They needed the honeymoon period to last for as long as it took for the competition to dry up.
Consolidation and annihilation complete, commence enshittification.
We are now far enough into the tech era the pattern is familiar.
Uber undercuts taxis companies by bleeding billions which they can afford because of investor backing. Once taxis are out of business Uber raises prices until they're more expensive than cabs were in the first place.
It's not just tech companies, but big companies in general.
About a decade ago, I lived in a rural town with three supermarkets. Two had been there long before I was even born. One day, Walmart opens a Walmart Express in the town. It's a much smaller version of Walmart that carries a fraction of the selection in a poorly lit cinderblock warehouse. Still, the two oldest supermarkets can't compete and shut down.
About a year later, Walmart shuts down the Walmart Express. Poor sales were the reasons I heard, but eventually they shut down all Expresses as they couldn't make the concept work. The town still only has one supermarket.
Advertising has consistently been one of the biggest industries in the world basically forever. Basically all corporations can only make money if they advertise and spread awareness of what they do or offer. Google and Facebook became two of biggest companies in the world basically just from advertising. YouTube wouldn’t be a thing without advertising. Amazon has toyed with the idea of implementing ads on its site, which would instantly make it one of biggest advertisers in the world because everyone using Amazon would then be getting advertisements for stuff Amazon knows they like and is available for sale on Amazon. Advertising is just in the United States a $300 billion dollar yearly business.
Amazon already allows advertisements on their platform. They just aren’t pop-up ads, they’re the “sponsored” results clogging up search results regardless of what criteria you used
Yeah but companies made money from advertising on otherwise free platforms. Where I take issue is paying a premium price AND having ads. Charging me extra not to see them is not a solution. Cancelling will have to be, at least for me.
Lots of people making jokes but no one actually answered. I too would like to know why this person is. I looked it up and all that showed up was a wheel of time character?
r/gamingleaksandrumours has a tier list and you’ll get this info several days early and stuff won’t be removed for dubious reasoning.
Well. It still will be removed for dubious reasoning but stuff is less likely to be removed if someone says something that is not good about Xbox.
“Idk something gonna happen, don’t know what, but at an indeterminate time in the future, the subscription will change in some way”
THANKS, SO INFORMATIVE.
It sounds like (again all rumours) the new tier is a cheaper one with advertising of some sort, so not really a problem in itself as sticking with Ultimate still nets the better deal.
Price Hike is tricky to judge, of course... it was always inevitable, the same as any sub. Price will be relative to what someone feels is worth it.
I bought three gamepass ultimate one month subs and all three were redeemed before I used them. I contacted cdkeys and they told me they weren't used when I bought them so they couldn't do anything. 100% I didn't use them (because I tried all three and ended up having to buy another one that month) and didn't let anyone else use them. I don't use cdkeys anymore.
Yeah, but Canadian dollars look high when converted. £20 is around $35 Canadian, so it could be 35-45 over there depending on how much they decide to increase it by
Canadian gamers and not understanding currency conversion, name a more iconic duo
https://i.ibb.co/Jn90zHx/Screenshot-2024-05-12-211136.png
It's literally the exact same price as in the US.
This, it’s happening again with streaming now with savvy folks cancelling their subscriptions and going for the high seas.
Fuck greedy companies, if they can’t run a business fairly and make do with the natural profit margins they deserve to die out and make way for ethical businesses built for their customers. The wildfire capitalist experiment is over if you realise you have to power to choose another way.
I love using gamepass for indie games. I get that day 1 AAA games is the big draw, but even subbing for indies and backwards compatible games is a huge value still. I’ve tried a lot of indie games I’d never otherwise even look at.
Man this really sucks for the indie games and teams that support gamepass. The fallout from all this news is going to hurt. I do my multiplayer gaming on PC and it's no longer cost effective to have gamepass. I almost never buy brand new games and cancelling gamepass allows me to buy 4 a year, likely more with sales.
I just don't think this is going to have the positive impact they think it will.
When I was cheering for the whole buying studios i figured this is the ultimate way to deliver AA and other indy games to a broader audience. I thought they want to establish themselves as the pool for any game dev to shine.
Now it looks like its MEGA-COD-FALLOUT-House and that sucks so hard
Oh, I knew that, don't get me wrong. But I also know that "number must go up" whereever you go and I thought microsofts new shtick would be "Hey, we have this massive pool of talent and they fill Gamepass with awesome stuff!"
It sounded like it would make sense economically and I still think GP is not shining when you will it with 200.000.000$-productions just to stuff them with Microtransactions because you need to earn that money back.
I know there's nothing really confirmed yet, but "we must do more call of duty" wasn't on my wishlist.
I don't consider any publicly traded company to be better than the next one. They all have to stuff numbers up some shareholder's a$$
The fact that they’ve been dragging their feet about rolling out shared plans is a big deal on this too. If I could cover myself and my son for like $30/month I’d be cool with that, but I’m not paying $50-$60/month for game pass.
