It has recently been revealed that Microsoft is widening its offer with retailers to allow customers to buy an Xbox 360 with a two-year service contract. The contract consists of users paying a reduced upfront cost for the 360, $99 and they must subscribe to two years of Xbox live service for $14.99 a month. While many people may be against the subscription based pricing model, it is done all the time in the phone industry. Most people dont buy new iPhone until their contract is up. If people had to pay the upfront cost on their iPhone like they did with the PS3 at launch, than the iPhone might not be the runaway success it is today. I really think the subscription based pricing model could benefit Sony moving forward, in particular, with the launch of the PlayStation 4.

[Source: N4G: news feed ]