand using a word no one uses in a normal context ever.

I'm aware it's more of an "unbranding" so it's pretty much inconsequential, but at the end of the day there will still be a brand in terms of communication. People won't say "see you on the Xbox network" or "you can download it through Xbox network", people will probably reduce it to just "Xbox". That's the nature of today's industry since everyone has their network infrastructure, but at the same time I think it's silly to still rock the Live Gold branding while removing the traditional Live moniker for everything else.
 
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darthpaxton

darthpaxton

Member
Jun 20, 2018
1,697
This headline is just super misleading and sloppy. Xbox Live still exists, they're just clarifying things by only using the name when directly referring to Xbox Live Gold. Xbox network is also not a proper name or marketing term and just refers to Xbox's internal network, like every business in the country has at this point.
 
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