Microsoft I have a bone to pick

Back in the day Xbox required that it’s users convert CASH into Microsoft Points. For people like me this meant that over time we accumulated credits.

Recently Microsoft decided that the points were going to be phased out in favor of straight cash transactions.

Now those credits have been converted back to a cash value (At no interest) Microsoft has also started a countdown to forfeiture of the credit amount in our account.

Here’s the bone.

I can’t spend that money on anything except a game, rental, or purchase of movies, or purchase of music. 

Okay so I want to buy a game. 

It costs 59.95. I have 45.65 on account. So logically you’d think that Microsoft would say

59.95-45.65 = 13.30 

Then offer to take the 13.30 + taxes from my credit card.

You’d be wrong!

They want to bill the entire amount to my credit card and leave me with the 45.65 still to spend and still to expire on June 1.

This is exactly WHY I hated the whole converting money to credits in the first place. 

Additionally Microsoft won’t let me use the credit to pay for my xbox gold membership or pay for anything else from the Microsoft line as far as I can tell.

I feel really screwed over this and I find myself thinking that the next game console I purchase will likely be from Sony. Xbox Live is expensive on a yearly basis if you’re only an occasional player and it’s a pain in the ass to sign up once in a while if you’re not sure that you’re going to be playing online. 

At the same time you practically have to have the Xbox Live account active because if you don’t, then decide to turn it on you have to deal with updates and more updates and more updates before you can play the freaking game you wanted to play.

I went through that today. I just wanted to play Call of Duty.  BUZZZZ! There are updates required…

After navigating a counterintuitive user interface to select the game I wanted to play then to be told I couldn’t play the game because there was a required update, then waiting for that update I’d already gone on to other things and wasn’t interested anymore. The downloads finished and I turned the machine off.

Am I impatient? Probably!

But sometimes you only have a half hour to play and updates like that really cramp your style.

So Microsoft… here are a couple of things you might want to consider.

1) My account should be my account across all your product lines. Credit balance or not.

2) Learn to freakin do math!

3) You better really come up with some seriously awesome games because I’ve seen the Sony Playstation render games (DAMN!) and it also includes a nice BluRay player!

But most of all, 

We as customers shouldn’t be thought of as “Fish in a Barrel”

I’m writing this on a Mac, I have office and I like the Office 365 preview you’ve been kind enough to share.

BUT…

I also have viable alternatives to Office, Windows, Skype, and in fact your entire product line. You might want to be a little more “Customer Friendly”

Just saying…