MS to Nintendo: We can gift points too! (You can gift MSPoints now) Update: You can't

FyreWulff

It's in beta, which means you must know the receiver's Windows live ID.

https://points.microsoft.com/InstantBuy/?source=18C18ED9-10F1-45C5-B4DB-9C99E8A25474

Major Nelson wrote:

If you are looking for a last minute gift idea, why not give the gift of Points? The Microsoft Points team made the little gadget below to do just that. Assuming your browser settings are properly configured, you should see a little Xbox LIVE points card logo below that when you click on it will pop open the Microsoft Points site to sign in with your Windows LIVE ID. Once you do that, it will return you to this page where you will see your current points balance. You can then click on it to to purchase additional points OR (and this is new) you can gift points to someone else. (Currently, this is available for US accounts only.) You do need to know the persons Windows LIVE ID for the gifting. I have asked the team to add the ability to gift points based on Gamertag, and they said they'll work on that for the future, but for now…you'll need to know the recipients Windows LIVE ID. Anyway, I thought you guys may want to try if you have someone on your list you want to send some Points to this Holiday season.

http://www.majornelson.com/archive/2007/12/23/give-the-gift-of-points.aspx

Evander

It makes sense, and let's be perfectly honest; it isn't like Nintendo is the first person to ever do this sort of thing.

Still, I like the whole gifting a game thing better than just points.

urahonky

The one thing I HATE about the MS points thing... Is that it isn't 1:1 when it comes to ratio. With Nintendo you know 1000 points = $10. As soon as I go to buy points for an XBLA game, I'm like: "Uhhh... How much is 850 points again? $12?" Why didn't they just simplify it? Or is it some sort of marketing thing? 850 points sounds better than $12.

They should really gift the games, instead of points... But whatever. :P It's like giving someone a gift card... At least they got something.

Lindsay Lohan

urahonky wrote: »

They should really gift the games, instead of points... But whatever. :P It's like giving someone a gift card... At least they got something.

That's how I feel too - there are people that I just don't feel right giving gift cards to - they are simply too impersonal. However, a specific game download I would consider. Not an issue for me yet, however, since the vast majority of the folks I know outside the web are still playing PS2/Original XBOX anyways!

Bionic Monkey

urahonky wrote: »

The one thing I HATE about the MS points thing... Is that it isn't 1:1 when it comes to ratio. With Nintendo you know 1000 points = $10. As soon as I go to buy points for an XBLA game, I'm like: "Uhhh... How much is 850 points again? $12?" Why didn't they just simplify it? Or is it some sort of marketing thing? 850 points sounds better than $12.

Common concensus is that it's a marketing gimick, thought that's probably not the right word. Basically, the thought goes, if you don't know exactly how much you're spending (IE: you know you're spending 850 points, but you don't think of that as $12) you're more likely to spend than not.

I guess it works for most people, though for me, it makes me much less likely to buy any points in the first place.

PikaPuff

Same reason why things cost $9.99 instead of $10.

FaceballMcDougal

Bionic Monkey wrote: »

urahonky wrote: »

The one thing I HATE about the MS points thing... Is that it isn't 1:1 when it comes to ratio. With Nintendo you know 1000 points = $10. As soon as I go to buy points for an XBLA game, I'm like: "Uhhh... How much is 850 points again? $12?" Why didn't they just simplify it? Or is it some sort of marketing thing? 850 points sounds better than $12.

Common concensus is that it's a marketing gimick, thought that's probably not the right word. Basically, the thought goes, if you don't know exactly how much you're spending (IE: you know you're spending 850 points, but you don't think of that as $12) you're more likely to spend than not.

I guess it works for most people, though for me, it makes me much less likely to buy any points in the first place.

It's actually so they can charge the same amount of points for stuff in all countries.

MS is thinking about it's ERP software, scaling/conversion factors, and conversion rates etc before considering how nice it would be if everything rounded to dollars.

Evangir

Bionic Monkey wrote: »

urahonky wrote: »

The one thing I HATE about the MS points thing... Is that it isn't 1:1 when it comes to ratio. With Nintendo you know 1000 points = $10. As soon as I go to buy points for an XBLA game, I'm like: "Uhhh... How much is 850 points again? $12?" Why didn't they just simplify it? Or is it some sort of marketing thing? 850 points sounds better than $12.

Common concensus is that it's a marketing gimick, thought that's probably not the right word. Basically, the thought goes, if you don't know exactly how much you're spending (IE: you know you're spending 850 points, but you don't think of that as $12) you're more likely to spend than not.

I guess it works for most people, though for me, it makes me much less likely to buy any points in the first place.

Same, although maybe for a slightly different reason. Not being able to choose exactly how many points I want to buy is total bullshit. I've put off buying Live Arcade games for months because I couldn't justify buying an extra 390 points because the denominations are terrible.

syndalis

They really aren't that bad.

you can buy the points in 1600 point chunks, which equals 20 bucks.

Every single game costs 400, 800, or 1200 points to buy... or 5, 10, or 15 bucks.

It would be nice if you could do a single credit card transaction per item purchased, but I guess they realized that if you hit the credit card less, they can see more profit (a 5 dollar credit card purchase generally means the merchant is raped out of 20% + of the money)

FyreWulff

Just thought I'd update this thread with the fact that you can't do this anymore.

from the site:

The Instant Buy and Gift aspect is currently disabled. Microsoft® is reviewing the feature and will determine whether to re-introduce it in the future.