Starting in June, anyone with an Xbox will have access to popular online entertainment applications through their console without needing to purchase an Xbox Live Gold Membership.
Now, all Xbox Live users can access sites like Hulu Plus and Netflix without the additional expense of a Gold Membership, about $60 a year.
Dennis Frohlich, professor of UF’s video games class, said other consoles offer these applications without additional fees. Frohlich said consumers will continue to purchase the Gold Memberships because of the multiplayer feature.
“There are some Xbox games that can only be played with a multiplayer setting, so this feature is important to this group of consumers,” he said.
Brian Stark, a 21-year-old UF telecommunication senior, said once these changes come into effect, he will cancel his Gold Membership.
“The best part of the new consoles was that you could access the Internet on them, and it was annoying that you had to pay an extra yearly cost,” he said.
[A version of this story ran on page 5 on 5/22/2014 under the headline "Xbox Gold no longer needed for Netflix"]
