MS Points Phase Out Rumor

Microsoft Points have been a bane of Xbox Live users since their very inception, preventing gamers from purchasing items without having any excess currency in their account. It's been rumored several times already that MS Points might be phased out by Microsoft, and now that rumor has gained a little more traction.

Up until recently, many of Microsoft's online stores have required that users first purchase Microsoft Points before then purchasing their desired item. This wasn't just on Xbox Live, though, but also on Windows-based phones where users simply wanted to pick up music or movies.

However, Windows 8 phones have just recently begun adopting the ability to purchase items with a credit card and no longer requiring the pre-purchase of MS Points. The ability to purchase points is still an option, but it appears (at least on Windows 8 phones) that Microsoft is favoring an outright credit card purchase.

In fact, the company is encouraging mobile users to make credit card rather than MS Point purchases by making the credit card the default payment method. Points are still an option, but when you can use your credit card who wants to buy something and then buy the real thing they want?

While this doesn't spell outright doom for MS Points, it does suggest where the company might be headed in the future. At this point (no pun intended) gamers have become so steeped in the MS Point economy that it would be fairly difficult to drop them whole cloth without some backlash. But if Microsoft were to make credit card purchases a standard part of the Xbox 720's DNA they can ensure that downloadable marketplace visits will be less of a hassle.

It's important to note that at this point it's only Windows 8 phones and their subsequent marketplaces that allow purchases sans MS Points, but this does indicate we could be seeing an across the board phase-out some time in the future.

Do you think that we will see the death of MS Points during the last months of this console generation, or as part of the next? Will anybody miss Microsoft Points?

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Source: The Verge