MS refuses to pass UK VAT cuts onto XBLA points

[Zeus]

A worker at HMV has confirmed that MS is being rather sneaky and will not pass on the recent UK VAT cuts onto XBLA points. They are using the loophole that the points are classed as a voucher, so they can be exempt without legal repercussion.


I just wondered why with the recent cut in the rate of VAT in the UK the price of buying XBLA points online has not dropped? I can either buy 2000 points for £17 (or 83p per 100 points) direct online or 2100 points for £17.13 (or 81p per 100 points) from Game or Gamestation with free delivery.

I know its not a great deal of money but just wondered the reasoning behind not passing the saving onto the customer

RESPONS: as its classed as a voucher, officialy the vat cut doesnt apply. i work for hmv an we were told by head office about this.


News Source: <A href="http://forums.xbox.com/24428014/ShowPost.aspx" target="_blank">Forums.xbox.com<a/>

[Convienient]

FUUUUUUUU-

This is BS tbh, I was hoping for a couple of pounds off of my next lot of points ¬¬ Nvm i'll leave it another 6 months

[Trashcat]

If people weren't dumb enough to start paying for "downloadable content" or overpriced re-re-re-re-release of 20 years old games there would not be a problem, you people brought it on yourself.

[Blazeking]

If people weren't dumb enough to start paying for "downloadable content" or overpriced re-re-re-re-release of 20 years old games there would not be a problem, you people brought it on yourself.

I wonder if you even own a console.
What comment do you have about this topic that's really about the MS points that you use. Don't even try to tell me that you don't buy any DLC.

[funnybutrandom]

i was looking forward my 2.5% off

[sped]

Tight set of b%&"$%ds!!! Dont get me wrong some of the stuff on there is great but way too much... Take films, HD 650 points for some of em, whats that about £8. I DONT THINK SO MS!! lets see some of the stuff on there cheaper.

[tech3475]

ah screw darling. He needs that 2.5%(about 42p if they cost £20) to afford the daily hair cut on his eyebrows.

[friko]

meanwhile, on the other side of the pond:
http://www.eurogamer.net/article.php?article_id=322769

[Angel]

In other news my scumbag ISP says this...



In light of the recent reduction in VAT made by the government, we are writing to inform you of our response to the changes which will take effect as of the 1st December 2008.

The prices for our broadband packages have always been quoted to you inclusive of VAT. Passing on the VAT reduction would create a lot of costly and time-intensive administrative work, for both us and you, in terms of overhauling customer billing processes as well as amending direct debits and payment instructions.

After careful consideration of all the options, we've taken the decision to leave subscriptions at the current rate.

The financial saving each customer would have received - equating to approximately 32p a month, is far outweighed by the disruption and additional resource these changes would cause to our customer service and support, as well as to you, the customer, in changing your direct debit instructions.

This means your monthly subscription will remain unchanged. However, in order to ensure that overall amounts remain the same, we have to advise you that in effect, we have increased the price of our service by 2.1% - a change that will take effect from 1 December 2008, to the cessation of this temporary rate.

I'll get my money back in bandwidth mate, don't you worry yourself about that! ;)

[alkalinetrio]

I always thought Europe only got shafted by SONY. (Once upon a time it was Nintendo) Now looks like MS wants in on some European shafting action too!

Firstly they announce US only special price reductions in the store claiming it was too "complex" to offer Europe the same reductions, and now it's a legal requirment to reduce the price on VAT they avoid that too.

Don't be mistaken people, a few pence to you and me equates to millions in extra revenue for MS.

[Trashcat]

I wonder if you even own a console.
What comment do you have about this topic that's really about the MS points that you use. Don't even try to tell me that you don't buy any DLC.
I am a PC gamer you see and I am not a sucker so why the hell would I start paying for things that I was getting for free on PC all these years just because I bought me a 360, so no I never spent a single cent on DLC but I do grab everything that is free. If console people grew a pair and said no to paid DLC from the start of this generation everything would have been free on consoles too but now its too late you are not getting something for free that you already agreed to pay for. When you turn your cash into Microsoft points or sony points or Nintendo points next time don't forget to say baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah

[KingPepper]

I'll get my money back in bandwidth mate, don't you worry yourself about that! ;)

You and Me both, lets download absolutely everything, teach those ISP's a lesson........ :)

And back to topic, yes i agree about the pricing is too much for the DLC on XBOX Live, not sure about the PSN, as i don't have a PS3 yet.
But yes Micro$oft are greedy bastards thats for sure............. :mad:
Considering that Bill Gates is one of the most wealthy in the world, you would expect prices to be extremely low, wouldn't you say. :rolleyes:

[Appleseed]

I would never pay for online downloads. Especially micro downloads.

