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.
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