Microsoft is hiking the price of Xbox Game Pass Ultimate and launching a new “Standard” tier
Xbox Game Pass Standard won’t include day-one games.
I can't say I'm surprised to see Gamepass get a price hike; it always seemed like it was in the loss leader stage to try to grow market share.
I wonder what the reasoning was to institute the hike now, though, since I'm not sure how strong their market share actually is on it.
My theory is that either:
My understanding is they are still releasing new Series S models, which are basically just Gamepass machines; so I would expect they are not happy with their current market share (though corporations literally never are), which makes me think it's the former option, not the latter.
All that being said, I wonder how much the price can increase before the value proposition of Gamepass is moot. Right now 20 USD a month doesn't sound bad as long as you're playing at least one new game a month, but I wonder how much more room there is in the price before the number of games you would need to play becomes unreasonable.
Personally, I've never been a fan of the Gamepass model since I like owning my games physically (it's the main reason I prefer console to PC), so I don't have much of a horse in this race; but I will be interested to see what becomes of Gamepass in the long term.
I’ve only really used it to try out new games, it’s a great deal if you only use it for a month at a time!
Cant wait for gamepass to cost like $60 a month in a couple years only for people to continue to stay subscribed cause they were successfully trapped and dont want to lose access to the old games they like playing.
I just buy the ones I like, especially once they leave game pass and go on a huge sale
I think a lot of people will end up unsubscribing and then buying the games they miss.
I've successfully left Gamepass for over a year and came back recently, no problem. All my saves were still on their cloud from two years ago, and I had access to games I wouldn't have considered buying, like Lies of P.
I hope there's a deal exploit like buying 3 years of GP for $3-4/mo by using a VPN like I did about a year ago. If not, I won't be subscribing and will likely get rid of my series X. I've been very disappointed in it anyway. Oh well, still have the original and the 360....
It's the circle of enshittification
♪ It's the ciiircle of shiiiiiiiit ♪
A strange game. The only winning move is not to play.
Perfect timing, just when Xbox is lagging in sales. Typical shit Microsoft.
Surely this will turn things around for them 🙄
The new standard option also include online console multiplayer access, which is something that Xbox Game Pass for Console lacked previously.
The standard tier sounds decent, loss of release day games but I’m guessing they’re expecting CoD to push people to the higher tier.
Game Pass used to mean all first party games, day one, and now 2/3 tiers on console won't have that. It's a pretty shocking turnaround.
You’re right, it’s a pretty big downgrade and probably reason enough to cancel for a lot. Especially with CoD, they could save the subscription for a few months and then buy it and keep it.
Not surprising. Either this was their long game or MS is in crisis mode, because lately they haven't been doing so hot.
My wife called this right after the call of duty game pass leak happened
Do you still have to buy some tier of gamepass to be able to play multiplayer games that you own online?
🤖 I'm a bot that provides automatic summaries for articles: ::: spoiler Click here to see the summary Microsoft is planning to hike its Xbox Game Pass Ultimate pricing again in September, alongside launching a new “standard” subscription that doesn’t include day-one access to first-party Xbox games.
The Xbox maker has started emailing Xbox Game Pass Ultimate subscribers warning of a price increase to $19.99 a month that starts on September 12th, a $3 increase over the current $16.99 a month pricing.
PC Game Pass subscribers will also see a price hike in September, with the service moving from $9.99 to $11.99 per month and maintaining access to day-one titles.
The price increases will largely affect Ultimate subscribers who make up the vast majority of Game Pass subscribers and come just over a year after the last Game Pass price hikes raised rates by $1–$2 per month.
Alongside the Ultimate and PC Game Pass price hikes, Microsoft will also offer a new option of an Xbox Game Pass Standard subscription without day-one titles that will be priced at $14.99 per month for new users to the service.
I revealed in May that Microsoft was considering raising Xbox Game Pass Ultimate pricing again, amid a debate around adding Call of Duty to the service.
Saved 49% of original text. :::
I think Microsoft has been trying to build towards cloud computing of everything on user devices.
Games pass seems to have been them building towards a Google stadia type system. Getting a large user base of monthly subscribers used to Spotify like game experience, and then slowly running more and more off of the user device.
The contraction of studios, internal fighting, and this price hike makes me think they’re is some internal opposition to go all in on this, even as they go full speed ahead on the windows side of things.
I was waiting for CoD games to be in gamepass so I could play those 6-8h campaigns (not interested in mp), not worth even at 50%discount.
Now I guess if Xbox is going to release new high profile games on gamepass, its going to be always the premium sub.