[msanchez]

why are these things considered vouchers? is there any other way to buy stuff on live? I would consider MS points more akin to currency. Anyways, pretty sneaky ms, and Angel seriously download every damn anime you can find on, and just delete then after they download, and repeat. If I were you I wouldn't be happy until I make the ISP's servers go belly up.

"AAAA it's too much of a b*tch to take of 2.5% of your bill.... plus that's less money for us, you know what just keep paying it like a good boy" The testicular fortitude of those guys is amazing.

[CZroe]

It sounds to me like they were exempt from VAT all along so you were never charged in the first place, hence, no price cut.

[DanASBO]

If people weren't dumb enough to start paying for "downloadable content" or overpriced re-re-re-re-release of 20 years old games there would not be a problem, you people brought it on yourself.

Actually agreeing with you on this one. I have never bought any MS points, never payed for XBL Gold and never will. The micro-transactions are the stupid consumers fault. Now we have to put up with content being released a few days after the games release, content that should of been on the disc, at a premium. I wish a pox on anybody that purchases these things.

[Angel]

why are these things considered vouchers? is there any other way to buy stuff on live? I would consider MS points more akin to currency. Anyways, pretty sneaky ms, and Angel seriously download every damn anime you can find on, and just delete then after they download, and repeat. If I were you I wouldn't be happy until I make the ISP's servers go belly up.

"AAAA it's too much of a b*tch to take of 2.5% of your bill.... plus that's less money for us, you know what just keep paying it like a good boy" The testicular fortitude of those guys is amazing.

I'll be keeping it maxed 24/7 from now on, even if it's animal porn LOL

Debenhams said they weren't going to pass on this tax decrease, loads of other places will be doing the same thing but more sneakily.
At the end of the day, the government has borrowed money from the taxpayer and given it to corportations.

Great innit?

With all the extra 32p's per month (~51c US) they're getting from each subscriber, it's nice to know that I'll be yet again paying for some fatcat to snort coke off a hooker's arse crack.

[harryisme]

OK so i'm confused, if you buy the vouchers from instore or on the internet you do get charged the new 15% VAT rate, so the price has dropped I brought my points from Tesco online so I did get the VT cut. So are you saying the price of the games has not gone down or is M$ still charging the same amount if you buy direct via XBL?

If that's the case just buy the points from a vendor instead of direct, I got 2100 points fromTesco for less than £14.40 so I saved £3.50 from the amound M$ were charging anyway so it makes no sense to buy direct.

[Blades]

This is another example of owners of the crappy Xbox 360 being raped hard in the asshole by shady M$.

This is another crappy example of a PS3 Fanbot in action...



;

[Mchief298]

I am a PC gamer...

so no I never spent a single cent on DLC but I do grab everything that is free.

So basically, you pirate everything? >> Don't try to lie, everyone pirates something...

...and if you think it's such a waste buying a console, then why do you have a pc? with it's BSODs and constant upgrading to run the newest games *cough*Crysis*cough*... don't you think you're wasting more money than you're bitching about?

...and don't try to say you bought a stock computer with all the latest stuff, because I'll know you're lying... the gaming computers run from anywhere between 2k and 10k, unless you buy them used i suppose

[billysastard]

Actually agreeing with you on this one. I have never bought any MS points, never payed for XBL Gold and never will. The micro-transactions are the stupid consumers fault. Now we have to put up with content being released a few days after the games release, content that should of been on the disc, at a premium. I wish a pox on anybody that purchases these things.

i find it disturbing that i'm in agreement with 3 people i rarely agree with, but i have all 3 current gen consoles and i've never downloaded any content at all nor do i ever play console games online, and any game that is buggy or requires a patch goes straight back to the store for a full refund on the grounds that it is not of merchantable quality or not as advertised, at first my local stores were not too keen on taking them back but trading standards soon sorted that out, now they even tell me if something needs a patch because they know i wont buy it.