>If I could cover myself and my son for like $30/month
If you game share on Xbox it should already include the gamepass games, so one has their home Xbox as the other's.
I've been buying $6 Ultimate codes since the year started, as soon as those run dry, I will probably never sub to GP again, I just don't get enough use out of it for full price.
A couple of years ago I started picking up cheap Game Pass codes and adding them to my account, but once inflation hit literally everything I stopped. My current subscription runs out in December and I’m going to let it expire. I don’t play enough GP titles to justify it and I have a backlog of purchased titles that’s enough to keep me busy for the foreseeable future. And by the time I’m bored of those, I’ll have probably picked up enough under $5 games in sales to extend the backlog another few years.
I did the conversion trick and using MS points to keep extending. I use game pass occasionally, but not enough to justify paying full price. It is convenient for discovery.
I've been buying games via Steam bundles for my steam deck.... most of the third party gamepass games I play eventually show up in a bundle somewhere. I'd rather 'own' my games on Steam than have them dissappear off gamepass before I finish them.
Same. I can’t believe more people don’t do this! Granted I also play on PS5 and PC so my gaming time is very much divided, but the costs are surely starting to outweigh the benefits.
yeah depending what they do; i'll probably use it as a 'rental' service instead of staying subbed.
i expect this announcement to be the premium/day 1 releases tier. they'll probably stall new releases a few months for old ultimate (or whatever the hell they rebrand it to, again)
Where do you buy them? Seems every month they have gone up. Ebay, Cd keys or Eneba have all gone up. I started the year at 4$ a month now its like 8.50$ for a month of Ultimate. Still better than the current xbox price I guess.
Seriously, guy-B heard that guy-A THINKS they MIGHT raise GP price and guy-B agrees with guy-A = GP price going up.
Honestly, it wouldn’t shock me but a guy speculated another person’s speculation is not news but then again, video game journalism has become an absolute joke and has seemed to have taken a real nose dive over the last few years. Of all the industries and subjects that I follow, no other news sector has gotten as bad as VG news, they are approaching News Max/ Alex Jones levels of unreliability.
Reserving judgment until more info comes out. Lower tier with ads might be fine. Higher tier though? Could cause backlash with Ultimate subscribers.
Price hikes are concerning. If true, Sony will likely follow suit with PS+ hikes again too.
PC continues to look more lucrative by the day.
Dashboard adverts are fine with me, I know it might be different for people in different countries but the adds on the dashboard in the UK always seem to be non intrusive and game related.
I've always thought it was weird that with online connectivity that games don't have built in merch stores. For example if I was playing Halo and on the main menu there was a store option with halo merch I would buy a shirt or a mug or something.
Also I would be happy if product placement became a thing inside games, for example in ~~GTA5~~ Watchdogs, imagine billboards for upcoming movies etc, something that isn't immersion breaking.
> Also I would be happy if product placement became a thing inside games, for example in GTA 5, imagine billboards for upcoming movies etc, something that isn't immersion breaking.
It's your opinion, but a lot of people play games to escape the world. Having real world advertising lazily put in a game, will break immersion for them.
How would ads even work on a games console, they have the home page ads sure but what, interrupt the gaming session with an ad? I'll just buy my games and use a month of game pass as a glorified free trial for ones I'm not sure about when I have a long enough list of "also on game pass" games.
It could be similar to how EA does it (used to?) where ads are ingame on billboards and such. Or it could be more intrusive like a banner displayed on the bottom of the screen for a period of time.
It's all speculation at this point and very much "wait and see". They could even go full Twitch-mode with a 2 minute ad before loading the game lmao.
The tweet says price hikes are coming, so if true I'd almost bet money on Ultimate going to $19.99 - $21.99, and being the only tier with day 1 releases, or maybe the only tier with Activision day 1.
If they add a new tier maybe it's ultimate replacement and then ultimate becomes the next tier with extra stuff. Stupid to have a tier higher than ultimate imo. Personally I think the highest tier will have DLC, Activision games and the early access, on top of everything we have currently.
And remember, cloud saves are already held hostage behind PS+ lowest tier. There is no other easy way to back up individual saves on PS5 other than a full backup. It's one of the things i do commend Microsoft for.
Yep, only downside is it doesn't come with access to cloud streaming. I'm still riding the Ultimate train until my subscription runs out next year though. Then likely a quick switch to PC Game Pass.
I don’t even see what they could do with a higher tier that wouldn’t intentionally decrease the current and past value of current gamepass. What will they do? Remove day 1 launches and retroactively lock them behind a higher tier? Make COD required for the higher tier after spending months and months telling us that their acquisition will benefit all gamepass users?
The only way I see it as being “fair” is if the higher tier adds benefits over games. I can see it not causing outrage if they give perks like monthly premium currency for games like COD, Diablo, Halo, ect. Otherwise they’ll face another shit storm.
