Microsoft may not be selling many Xboxes these days, and as such, they want to wring the most money possible out of its Game Pass subscriptions. Now, we have some overhauls to that subscription service that add some new features, new tiers and a new way to pay more than 50% more than you were before.
There are now three tiers: Essential, Premium and Ultimate. Here’s what’s in each:
- Essential ($10 a month) – 50 games $25 earned rewards
- Premium ($15 a month) – 200 games, New Xbox published games within a year of launch, $50 earned rewards
- Ultimate ($30 a month) – 400 games, 75+ day one games a year, Ubisoft+ Classics, EA Play and Fortnite Crew included, $100 earned rewards
Now, each tier has online multiplayer, cloud gaming (though higher tiers get faster wait times) and PC Game Pass.
The obvious standout here is Ultimate, which is jumping a full 50% from the current price of $20 a month to $30 a month, which already underwent a price jump last year. This time, Microsoft is trying to justify it by adding more included games and day one releases (50% more than last year, they say). Then there’s Ubisoft+ Classics and Fortnite Crew, which would be pricey by themselves. Additionally, Ultimate is now the only tier you can get day one releases at all.
The question is whether players nod their heads and agree all this is worth a $10 price jump, $120 a year, for these new games and features they may or may not play or use. As you may expect, reaction to the hike is not exactly positive online, and it remains to be seen what ratio of cancellations there may be. If you are in the Xbox ecosystem at all, Game Pass, particularly Ultimate, has essentially felt mandatory if you wanted the most benefits like a big library and “free” day one releases, but there are limits.
There are few more things in the industry more controversial than Xbox Game Pass, which has been a transformative experiment from Microsoft, one way or the other. There has been pushback from ex-devs on developing for the service, there are questions about Game Pass subscriptions hitting a ceiling even as Microsoft continues to say it’s profitable, and there is the claim of it being “the best value in gaming.” Two years ago, that seemed like it wasn’t all that wild to say. Now, after two price hikes and with a cost now of $360 a year, that selling point may no longer be there.
Microsoft has been blazing forward with price hikes, most recently with enormous increases in the cost of all its Xbox hardware with its top-end Series X now costing a full $800, more than a PS5 Pro. Now, those increases have come to Game Pass, and players can decide if the upgrades are worth the significant extra cost, or if it’s time to let the service go.
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