Xbox Game Pass is increasing in price across all tiers and platforms, with day one AAA games becoming increasingly expensive. Additionally, Xbox Game Pass will soon be temporarily unavailable on consoles and will be relaunched in late September via a new Xbox Game Pass “Standard Edition.” Existing subscribers will not be affected.
Here are all the major changes. The price of Xbox Game Pass Ultimate has increased to $19.99/£14/99 per month (from $16.99/£12.99), and the price of PC Game Pass has increased to $11.99/£9.99 per month (from $9.99/£7.99). The annual subscription fee for Xbox Game Pass Core has also increased, rising to $74.99/£55.99.
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As for the new Game Pass tier coming to consoles in September, it will cost $14.99. Perhaps more importantly, however, it will not receive day-one games as part of a sub-tier. It will include Xbox Live Gold (which provides access to online services), but not Xbox Cloud Gaming. If you’re on console and still want day-one games, you’ll have to upgrade to the Game Pass Ultimate tier.
It’s also interesting to note that despite the new price of PC Game Pass being $8 less than the new price of Xbox Game Pass Ultimate, it will still retain access to day-one release games. The reasons for this are uncertain, but a big factor could be competition on the platform! PC has Steam, a robust service that the vast majority of gamers are happy to stick with. So keeping day-one release perks at a lower price could be an effort to keep Microsoft attractive in the eyes of this often elusive consumer group.
The news came suddenly, as Microsoft had just made a big acquisition of Activision Blizzard, and several studios such as Tango Game Works were closed one after another.
Do these price increases affect you? How will you respond – pay more or opt out? Let us know below!