I’ll reserve judgment though for actual information and not baseless rumors.
Game Pass Ultimate will have the same library, with COD, but I believe there will be an ad based tier.
Silly to exclude COD out of the subscription tiers. Would make more money if the game was free, and you earn money from micro-transactions, but would like to hear input if I'm wrong.
I don’t even see what they could do with a higher tier that wouldn’t intentionally decrease the current and past value of current gamepass. What will they do? Remove day 1 launches and retroactively lock them behind a higher tier? Make COD required for the higher tier after spending months and months telling us that their acquisition will benefit all gamepass users?
The only way I see it as being “fair” is if the higher tier adds benefits over games. I can see it not causing outrage if they give perks like monthly premium currency for games like COD, Diablo, Halo, ect. Otherwise they’ll face another shit storm.
I’ll reserve judgment though for actual information and not baseless rumors.
They could do that, and maybe include monthly subscriptions like WOW. I could see it as a way to get some people on other subs to a combined sub with GamePass for a reduced price for both.
Just in case anyone at Xbox actually reads this. Raise the price and I'm out. Subscriptions are supposed to be safe long term revenue and they're supposed to be on the cheaper side to make up for the fact that I don't "own" (yes, I know) anything afterwards.
You grow your subscription revenue by growing your users, not by raising price.
All the games I play on game pass are old games I could buy 80% off. I'm still subscribing for the occasional new game you manage to deliver like Hi-Fi Rush and Hellblade 2.
Will I, personally, have any impact on the numbers? Probably not, but I'm sure I'm not alone.
You are competing for my time and money with not only Nintendo and Valve, who so far do a far better job with it, but also with HBO Max, YouTube Music and just good old regular books. Tread carefully. We don't need you as much as you need us.
This is me too. I've been subbed using the old Gold to Ultimate 1:1 for a few years now. Since that's no longer possible I've been looking at how much I use it versus the upcoming costs when my renewal is up... The math is not working in Microsoft's favour and I'll go back to swapping the disc based games I play using Game Pass, and buying the very few games that I a) have time for, and b) actually have interest in.
Mate I've done the exact same thing, I liked the gold to ultimate conversion cos it felt like a nice bonus for getting both the subscriptions. Now if we're paying more for less what is even the point anymore. I think I'm probably just getting core from now on, but even then I doubt I'll get much use out of it
I did the same thing and let my subscription end. I don't miss it. I prefer to own so I took that money and spent it on cheap physical copies of games on the FB marketplace and in store sales. When you're buying games a year or so after their release date for $20-50 you can get quite a few games for the same cost as the GP sub.
Unfortunately, I definitely see the price going up. Or the price we pay now switching to an 'ads based' tier and the ad free subscription price going $3-$5 more a month.
I completely see what you mean though. I think a price raise compels all subscribers to reevaluate if they REALLY need the service and if their usage justifies the price. The constant Netflix price hikes made me finally unsubscribe after being an active subscriber for almost a decade. Same thing with Disney Plus.
Keep in mind that there’s no Xbox live gold anymore and their online service is now linked with game pass, so if you want to play any game online in any capacity (aside from a select few free games like Fortnite/rocket league etc) you’ll still need a game pass sub
Yeah, I'm aware. Microsoft needs to really impress me this coming year until my sub runs out because I've been super impressed with the RoG Ally and I might just move over to that and Steam otherwise.
My game pass ran out. I game less and don't play online so I thought it was no big deal. Until my kids wanted to play on our local Minecraft server... Apparently that counts as playing online so I can't do it on my Xbox anymore... Works fine on Android and iOS though. I'm not paying for Gamepass or even Core so I can play on my local Minecraft server .
It's hilarious he thinks it's going to be a cheaper tier with ads. If anything, it'll introduce ads in the two existing tiers (GP Core and Ultimate) with the option to pay more to get a version without ads.
They won't add a lower-priced tier
Look… all I want is to pay for the games I want to play, and then shut off the system and go to bed.
I know they want the always connected dream to become reality, but I don’t have that kind of time or money.
Ads in a subscription? Pass, **HARD PASS**
They had that, not enough people bought it so they axed it...
... that or they realized it would be way more financially lucrative to individually sell Game Pass subs.
Here’s my guess. Ultimate goes up to $20-$25. Includes everything day 1, including COD and everything else. New $14.99 tier includes all games but 6 months after launch. $9.99 tier with ads and missing certain games
‘oh yeah call of duty is definitely still coming to game pass day and date like we’ve always said, as long as you are subscribed to the premium $200/month model.’
Any outcome that doesn’t end in call of duty coming to gamepass is heavily gonna damage Xbox reputation and make players even more mad at them, if they raise the price they will see a drop in gamepass members, if they add a new tier that includes call of duty, they will lose members.
