Microsoft reinventing currency for Xbox and more
The lucky few who already have their Xbox 360s (I'm still waiting on mine) and those who have been following every detail of the next-gen console are already aware of this, but I'm guessing that the majority of you aren't. Microsoft has come up with a way to reinvent cash for the purposes of online transactions - Microsoft Points.
Microsoft Points, in a nutshell, are pre-paid currency units equivalent to small cash units. You use these points to purchase downloads from the new online Xbox Live Marketplace. You can download things like themes, photos, and arcade games like Bejeweled and Joust. GameSpot has a great list of the online content available buried in their PRG3 content.
Why bother reinventing money? After all, the original version of Xbox Live offered premium content for small cash sums. There are two reasons - first, the extremely granular nature of Microsoft Points means that you can now purchase things for extremely small amounts - $0.10 at a time or similar. This is significant b/c now you can more granularly purchase what you want to buy (say a single map rather than an entire set) and you can purchase items for less than the minimum required credit card purchase amount. Imagine charging a $0.30 purchase on your AMEX - the fees would be prohibitive to the merchants. This gets around the minimums.You can purchase 2100 points in the UK for 1bout 18 pounds. You can purchase 1600 points in the US for about $20.00 but I can't find a link that confirms this. The other reason Microsoft decided to reinvent the currency is to give people who typically don't have credit cards the ability to purchase items from the marketplace. This of this as a gift card for children. Also, you no longer have to put your credit card online (for people who are nervous about that sort of thing).
This BusinessWeek article talks mostly about mobile gaming and how Microsoft will be aggregating great games for mobile devices, but the bottom of the article talks about these "micro-payments" and how you might in the future be able to use these Microsoft Points in MSN Messenger and MSN Mail. Maybe you'll be able to download the animated avatars into MSN Messenger and perhaps even share it between MSN and your Xbox Gamer Card. The interviewee, Chris Early - manager for the Microsoft Casual Games Group, also states that you might soon be able to win points for playing games, suggesting that perhaps online game achievements might eventually be turned into Xbox Marketplace currency.
-- Matt Ranlett