I wonder if anyone even remembers that the price of Xbox live went up in late 2010. In this instant Internet age it’s easy to forget. I am sure the critics and people looking to fling poo haven’t forgotten. Zeus help Microsoft for doing anything to interrupt the status quo. Granted a lot of the people I am labeling as critics are just fanboy’s of another companies hardware. Mixed in with that are honest people who were truly irked at the ten dollar increase. I paid attention to it as well, in fact I kept track of a few things connected to price hike for almost a year now. My reason for doing so was partly to bring you this wonderful post. My own selfish entertainment was the rest of the reason.

I really got sick of the whining and ranting that went along with news of the increase. Because ultimately as consumers, we have the option of telling Microsoft to go play with rusty razor blades and do without the service. The other option was to do a little digging around and see what kind of deals one could find on renewing before spending the full 60 bucks. This my gentle friends is where shit gets interesting.

The first time I had to renew, MS offered me the option of doing so with them for about thirty nine dollars. I am pretty sure they made that offer in an vain attempt to quell the Reddit/N4G rioting. Starting in April of last year, (2011) I started keeping an eye of the various retailers where you can purchase XBL gold. For the most part this means the safe ones like Amazon, Walmart and Gamestop. I would basically check once a month and did so just this morning. What I found is that you would have to be a complete and total idiot (no parts missing) to pay the full sixty dollar subscription fee.

I am sure some of you are aware of this as I saw plenty of the internet mob stocking up on subscription cards right after the increase was announced.  It’s been my observation  that the discounts have never stopped. Which makes it nice for those of us without the resources to purchase five years worth of subscription cards in advance. The easiest by far is Amazon. I have seen both cards and online codes as cheap as thirty nine ninety nine. Generally they are listed at the old price of forty nine ninety nine. Don’t like ordering online? Well your in luck because I actually saw similar pricing at Walmart and Gamestop in store. In the case of Gamestop, you had to be a power up card holder, but not always. Walmart was more hit or miss, but deals where available. I am sure chains like Best Buy and Future Shop had deals as well. I just never really expanded my search that far.

My point if there must be one, isn’t to make fun of the people who irrationally flipped out. That would like making fun of a Shriner and his tiny car. I just found it interesting and if in the process I save someone a few bucks, then awesome. See I can occasionally write something that might and I stress the word might be helpful. Don’t expect it to be a trend.