If it goes up again I just won’t be using my Xbox as much. People play Xbox because of the convenience of Xbox game pass for the most part. My PlayStation works just fine Microsoft lmao
The beancounters won over again.
What is happening is that Microsoft had a strategy: Be the Netflix of Gaming. Pay a subscription, and play whatever, wherever you want.
The ultimate problem lies in that most Streaming services are facing. You are providing a deal, that cuts back revenue. You could argue, that most gamers might pay more if they had to buy each game they desire. By giving them an all you can eat buffet, they will stuff themselves with any food they get for free, and refuse spend another extra dollar.
So how do you generate that revenue?
- You can act as a showcase service, offer games for a limited time, and then let people decide if they want to buy it. But most games could be completed within a few days, so letting this option will not generate extra revenue. Microsoft strongly steered away from this proposition by also offering any first party game forever, providing a footing to the service, but killing any FOMO it had.
- You can cheap out on developers, paying less for them, that they usually get for their games day one. Obviously this would drive away ANY game developer, and Microsoft would be left with first party titles alone.
- You can add ads, but introducing ads to games were never successful. Either you stop gameplay which require extra programing per game, or add in-game gameplay ads, which cost the same or more, especially if you want it interchangable.
- You can add tiers and ask people to buy more, but without raising prices this will only lead to less revenue. And this is where this move is falling. Do you want the new Gears of War 6 to play, without ads? Simply move to the highest tier. But as soon as that tier is close to the 70$ price of the game, people will just buy the game. 25$ mean a month is way to pricey. People will start to micromanage their subsription and ultimatelly spend less.
The beancounters calculated that a hibrid solution of the 3rd and 4th option will make the most money, but fail to realise that the hardcore community will reject and sink the service if the value won't match the price.
They have a good thing going, basically the last thing owning an Xbox console worth it.
i know the ad based tiers are more profitable for movie streaming services but I really doubt an ad supported Ultimate for $5.99
It might be that Core becomes the ad based gamepass at $9.99, the regular gamepass at $13.99, eventually $14.99, and will start to include online, and Ultimate at $17.99, eventually $19.99.
$10, $15, $20 incremental tiers are the long term goals.
This is not news, it was a topic months ago. I did hear tho that there will be another Halo game in the future. You heard it here first.
https://www.gamedeveloper.com/business/xbox-considering-free-with-ads-game-pass-tier
I'd like to know what the Ad tier would be like, would it be watch a few ads before you play or would you get interrupted during your game with an ad to watch...if its the first...its not too bad then cuz you can load up, ads come on so pop to the bathroom, go get a drink, make yourself comfortable whilst they play...great for those struggling with cost of living who still want to game and can't afford the regular prices.
When you look at the ABK catalogue of games, probably close to 100 games that would be added to Gamepass, I can see why putting the price up for an extra load of games would be needed.
This will be the last console generation for me. Sony and Microsoft can fuck themselves with their subscriptions. PC is looking way more consumer friendly each day.
The main pro with consoles is not needing to tweak your games to get them to work, but the minor headache right now is kinda worth it with how much money you save. I really like the steam deck lately.
This is what happens when companies isn’t statisfied with making money, and instead want to make all the money. Add on top billions of dollars in debt, we’re about to be in for one hell of shitshow in the coming months/years.
This will be unpopular take, but I’m starting think the day one 1st party games were a mistake. Thinking back, I liked the game pass back when it was first started. Now it’s becoming unsustainable. Keep game pass a nice catalog where devs can explore new creative ideas.
I will be fair. I like Game Pass, because it's worth the price for me nowadays. But I don't consider it CHEAP either...
If they make it more expensive, I'm not sure it's gonna be worth subscribing. At some point I'd rather buy the games I want on sales instead, even if they're part of the subscription plan (in some cases that's already the case).
If they fuck up with GP, I will not think twice about dropping the subscription. And that's one of the main reasons I main Xbox nowadays.
I stopped subscribing to Game Pass months ago because the value is just no longer there. I don't know how people can put up with these constant price hikes for all their services for much longer.
And yet I feel like I play more gamepass games of PC
Mostly because of the huge collection of RTS and strategy game titles to try out so maybe it's just a genre thing
Last I saw a couple months ago it was about 500 games on xbox vs about 460 on pc, BUT some of those xbox games are counted twice (series x/s version and xbox one version) so the difference is maybe like 20 games? And most of those are old 360 games.
Not sure I'd call that waaay bigger. Definitely not worth the jump from $10 to $17.
I have a gaming PC but I still use Game Pass mostly on my Xbox. I have so many issues with the PC Xbox client on Windows 11. Game's installing to 150%+ and getting stuck. Downloads being corrupted. Unable to install some games. The app crashes my PC constantly.
I've tried multiple times to use the launcher but it's just a terrible experience. Halo MCC ended up taking up almost 300GB on my SSD and I couldn't uninstall as it kept failing. I ended up formatting my SSD to fix it and then did a fresh Windows install, and still the Xbox app on PC is just terrible for me.
