Microsoft Points - Criticism

Criticism

The Microsoft Points system has been criticized for being deceptive in terms of actual real-world cost, as well as for users often having to purchase more points at once than are immediately needed. In his review of the Zune, news editor for Windows IT Pro Magazine Paul Thurrott mentions:

"Microsoft is obscuring the true cost of this content. A song on Zune typically costs 79 Microsoft Points, which, yes, is about 99 cents. But it seems to be less because it's just 79 Points."

The Wall Street Journal technology reporter Walter Mossberg notes:

"To buy even a single 99-cent song from the Zune store, you have to purchase blocks of 'points' from Microsoft, in increments of at least $5. You can’t just click and have the 99 cents deducted from a credit card, as you can with iTunes. So, even if you are buying only one song, you have to allow Microsoft to hold on to at least $4.01 of your money until you buy another."

Read more about this topic:  Microsoft Points

Famous quotes containing the word criticism:

    Parents sometimes feel that if they don’t criticize their child, their child will never learn. Criticism doesn’t make people want to change; it makes them defensive.
    Laurence Steinberg (20th century)

    Like speaks to like only; labor to labor, philosophy to philosophy, criticism to criticism, poetry to poetry. Literature speaks how much still to the past, how little to the future, how much to the East, how little to the West.
    Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)

    In criticism I will be bold, and as sternly, absolutely just with friend and foe. From this purpose nothing shall turn me.
    Edgar Allan Poe (1809–1845)