I took delivery today of an XBox Live 3 month subscription card, and I'm pleased to note the improved packaging employed.

Having owned an XBox since only August, I first bought membership to Microsoft's online gaming service in September after my 1 month trial expired. I don't use the option to subscribe through the XBox as I don't want to have automatic renewal enabled and prices are cheaper elsewhere. So it was via Amazon that I placed my order and a few days later the card arrived.

I think it was fair to say that I was mildly angry when I discovered that the small, credit-card sized, piece of card was delivered within a standard game box. For those that aren't familiar, this is effectively a plastic green DVD case. That's right - plastic. The only thing of value in this pack was the long number which authorised my subscription and to get it I also had to have the cardboard 'credit-card', a plastic game case and some inserts as well. There's no way anyone can justify that level of packaging.

So my three-month subscription expired and about a week ago I bought another card expecting the same. I wondered what I would eventually do with the excess cases that I have no requirement for - particularly green ones.

I had no need to be concerned though as it seems improvements have been made. All of the packaging is now cardboard apart from an outer cellophane wrapper. The height and width are still the same size, but the thickness has been halved. Fortunately it seems that most of this packaging can end up in our recycling. Hoorah!

Further improvements can still be made however. The size of the packaging could be reduced further - perhaps to something resembling a digipak CD case. This would maintain visibility on shelving in shops. Preferably I think the cards containing the number could be sold on their own like the old topup cards for pay as you go mobile phones.

What I don't understand though, is why is there not a way of ordering the code online and having it delivered via email? A purely digital solution would be the best option here. Yes I know there is the subscription option via the XBox itself, but I've explained my reasoning for not using it. What's needed is a digital distribution option available to all retailers. No postage, no packaging, instant delivery and competition on the price. Perfect.

There are retailers who do offer such a service but presumably they buy-in the usual packaged product and send the code manually after the order is placed. This doesn't solve the packaging issue, rather it just moves it from one place to another. Also, no big retailers are offering this and if I'm handing over my credit-card number on the internet, I want to be sure I can trust the retailer.