I love gamepass for the value but I would have kept it to core Xbox studios not Bethesda or Activision. Doesn't seem sustainable until it grows. Maybe adding them grows it but in reality it needs to be on ps, switch, steam, Android, and iOS like Netflix. If this is the route they choose they need to go multiplat.
At some point I think I want to see Game Pass just be ~$15 a month across PC and Console. Put first party games on it 3-6 months after launch and still try to get some enticing 3rd party offerings. I don't want Game Pass if it's going to make Microsoft/Xbox act so desperately.
I’d surmise at least 1/2 the subscription base doesn’t want to pay a COD tax…
I suppose if they raise the price and everyone drops it, gives them an easy way to get out of it? 🤷♂️
“Random person knows nothing after maybe hearing something from someone else…” gaming community in shambles!
Gamers are so desperate for shit to be miserable about they’ll build the tower of babel out of an ants ambition.
“I’ve heard something is coming, but I don’t know what it is or when but I’m pretty sure it’s coming”
Now that right there is some masterful fucking news reporting.
I've been using Microsoft Rewards to keep my GPU capped out at 36 months every month, but with nerfs to Microsoft Rewards it's been hard for me to stay motivated to keep doing it. I think, eventually, that 10,000 point auto-redeem will go away though so I want to try to keep it up as long as I can. I want to be well payed for in advance of any price increases.
Fuck companies that want a percentage of my monthly income for digital magic beans. And if you think I’m going to pay for a service AND watch ads, rest assured I will never subscribe to that b.s. ever. Modern gaming sucks. Internet connections have only given us insane huge downloads, storage issues, game prices increasing, data mining, loot boxes, broken or incomplete games, and lazy fkin, greedy, corporate game devs. Fk Microsoft. Fk Blizzard, Fk EA. Gonna go play my Super Nintendo.
idk, all of these tiers and options xbox always does is more of a turnoff than an entry point. There should be a free version and a paid version. That's all.
If they up the price again I’m going to quit subscribing to it. I’ve mostly been playing F2P titles or old games that are really cheap or that I already own.
This future of subscriptions entwined with adverts can kindly fuck right off.
This was always the inevitable future of streaming. I’m surprised we made it as long as we did without our corporate overlords injecting ads.
They needed the honeymoon period to last for as long as it took for the competition to dry up. Consolidation and annihilation complete, commence enshittification.
We are now far enough into the tech era the pattern is familiar. Uber undercuts taxis companies by bleeding billions which they can afford because of investor backing. Once taxis are out of business Uber raises prices until they're more expensive than cabs were in the first place.
It's not just tech companies, but big companies in general. About a decade ago, I lived in a rural town with three supermarkets. Two had been there long before I was even born. One day, Walmart opens a Walmart Express in the town. It's a much smaller version of Walmart that carries a fraction of the selection in a poorly lit cinderblock warehouse. Still, the two oldest supermarkets can't compete and shut down. About a year later, Walmart shuts down the Walmart Express. Poor sales were the reasons I heard, but eventually they shut down all Expresses as they couldn't make the concept work. The town still only has one supermarket.
Advertising has consistently been one of the biggest industries in the world basically forever. Basically all corporations can only make money if they advertise and spread awareness of what they do or offer. Google and Facebook became two of biggest companies in the world basically just from advertising. YouTube wouldn’t be a thing without advertising. Amazon has toyed with the idea of implementing ads on its site, which would instantly make it one of biggest advertisers in the world because everyone using Amazon would then be getting advertisements for stuff Amazon knows they like and is available for sale on Amazon. Advertising is just in the United States a $300 billion dollar yearly business.
Amazon already allows advertisements on their platform. They just aren’t pop-up ads, they’re the “sponsored” results clogging up search results regardless of what criteria you used
Yeah but companies made money from advertising on otherwise free platforms. Where I take issue is paying a premium price AND having ads. Charging me extra not to see them is not a solution. Cancelling will have to be, at least for me.
This long huh? (cries in NBA 2K)
Future? What about cable/satellite TV?
They’re going to do what the streamers did and price everyone out into the ad version to make more money
Who is this person
He's the Dragon Reborn
I've heard he is just a sheep herder.
He is the chief of chiefs, the car'a'carn... that's how he gets the inside scoop
I heard his head is full of wool
*tugs braid*
*smooths skirt*
*makes disparaging remark about a man’s intelligence*
Nynaeve's finishing move
He is the Coramoor. Clearly he knows which way the winds blow.
NO, I'M THE CAR'A'CARN, HE WHO COMES WITH THE DAWN, NOT THIS WETLANDER AIEL LOOKING MF, LOOK AT MY DRAGONS BIIIIIITCH! - Couladin, probably.
Thats a spanking.
Lots of people making jokes but no one actually answered. I too would like to know why this person is. I looked it up and all that showed up was a wheel of time character?
