For years now, Microsoft’s Xbox Game Pass has set itself apart by offering subscribers launch-day access to new first-party titles in addition to a large legacy library of older games. That important “day one” perk is now set to go away for all but the highest tier of Game Pass’ console subscribers, even as Microsoft asks for more money for Game Pass across the board.
Let’s start with the price increases for existing Game Pass tiers, which are relatively straightforward:
- “Game Pass Ultimate” is going from $16.99 to $19.99 per month.
- “Game Pass for PC” is going from $9.99 to $11.99 per month.
- “Game Pass Core” (previously known as Xbox Live Gold) is going from $59.99 to $74.99 for annual subscriptions (and remains at $9.99 for monthly subscriptions).
Things get a bit more complicated for the $10.99/month “Xbox Game Pass for Console” tier. Microsoft announced that it will no longer accept new subscriptions for that tier after today, though current subscribers will be able to keep it (for now) if they auto-renew their subscriptions.
This shouldn’t come as a surprise. MS has been offering game pass at a good value for a while now to entice users and grow their platform. Now it’s time to start squeezing value. Standard enshitification cycle stuff here, and a good reason not to play their game.
Yeah, it was pretty obvious that this was going to happen sooner or later. It doesn’t meet the definition of “enshitification” though. The platform, Xbox Live, isn’t losing functionality it’s just getting more expensive. There’s also no obvious shift to favor business customers.
It’s a pretty standard price hike with a small side helping service tiers changing features.
I’m not HAPPY about it of course.
It absolutely is enshittification, they tiered the service taking away features from the lowest plan and hiked the prices.
“Enshittification” isn’t simply raising prices and moving features between service tiers.
The pass for pc version is pretty bad, the catalog is mediocre, the interface is awful, and downloads are insanely slow (especially compared to steam).
Yeah, the Xbox app sucks, it’s slow and get stuck all the time. They have been at this for 3x years now, developing Windows native app, why in the hell can’t their 1st party app just not be semi broken on their own platform.
I mean, if you play games often but not a day 1 person, it’s still a good value at $19.99.
I’m an old dude with managing a family and had fame pass casually while having maybe 1-2 hours a week to paly games. It never bothered me for what I was paying for to casually play a ton of good games. Buuuut with the raise in price I’m just going to cancel.
According to the article 19.99 gets you day 1 releases. If you don’t need it the new “standard” will get you all the non day 1 for 14.99
Same situation, I packed up my Xbox because we’re looking to move. Cancelled Game Pass Ultimate sub for now, but maybe I don’t end up resubscribing.
I mean, if you play games often but not a day 1 person, it’s still a good value at $19.99.
From how I understand it, the $19.99 is the highest tier and as such still includes day 1 games. It’s the others that lose it.
Is it? That’s $240, or 3 launch day AAA games a year, plus a slightly older sale game. Microsoft doesn’t publish that many games that people want day one, and you can build a big library of games of all scales relatively quickly if you’re willing to spend $240/year on games and are moderately patient with sales/used games. And many of the games people are enthusiastic to buy on launch aren’t from Microsoft and aren’t available until they’ve been available at reasonable discounts. I’m not sure how much you save with the annual discount, so maybe that’s a little better, but a lot of their library are games you could find used or on sale for $20-30 at some point (or cheaper).
I do personally actually prefer PS’s “we’re not including our games day one” approach because I think it allows them to properly invest in real single player experiences knowing that more people will actually buy them, but $240/year will buy you a lot of library.
I paid for it for a while some time ago, but stopped because I don’t play many recent games anymore. I can wait for the games to be very cheap and buy them on Steam or GOG, and also play more indie games than ever, and I also have retro gaming.
It was obvious from the start that they would start rising prices as soon as they got to a critical number of subscribers, it was too good to be true for a long time. I think the regular subscription was something like 5€ a month when I used it, now the price has doubled and it’s going to keep rising without a doubt.
I tend to pick up Gamepass for 1 month at a time when there is a game I want to play on there. Last time it was Hellblade 2, I grabbed it and played a couple sittings to finish it and then cancelled the sub immediately. I feel that is good value for money since I can check out a few other games in the 30 days.
I wouldn’t consider it worthwhile if I didn’t have an Xbox Series S though. If my main gaming device was a PC then I’d stick to being patient and waiting for sales. Series S + Nintendo Switch has been a solid combo for my budget gaming needs this gen.
I wouldn’t consider it worthwhile if I didn’t have an Xbox Series S though. If my main gaming device was a PC then I’d stick to being patient and waiting for sales.
Why?
I do the same thing you do, just on PC. What makes PC different, to you?
I need to figure out what games I still have on my Xbox from Game Pass, buy the ones I really like or wishlist them for a sale, and cancel it. I haven’t even played online with my friends in a couple years, so I don’t really even need the Core plan for now.
Yeah I wound up just buying the Gamepass games I played most on a good sale and canceling Gamepass. I’ve been happy with that.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
In its place, Microsoft will “in the coming months” roll out a new $14.99 “Xbox Game Pass Standard” tier.
Quick and dirty chart by me to display the new Xbox Game Pass structure (subject to correction).
But it’s the launch day access to Microsoft’s system-selling first-party titles that really sets the Ultimate tier apart now, and which will likely necessitate a costly upgrade for many Xbox Game Pass subscribers.
Since then, loyal Game Pass subscribers have been able to play dozens of brand-new first-party titles at launch, from major franchises like Halo, Forza, and Gears of War to indie darlings like Hi-Fi Rush, Sea of Thieves, and Ori and the Will of the Wisps and much more.
Including first-party titles with cheaper, console-focused Game Pass subscriptions probably seemed like a good idea when Microsoft was still trying to attract subscribers to the service.
“Let’s put it this way: If 7 million Xbox Game Pass subscribers were planning to buy ‘Call of Duty’ for $70 but now have no reason to (as it’s part of their subscription), that leaves almost half a billion dollars of revenue on the table,” MIDia analyst Rhys Elliott told The Daily Upside by way of illustrating the significant numbers involved.
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