We’ve had quite a few takes here at Windows Central over what I can only describe as the Grav Hammer of all announcements. The 50% price hike to Xbox Game Pass Ultimate caught us all off guard, no matter your gaming pedigree.
Each of us has had our own take, with Jez questioning Microsoft’s business directions. Brendan focusing on PC Game Pass becoming the best tier, and Jen questioning the very relevance of Game Pass to her wallet.
I’m more of a raw emotion guy, or at least I was when I first started writing this yesterday. I told myself I needed to wait another day to truly process everything and see it from a clearer, potentially more positive view. Then I asked myself, why?
Earlier this spring, I penned that Xbox was just a Game Pass machine, and now, with the latest changes, I can’t even say that. In fact, the Xbox Series family is quite possibly the worst place to use Game Pass.
Think about that for a second. The Xbox Series X and S are the worst places to play Xbox Game Pass.
I feel like I’ve been doing too much Xbox security lately. Coming to their defense, often arguing that Game Pass is profitable when many say it’s not. Fighting over the fact that ownership isn’t everything, and that I wasn’t going to replay 95% of the games I played on Game Pass anyway. In fact, I wouldn’t play some of them if it weren’t for Game Pass.
I think I’m done after this one. I don’t know what they’re doing. Whether the price increase is to cover Call of Duty (as CoD reportedly lost $300 million in sales), the addition of Fortnite Crew, Ubisoft+, or the promised 75 games coming day one, I just don’t care anymore.
Microsoft, it’s time to go back to the roots of what made Game Pass great.
Everything, Everywhere, All at Once
A 50% price hike for a service with little to show for it, other than forcing several services into a single tier, is definitely a pill to swallow. Something that they may have seen as some sort of miracle cure-all, instead, is a poison to what I can only imagine amounts to the loss of thousands, if not millions, of subscribers.
What they’ve done by shoving every service into the top tier is to alienate everyone who wants something different from the service.
Are there players who want Fortnite Crew and Ubisoft+ as part of Game Pass Ultimate for $30? I’m sure the answer is yes, but to what degree? I’d argue the latter, potentially, given that Ubisoft has games you can play, but a free-to-play addon?
Maybe someone upstairs was thinking, “Wow, what a great deal for people, for only ten more dollars, they can get twenty dollars a service.” But what money are we saving exactly here? There is nobody sane who is playing these promised 75-day-one games and is also subscribing to Fortnite Crew to make regular use of it.
That is, unless you’re an absolute hardcore gamer whose job in life is to literally sit in front of a video game console. There is no way you’re utilizing all of those services. Which is why not offering more than one tier with day-one games, or some sort of add-on service for Game Pass, is even more odd.
In the end, who does this rob but the people who loved Game Pass for what it was? A promise to play great games and have access to day-one releases for a lower cost of entry than it would be to buy them. This change is taking away, in many respects, something that improved the livelihoods of gamers around the world.
I know, I know, they’re not technically taking away the service from people, but by raising the price by fifty percent, they’ve effectively priced much of the market out. Heck, in Brazil it’s gone up 100%!
They’ve taken the service away from people who could afford it, people who loved this service, people who looked forward to coming home and sitting down on their couch or in their office, logging onto their console, and just playing some damn games.
Game Pass provided a cheaper alternative for people around the world to get into a hobby they loved so much, and now it’s not cheaper at all. I know the PC version is now the superior one, but we’re talking about Xbox Game Pass here. First and foremost, where the service has its roots, and that’s on console.
And if you want your day-one games, if you wish to have your massive library of titles to play at the best streaming possible, fourteen months ago, you could get that all for just seventeen dollars. And now, they’ve decided, even though it’s been profitable, that they are going to add twenty dollars of services that nobody asked for, and charge another ten dollars.
To add insult to injury, only hours before the price hike, it was being reported that Sarah Bond was telling journalists that Game Pass was profitable, having generated $5 billion. This has only given fuel to the naysayers who said it wasn’t.
In my eyes, the change comes from greed, not necessity. If it was needed, why did they add $20 worth of services in Fortnite Crew and Ubisoft+, all while promising more day one titles and higher streaming quality for only $10 more? That would cost more than the additional price increase, no? If you’re a naysayer, please answer that one.
Back to my actual argument, who exactly is this tier for? Why can’t we separate the Fortnite Crew, Call of Duty, and Ubisoft+ offerings?