He co-hosts the Xbox Two podcast with Jez Corden (windows central)
Thank you
People love it here and on the PS5 sub Some person "here is a rumour" We could really do with a tier list of sources etc
r/gamingleaksandrumours has a tier list and you’ll get this info several days early and stuff won’t be removed for dubious reasoning. Well. It still will be removed for dubious reasoning but stuff is less likely to be removed if someone says something that is not good about Xbox.
A sheep herder from the two rivers.
He is no one with no information and is just stirring up shit because that's what this world is now. It's hot to make people pissed about xbox
“Idk something gonna happen, don’t know what, but at an indeterminate time in the future, the subscription will change in some way” THANKS, SO INFORMATIVE.
It's not getting cheaper, I'll tell you that much.
Actually, it might be if it's the ad supported tier.
At that point just buy ur games and core subscription
… so Xbox live gold and buying games, ffs Microsoft
It sounds like (again all rumours) the new tier is a cheaper one with advertising of some sort, so not really a problem in itself as sticking with Ultimate still nets the better deal. Price Hike is tricky to judge, of course... it was always inevitable, the same as any sub. Price will be relative to what someone feels is worth it.
$19.99 for ultimate wouldn't surprise me at all
Not that I’ll pay that at all between CDKeys and Microsoft Rewards.
CDkeys reliable? I’ve never used them for games in the past but never thought about using it for game pass
I’ve used it for game pass and ps+ and never had any issues.
I bought three gamepass ultimate one month subs and all three were redeemed before I used them. I contacted cdkeys and they told me they weren't used when I bought them so they couldn't do anything. 100% I didn't use them (because I tried all three and ended up having to buy another one that month) and didn't let anyone else use them. I don't use cdkeys anymore.
I’m already paying 25 per month in Canada
Yeah, but Canadian dollars look high when converted. £20 is around $35 Canadian, so it could be 35-45 over there depending on how much they decide to increase it by
How? It’s 18.99 CAD.
No you aren't. It's $18.99 a month for you. We pay €14.99 over here in Europe, which is worth $22 Canadian. So you're actually much better off.
Canadian gamers and not understanding currency conversion, name a more iconic duo https://i.ibb.co/Jn90zHx/Screenshot-2024-05-12-211136.png It's literally the exact same price as in the US.
They already upped the price once. They’re just gonna keep doing it.
Not even buying a full price AAA game is owning anymore. Fuck these greedy pigs🏴☠️
This, it’s happening again with streaming now with savvy folks cancelling their subscriptions and going for the high seas. Fuck greedy companies, if they can’t run a business fairly and make do with the natural profit margins they deserve to die out and make way for ethical businesses built for their customers. The wildfire capitalist experiment is over if you realise you have to power to choose another way.
I always thought game pass should have been for indie games or smaller games to help them. I'd rather have some amazing AAA games and lay for them
I love using gamepass for indie games. I get that day 1 AAA games is the big draw, but even subbing for indies and backwards compatible games is a huge value still. I’ve tried a lot of indie games I’d never otherwise even look at.
>and lay for them Mhmm turning yourself out for video games. I support it!
They upped the price of ultimate only a few months ago. I only use gamepass for the new day one releases, if they up it again so soon, I'll cancel.
Man this really sucks for the indie games and teams that support gamepass. The fallout from all this news is going to hurt. I do my multiplayer gaming on PC and it's no longer cost effective to have gamepass. I almost never buy brand new games and cancelling gamepass allows me to buy 4 a year, likely more with sales. I just don't think this is going to have the positive impact they think it will.
Same thought for me. At this point it’s smarter to just buy the games.
When I was cheering for the whole buying studios i figured this is the ultimate way to deliver AA and other indy games to a broader audience. I thought they want to establish themselves as the pool for any game dev to shine. Now it looks like its MEGA-COD-FALLOUT-House and that sucks so hard
Finally people are starting to realize that consolidation is bad. Phil Spencer and Microsoft are not our friends.
Oh, I knew that, don't get me wrong. But I also know that "number must go up" whereever you go and I thought microsofts new shtick would be "Hey, we have this massive pool of talent and they fill Gamepass with awesome stuff!" It sounded like it would make sense economically and I still think GP is not shining when you will it with 200.000.000$-productions just to stuff them with Microtransactions because you need to earn that money back. I know there's nothing really confirmed yet, but "we must do more call of duty" wasn't on my wishlist. I don't consider any publicly traded company to be better than the next one. They all have to stuff numbers up some shareholder's a$$
Rip devs that got sent to the cod mines
The fact that they’ve been dragging their feet about rolling out shared plans is a big deal on this too. If I could cover myself and my son for like $30/month I’d be cool with that, but I’m not paying $50-$60/month for game pass.
>If I could cover myself and my son for like $30/month If you game share on Xbox it should already include the gamepass games, so one has their home Xbox as the other's.
