See also: No back-compat on Xbone

They look at the numbers of initial sales, compare that to those who use the online features, then how many stick around after a few months, and they don't see opportunity for keeping players engaged and interested. They see a money-pit. They see competition for players' attention next to the sequel.

They don't see the value in making the current game a better experience since they want to wow them with how much better the next version appears and get them to plop down another $60 + LE + a few months of Live + DLC.

I remember Bungie mentioning that they really struggled to convince the accountants the value of some of the things they were pursuing. That if it didn't show up on the bottom-line in a traceable way it was difficult to get the funding. Bungie just had to put their foot down and say 'this is the right thing to do' to get it done.

They don't see any 'good will' value since they think they already have it from X million sales and decent reviews and it's all done and dusted. Anyone they might annoy is just a 'vocal minority' who aren't relevant to the big picture.

It's product-based. So long as the product sells well, they see no value in continued development of the 'bonus' service that comes along with it. Sure MS has XBL Gold so you might think that would sway them, but the days when Halo was the Killer App for XBL are gone and so long as you're playing something on XBL they still get your money (CoD, BF, whatevs) so they don't care any more.

If you want this situation to change, from MS, the business model needs to shift dramatically. So the service is the goal and the products are just major-release promotion drives. But you guys think alternative monetization strategies are the devil-spawn so you won't even discuss that...

/late-night tired-rc bitchin' again