To top it off, they started their reveal video with, “We heard your feedback.” Whose damn feedback did you hear? Show us this feedback, show us the data you’re talking about, which misaligned your entire business model in such a catastrophic way.
“We heard your feedback.” Whose damn feedback did you hear?
I promise you, they have nothing of the sort. Nowhere was there a large faction of gamers, whether a minority or majority, who were begging to pay $30 for these features.
I’d much rather have different-tier addons or different tiers entirely. Hell, I’d even ask them to remove Call of Duty, Fortnite Crew, and Ubisoft+ if it meant keeping the price somewhere in the ballpark of $20. The way it’s currently measured, we’re forced to pay $30 for everything, regardless of what we actually want from the service.
Please, remove these features if it means the loss of Day One games at an affordable price. Remove Call of Duty and solve that $300 million hole you’ve reportedly suffered, I don’t care. I’m sure others would rather have an affordable service over Call of Duty as well. I’m not the only one.
Microsoft, for the past decade, has been the definitive picture of two steps forward, three rakes to the face. Yes, I know that’s technically impossible, but Microsoft has somehow managed to do it. Maybe AI is behind the decision-making?
Profits before anything else
The push behind all the metrics — AI and its profits. As Jez Corden wrote, AI has been a key focus for Microsoft over the last couple of years. It’s likely caused the downfall of developers in an attempt to cover the costs of their $80 billion investment.
The gaming partition has become another cog in the Microsoft machine. As Xbox is pushed to become as marginally profitable as Office, Copilot, Teams, and other Microsoft products, customers have been fighting the changes in force.
I have never seen another company in the industry cause so many face-palming moments in my life over the last couple of years, and I’m someone who remembers all the years of Ubisoft dance-offs at E3.
In Satya Nadella’s best attempts at an AI-infused Spaceballs sequel, a search for more digital money, he has turned the Xbox fanbase against them. Seriously, do you know how hard it is to get just about everyone at Windows Central and also several Xbox-oriented content creators to unanimously agree that you’ve done a bad thing?
It’s possible that they could somehow add value to the service, making this move seem plausible in 2026 and beyond. But that’s just it; they’ve yet again done something that leaves the rest of us scratching our heads, far before the move makes sense.
Even if they somehow add bigger third-party games to the service in the coming years, do you think this will be the last price increase? Do you really think the company that’s raised the price three times in two years is done?
One take is that they’re pushing a higher price to drop subscribers in order to cut the service. If that were the case, they wouldn’t be pouring resources into creating new partnerships with all these companies. They believe this will work, and for once, I really hope they fail.
That would make even more sense given the reported loss on sales for Call of Duty, but again, I’d rather the game just be removed if it means raising the price by $120 a year when Call of Duty only costs $70.
An end to a Game Pass era
I know I’m beating a dead horse here, but I really want to know how that meeting went. Who was in the room nodding their heads, going “yes, this is a great idea, everyone, we should really do this.”?
And if they accounted for this backlash, and they knew that this whole thing would blow up like this, what’s the endgame? Do they genuinely believe enough die-hards will swallow the $30/month pill, shrug off the axed DLC discounts, and stick around for the “upgraded” perks they never clamored for?
Microsoft, a quick reality check: Next time, try articulating your grand designs before you drop them on us like a poorly timed plot twist. As it stands, you’ve just delivered a barrage of bad news, chased by a flimsy “trust us, it’ll pay off” wink. All you’ve done is slap us a bunch and told us it’ll be worth it.
All you’ve done is slap us a bunch and told us it’ll be worth it.
I know this is anecdotal, but I’ve had multiple friends come to me now through Discord or text, all of whom have asked me what exactly is going on with Game Pass. I’ve been asked twice if the price increase is real, once if I think Microsoft will backtrack on this, and three times how to cancel the service.
RELATED: How to cancel Xbox Game Pass
In case you haven’t seen it, a monumental number of people have searched for how to cancel Xbox Game Pass on Google. Ironically, I’m willing to bet the most trending Bing search is also how to cancel Xbox Game Pass. That must be a fun one to show your bosses.
Xbox, wake up and fix this mess. Slash the bloat, restore the value, and give us back the Xbox Game Pass we fell in love with before the exodus turns into extinction. Or, you know, before it’s already game over.
