Before we get into the real gist of why MS Points are a very good thing, let’s focus on the things that drive you nuts about them.

1) Leftover MS Points.
We all hate it when we load up our account with a fresh batch of MS Points and find that, after our purchase, we have 100ms points left over. It’s just sitting there, staring at us, and there’s nothing to buy with it. But you know what? You’re going to use it eventually, so what’s the harm in letting it sit there? If you’re concerned that you can’t make interest on that $2 you have sitting in cyber space then your financial plan should have you gaming for free by now.

2) Confusing Costs.
When something costs 2400 ms points, just how much money is that? We’ve all been left with that conundrum. Fortunately, a quick google search or 5 seconds of math in your head can fix it. 1600ms points is $20, so 2400 is $30. That wasn’t so hard.

Now that we’ve looked at the very minor gripes that people have with MS Points, let’s look at what we get in return for these minor inconveniences. We’ll start with the big one.

1) Sales Sales Sales!
What’s one thing you’ve always noticed with MS Point cards when compared to PSN point cards? The MS point cards are always on sale! Amazon constantly sells 4000 microsoft points (that’s $50 worth of points) for $40 and 1600 point cards ($20 worth of points) for $15. Target even offers crazy promotions like B1G1 on point cards occasionally. They have the freedom to do this because of the virtual MS points currency. Retailers are not going to sell $50 for $40. But they are willing to sell $50 worth of points for $40. Remember that 100ms points that was burning a hole in your virtual pocket? That $2 sitting there (that you’re going to spend eventually anyways) is small beans compared to the $50 we’ve all probably saved by buying our points cards on sale.

2) Rewards.
Remember a few years back when Microsoft ran those contests where you could earn MS Points by earning a certain amount of achievement posts in an allotted window? How about now, when you can sign up for the free XBL Rewards program and get MS Points based on your activity? There are also several other instances where retailers or Microsoft have thrown points cards into bundles or thrown them around as promotional items. This is easy to do with a virtual currency. You’re not going to see MS ever pay you $5 cash for getting 100 achievement points in a day.

3) Tax.
Get ready to pay it. Get ready to pay it hard.

This is a classic case of cutting off the nose to spite the face. Making sure we don’t have a few cents left over in our accounts is not worth missing out on 30x that amount of money being made back in savings. As it is, the simple existence of MS points is basically like getting 20% off of everything on the XBL Marketplace since it’s so easy to load up on MS Points at a discount. When was the last time you saw someone selling cash for 20% off?