Microshop Live!

Possibly taking a cue from Project Entropia's playbook (see yesterday's blog below), Microsoft seems to be poised to do their own "virtual consumable" thing through XBOX Live!. One difference in Microsoft's system is that you would pay full price for a game title and in addition to that, purchase consumable items or items that wear out with time for use in the game. Is that something players will accept? It could be argued that this already happend in MMORPGs like WoW where you 1) purchase the game in a box, and 2) pay a monthly online subscription fee and, while not required, many players 3) pay real-world money for in-game items or gold which they receive from other players. Since WoW is currently the biggest single MMORPG ever, maybe Microsoft should expect to thrive. To me the key will be the relevance of the items to achievement and success in the game, especially in rabid head-to-head competition, e.g. PvP or players vying for XBOX Live! status. Missing from Microsoft's plans are any "supported" ways for plays to conduct commerce among themselves. They did however mention the intention to integrate marketplace access within games, such as providing a special vendor within the context of the game world to conduct the external purchases, using money already deposited against your real-world XBOX Live! account. Is this far off? Not really. Microsoft plans to begin deploying this in their next XBOX Live! dashboard release. For more detail see this article from gamesindustry.biz.