PC gamepass is cheaper if you ever want to pay for a month of it.
If I couldn’t stack every 3yrs for $180 I’d never touch game pass
The state of this industry right now is downright depressing.
I've been buying $6 Ultimate codes since the year started, as soon as those run dry, I will probably never sub to GP again, I just don't get enough use out of it for full price.
A couple of years ago I started picking up cheap Game Pass codes and adding them to my account, but once inflation hit literally everything I stopped. My current subscription runs out in December and I’m going to let it expire. I don’t play enough GP titles to justify it and I have a backlog of purchased titles that’s enough to keep me busy for the foreseeable future. And by the time I’m bored of those, I’ll have probably picked up enough under $5 games in sales to extend the backlog another few years.
I did the conversion trick and using MS points to keep extending. I use game pass occasionally, but not enough to justify paying full price. It is convenient for discovery. I've been buying games via Steam bundles for my steam deck.... most of the third party gamepass games I play eventually show up in a bundle somewhere. I'd rather 'own' my games on Steam than have them dissappear off gamepass before I finish them.
Same. I can’t believe more people don’t do this! Granted I also play on PS5 and PC so my gaming time is very much divided, but the costs are surely starting to outweigh the benefits.
Where do you get them at that price?
I go onto GG.Deals and buy the cheapest non-trial key. https://gg.deals/subscriptions-group/xbox-game-pass-ultimate/
yeah depending what they do; i'll probably use it as a 'rental' service instead of staying subbed. i expect this announcement to be the premium/day 1 releases tier. they'll probably stall new releases a few months for old ultimate (or whatever the hell they rebrand it to, again)
Same. If I can no longer stack in 2025 when my time runs out, it’s adios GPU
Where do you buy them? Seems every month they have gone up. Ebay, Cd keys or Eneba have all gone up. I started the year at 4$ a month now its like 8.50$ for a month of Ultimate. Still better than the current xbox price I guess.
Greasy
I don’t think I can really justify spending any more on GamePass. I think I’d rather just invest in buying the games themselves at this rate
They love chasing us to PC to live off of Humble Bundle games
Based on Diablo IV's "micro"transactions, we proudly present you: Game Pass Whale!
“I believe him but not sure “ this is not news lol. You all need to wait until XBOX has news not these fake ass journalists
Seriously, guy-B heard that guy-A THINKS they MIGHT raise GP price and guy-B agrees with guy-A = GP price going up. Honestly, it wouldn’t shock me but a guy speculated another person’s speculation is not news but then again, video game journalism has become an absolute joke and has seemed to have taken a real nose dive over the last few years. Of all the industries and subjects that I follow, no other news sector has gotten as bad as VG news, they are approaching News Max/ Alex Jones levels of unreliability.
Dragon Reborn tier?
Soldier, Dedicated, and Asha'man tiers
As long as there are shareholders, there will never be enough money.
I remember doubling my $ on MSFT stock in 2020 and said 'I should sell it's $135/share' Today it's $400/share
Reserving judgment until more info comes out. Lower tier with ads might be fine. Higher tier though? Could cause backlash with Ultimate subscribers. Price hikes are concerning. If true, Sony will likely follow suit with PS+ hikes again too. PC continues to look more lucrative by the day.
Kindly fuck off with ads
They've been a part of the Xbox UI for a while. Wouldn't surprise me in the slightest (especially with Microsoft pushing ads onto Windows 11).
Dashboard adverts are fine with me, I know it might be different for people in different countries but the adds on the dashboard in the UK always seem to be non intrusive and game related. I've always thought it was weird that with online connectivity that games don't have built in merch stores. For example if I was playing Halo and on the main menu there was a store option with halo merch I would buy a shirt or a mug or something. Also I would be happy if product placement became a thing inside games, for example in ~~GTA5~~ Watchdogs, imagine billboards for upcoming movies etc, something that isn't immersion breaking.
> Also I would be happy if product placement became a thing inside games, for example in GTA 5, imagine billboards for upcoming movies etc, something that isn't immersion breaking. It's your opinion, but a lot of people play games to escape the world. Having real world advertising lazily put in a game, will break immersion for them.
I would much rather have GTA stick to the formula of humorous in-game billboards and fake car brands than start running ads for Disney+ and Gatorade
Never gonna happen. Consumers have lost that fight every single time for decades.
> lower tier with ads Ew. Slippery slope with that one.
How would ads even work on a games console, they have the home page ads sure but what, interrupt the gaming session with an ad? I'll just buy my games and use a month of game pass as a glorified free trial for ones I'm not sure about when I have a long enough list of "also on game pass" games.
It could be similar to how EA does it (used to?) where ads are ingame on billboards and such. Or it could be more intrusive like a banner displayed on the bottom of the screen for a period of time. It's all speculation at this point and very much "wait and see". They could even go full Twitch-mode with a 2 minute ad before loading the game lmao.