[msanchez]

i find it disturbing that i'm in agreement with 3 people i rarely agree with, but i have all 3 current gen consoles and i've never downloaded any content at all nor do i ever play console games online, and any game that is buggy or requires a patch goes straight back to the store for a full refund on the grounds that it is not of merchantable quality or not as advertised, at first my local stores were not too keen on taking them back but trading standards soon sorted that out, now they even tell me if something needs a patch because they know i wont buy it.

LOL I guess when you walk in the clerks start murmuring stuff to each other :D Well I won't say I never would buy DLC content, but I really doubt that's my thing. Much to my surprise I have no problem buying games of the PSN though, and since I will rarely buy a game at launch I know before hand if there will be any patching involved, and so far I haven't been interested in any bug filled game. Well I did buy Lair, but the problem wasn't really a bug, and I actually didn't see it as one in any case (the whole motion controller thing) The only reason why I downloaded the patch was because my brother wanted to try it out with the analogs..... he thought it was much more fun to play with the motion sensing afterwards.

To a certain degree I'm not too against paying for DLC content I think, if I really like something I would probably pay for it... just as long as it's not like that namco thing were they hid Darth Vader and Yoda, and later wanted to charge for them. I have more issues with bug filled games, those just for the fact that they are buggy I will not buy, regardless of them fixing stuff with patches. It's just the principal of the whole thing that bothers me; I mean sure there's some mistakes that might get overlooked, but there's some nasty a$$ bugs that there's just no way the devs didn't know about them before releasing the games, and in that case they just simply don't deserve my money.

[JohnsShadow]

@angel: if you want to just suck up bandwidth
i would suggest a torrent downloader that constantly changes the port

i use deludge but not knowing your os i cant make a good sugestion

i would also sugest hopping onto wikipedia and looking for lists and just cheacking off down the list
i advise in buying a 1Tb hdd and filling it

best things to download
TV shows (whole seasons)
heroes, dead like me, lost, weeds, stargate, csi
band discography's
it all depends on what you like, but metal everybody downloads it lots of seeders
linux distrobutions
they are big fast and usefull (distrowatch) i advise ubuntu, saybayon fedora and make shure to grab a partitioning tool so you can keep xp but if your stuck with vista nuke that mother fucker
isohunt
piratebay
google everything you cant find from the first 2

i wish you luck in screwing over the corprate ceo's:D

[Trashcat]

So basically, you pirate everything? >> Don't try to lie, everyone pirates something...
As far I know its impossible to pirate DLC on 360 but if you know how to do it do tell:D
...and if you think it's such a waste buying a console, then why do you have a pc? with it's BSODs and constant upgrading to run the newest games *cough*Crysis*cough*... don't you think you're wasting more money than you're bitching about?
Its a waste to have consoles in the first place. I mean who doesn't need a PC these days? Thats at least 300$ for a really shitty PC, why not just drop another 300$ and have a really good machine for work that can play some decent games too? To bad many developers don't feel the same way about PC so I had to buy a PS2 and now a 360 and a Wii to play all the games I want that are not on PC. And did you actually ***** about BSODs there? Are you telling me a console never froze or crashed on you? I guess it doesn't count because the screen doesn't actually turn blue eh.
...and don't try to say you bought a stock computer with all the latest stuff, because I'll know you're lying... the gaming computers run from anywhere between 2k and 10k, unless you buy them used i suppose
I build my PCs myself of course except for notebooks and I did drop over 3k on my main PC in the last 2 years and the next upgrade is already close probably as soon as Intel releases a new revision of i7 (can't believe first revision has TLB bug:eek:) and next generation of video cards comes out.

[Nemo17]

When they start releasing some decent content on XBOX Live, then I may start buying points again.

[Blazeking]

I am a PC gamer you see and I am not a sucker so why the hell would I start paying for things that I was getting for free on PC all these years just because I bought me a 360, so no I never spent a single cent on DLC but I do grab everything that is free. If console people grew a pair and said no to paid DLC from the start of this generation everything would have been free on consoles too but now its too late you are not getting something for free that you already agreed to pay for. When you turn your cash into Microsoft points or sony points or Nintendo points next time don't forget to say baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah

I see, your stuck in the PC mode. Face it, I like it this way.
You really liked those days when if you bought the disc there was no updates or dlc? Even if it was bug ridden and the game was unexpectedly short?
I would not pay for DLC that is on the disc (Soul Calibur) as opposed to DLC that's extending gamplay.

But I would never pay for DLC with points instead of just plain currency. Points alter the value of the currency and point values can be altered at any time.