Microsoft: Points system not intended to mislead people

Xbox group product manager Aaron Greenberg has said that Microsoft doesn't want to mislead people with its MS Points virtual currency and that it is looking to display real currency alongside points following the success of doing so for Games On Demand.

"We never intended to mislead people," Greenberg told G4. "We want to be transparent about it, and so it is something that we're looking at.

“How can we be more transparent and let people see it in actual dollars? You've got to think that we have one service that we're offering around the world. The nice thing about Points is that no matter if you're on the JPY or the EUR or the USD – something that's 200 Points is 200 Points everywhere around the world.

"There's more technical complexities to being able to put local prices in. You have to do that for every product in every country and you then have to deal with currency fluctuations. So there's some challenges to that, but we absolutely did it with the Games On Demand, response has been good and absolutely it's something we're looking at doing."

Greenberg added that Microsoft was also looking into another fix that users have been calling for - the ability to have more than 100 people on a friends list.

"I've been answering this question for so long," he said. "It's something that the team's looking at. It's more complicated than you would think.

"Exactly when that happens I can't say because there's some technical requirements tied to it. But I can tell you that, just like consumers, I share the same frustration and I, too, want more than 100 friends, and so know that we all want that and that we are working on getting that fixed."