Microsoft Quietly Pulls Xbox Two-Year Contract Plans

Microsoft Corp. has quietly stopped selling its last-generation videogame machines at a lower price with a monthly service contract, a model borrowed from the cellphone industry. The Redmond, Wash., company nearly two years ago started giving people the option of a paying $99 upfront for a Xbox 360 console and a related motion sensor—about $200 less than the typical cost at the time—if they agreed to pay $14.99 a month over two years for Xbox's online service. Microsoft drew a lot of attention when it introduced the program, which emulates the subsidized prices U.S. wireless carriers offer on pricey smartphones for buyers who agree to a service contract. The subsidy model was not applied to Microsoft's new Xbox One, which was introduced in November. Bloomberg Microsoft's experience points to the difficulties of changing people's hardware-buying habits.



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