When Microsoft first announced the Xbox Game Pass premium version, the community was buoyant about the affordable subscription, packed with AAA titles. For a reasonable monthly fee, you could access the game library and later even use the cloud gaming feature. Now, everything has changed: Microsoft has taken a complete turnaround with Game Pass—much to the annoyance of fans.
The voices on social media are clear: "Subscription canceled," "Rip-off!", "A bad joke" - this and more can be read from fans on Facebook, Twitter, and Reddit. All of these statements refer to the drastic price increases for Game Pass. The all-inclusive package, Game Pass Ultimate, now costs €26,99 - 50 percent more. Previously, fans had to pay around €18. The timing of the adjustments is particularly annoying for fans. Just in time for the release of Call of Duty: Black Ops 7, Microsoft is significantly increasing its prices. Even more annoying: the second tier of the new Game Pass - Premium, formerly Standard - brings new releases from Xbox Studios to the library "up to twelve months after release," although this does not apply to Call of Duty.
If Microsoft has its way, fans will have to pay around €320 annually to use Game Pass with access to AAA releases. This is too much for many gamers, so they canceled their subscriptions. Microsoft's server temporarily crashed. Yet, until now, the ongoing subscription seemed to be a trick to keep the old prices: automatic payment renewals have so far protected against price increases. Will this continue? It's unclear. Microsoft could adjust its prices at any time. Discounts? There are, for example, discounts on Sony's PlayStation Plus subscription, but not on Game Pass. While this could put the subscription on hold at any time, fans still have to pay the maximum amount.
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ASUS ROG Xbox Ally RC73YA Console | 7" FHD 120Hz IPS Touch...* | 599,00 EUR | ||
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ASUS ROG Ally X Console | 7 inch FHD+ 120Hz IPS display | AMD...* | 858,00 EUR |
It has been a long time coming that the Game Pass model might no longer be up to date in terms of pricing. Top-class titles ended up as drawcards in the subscription, which, with a monthly price of around 18 euros for the deluxe version, was quite fair. As has now come to light, Microsoft spent a lot of money on this. A media report mentions that Black Ops 6 allegedly led to a financial loss of over 300 million US dollars – due to lost sales, which were no longer necessary because fans could play the AAA shooter more cheaply via Game Pass. As Bloomberg reports, just over 80 percent of all Black Ops 6 sales came from PlayStation. With the price increase, Microsoft is now reacting precisely to this self-inflicted development: It wants to offset revenues from declining individual sales.
What's not working in Redmond's favor, however, is the changing market: handhelds are becoming increasingly important – even Xbox has recently joined the fray with an enormously expensive model. Conversely, the Xbox may have reached its end as a stationary console, as it can no longer compete with the competition. Sony traditionally performs better with its PlayStation series, and Nintendo is in a different league with the Switch and Switch 2 anyway. Microsoft is now combining an enormously expensive handheld with an enormously expensive monthly subscription. It remains unclear where it wants to position itself with this, given that there are plenty of competing handhelds, including the Steam Deck, a kind of "popular version" at a fair price. If gamers now once again adopt the view that buying games rather than subscriptions is more worthwhile, Microsoft will have thrown itself a serious spanner in the works. In a world that is becoming increasingly expensive, there's no good reason to stay loyal to the brand.
Especially since Game Pass has also suffered a drop in quality: While big names made it into the library this year, the growth in the number of titles was minimal. Oblivion Remastered was a highlight, but games like South of Midnight or Doom: The Dark Ages couldn't compete with it. The latter two titles were quickly erased from collective memory.
The current power console generation has seriously shaken the image of the Xbox brand – and Microsoft seems to have no answer. Reacting with a hefty price increase while fans are already debating the Xbox console's raison d'être is not particularly clever strategically. Raising the price so much that it triggers a wave of cancellations and public outrage is voiced is even less than not particularly clever. Added to this was the misguided marketing: Everything can be an Xbox – that was the latest message. Smartphone, TV, laptop, VR device – you can access the cloud everywhere. In their minds, however, fans like playing on the console because the competition is setting an example: Playing on the PS5 is fun, playing on the Nintendo Switch 2 as well. So why should we change this traditional model and pay a high price for it?
Now you: Did you subscribe to Game Pass and now cancel it? What do you think about the price increase?
Write it in the comments!
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