Microsoft has hit Xbox Games Pass users with price rises of up to 50% a month – and the response has not been enthusiastic. Microsoft, a company funnelling as much money as it can into its Co-Pilot AI scheme, continues to ensure a bit of a bumpy time when it comes to its Xbox business. ... Xbox has a pricing problem – and 50% price hikes aren’t helping
Microsoft has hit Xbox Games Pass users with price rises of up to 50% a month – and the response has not been enthusiastic.
Microsoft, a company funnelling as much money as it can into its Co-Pilot AI scheme, continues to ensure a bit of a bumpy time when it comes to its Xbox business. The console trails Sony’s PlayStation 5 in terms of sales, and also, the cost of making the machines has led to a couple of hardware price rises this year as well.
Now, Microsoft – in the US at the moment, but it’s just a matter of time before the joy spreads elsewhere – is hiking up the price of its Game Pass subscription service, with a leap of 50% – 50%! – for its Ultimate tier. The monthly price has gone from $19.99 to $29.99, offset to a small degree by the addition of Ubisoft games to the service. But even so.
The cheapest tier, which has a significantly reduced collection of games, is $9.99 a month.
In a statement on its website, Microsoft has introduced the changes to its Game Pass tiers, arguing “It’s all a part of our commitment to meet players where they are, so you can choose what works best for you, no matter how or where you love to play.”
Specific to the 50% hike, it added that “with the latest upgrades, Ultimate is now priced at $29.99/month, reflecting the expanded catalog, new partner benefits, and upgraded cloud gaming experience.”
But still: you can only play one game at a time, can’t you? And for $360 a month, are you now better off just buying three or four games over the course of the year instead?
Certainly the response to Microsoft’s announcement has been, er, ‘unhappy’. You don’t have to go too far online to see discontent over the changes, and a raft of people saying they’re going to cancel their accounts. Whether they actually do so remains to be seen, but Microsoft is certainly not having a stellar year where the Xbox is concerned.
You can read the collection of Orwellian Newspeak to justify all of the changes, here.