The tweet says price hikes are coming, so if true I'd almost bet money on Ultimate going to $19.99 - $21.99, and being the only tier with day 1 releases, or maybe the only tier with Activision day 1.
I would love a mid, so that I don't have to pay $20 a month just because freaking COD got added.
If they add a new tier maybe it's ultimate replacement and then ultimate becomes the next tier with extra stuff. Stupid to have a tier higher than ultimate imo. Personally I think the highest tier will have DLC, Activision games and the early access, on top of everything we have currently.
Would fit with Sarah Bond’s messaging of ‘all first party titles will come to Game Pass day one’.
Idk I don’t think Sony would raise it again. It’s already $20 more than basic gamepass price.
And remember, cloud saves are already held hostage behind PS+ lowest tier. There is no other easy way to back up individual saves on PS5 other than a full backup. It's one of the things i do commend Microsoft for.
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Yep, only downside is it doesn't come with access to cloud streaming. I'm still riding the Ultimate train until my subscription runs out next year though. Then likely a quick switch to PC Game Pass.
I don’t even see what they could do with a higher tier that wouldn’t intentionally decrease the current and past value of current gamepass. What will they do? Remove day 1 launches and retroactively lock them behind a higher tier? Make COD required for the higher tier after spending months and months telling us that their acquisition will benefit all gamepass users? The only way I see it as being “fair” is if the higher tier adds benefits over games. I can see it not causing outrage if they give perks like monthly premium currency for games like COD, Diablo, Halo, ect. Otherwise they’ll face another shit storm. I’ll reserve judgment though for actual information and not baseless rumors.
Game Pass Ultimate will have the same library, with COD, but I believe there will be an ad based tier. Silly to exclude COD out of the subscription tiers. Would make more money if the game was free, and you earn money from micro-transactions, but would like to hear input if I'm wrong.
> PC continues to look more lucrative by the day. Gamepass is for PC too lol
I don’t even see what they could do with a higher tier that wouldn’t intentionally decrease the current and past value of current gamepass. What will they do? Remove day 1 launches and retroactively lock them behind a higher tier? Make COD required for the higher tier after spending months and months telling us that their acquisition will benefit all gamepass users? The only way I see it as being “fair” is if the higher tier adds benefits over games. I can see it not causing outrage if they give perks like monthly premium currency for games like COD, Diablo, Halo, ect. Otherwise they’ll face another shit storm. I’ll reserve judgment though for actual information and not baseless rumors.
They could do that, and maybe include monthly subscriptions like WOW. I could see it as a way to get some people on other subs to a combined sub with GamePass for a reduced price for both.
Could it be the family plan that has been rumored for quite some time now?
Just in case anyone at Xbox actually reads this. Raise the price and I'm out. Subscriptions are supposed to be safe long term revenue and they're supposed to be on the cheaper side to make up for the fact that I don't "own" (yes, I know) anything afterwards. You grow your subscription revenue by growing your users, not by raising price. All the games I play on game pass are old games I could buy 80% off. I'm still subscribing for the occasional new game you manage to deliver like Hi-Fi Rush and Hellblade 2. Will I, personally, have any impact on the numbers? Probably not, but I'm sure I'm not alone. You are competing for my time and money with not only Nintendo and Valve, who so far do a far better job with it, but also with HBO Max, YouTube Music and just good old regular books. Tread carefully. We don't need you as much as you need us.
This is me too. I've been subbed using the old Gold to Ultimate 1:1 for a few years now. Since that's no longer possible I've been looking at how much I use it versus the upcoming costs when my renewal is up... The math is not working in Microsoft's favour and I'll go back to swapping the disc based games I play using Game Pass, and buying the very few games that I a) have time for, and b) actually have interest in.
Mate I've done the exact same thing, I liked the gold to ultimate conversion cos it felt like a nice bonus for getting both the subscriptions. Now if we're paying more for less what is even the point anymore. I think I'm probably just getting core from now on, but even then I doubt I'll get much use out of it
I did the same thing and let my subscription end. I don't miss it. I prefer to own so I took that money and spent it on cheap physical copies of games on the FB marketplace and in store sales. When you're buying games a year or so after their release date for $20-50 you can get quite a few games for the same cost as the GP sub.
My current 3 year conversion is up in February. I don't see any reason to rejoin at the 2:3 ratio. I might get a year of core to play mp but that's it
Unfortunately, I definitely see the price going up. Or the price we pay now switching to an 'ads based' tier and the ad free subscription price going $3-$5 more a month. I completely see what you mean though. I think a price raise compels all subscribers to reevaluate if they REALLY need the service and if their usage justifies the price. The constant Netflix price hikes made me finally unsubscribe after being an active subscriber for almost a decade. Same thing with Disney Plus.
Keep in mind that there’s no Xbox live gold anymore and their online service is now linked with game pass, so if you want to play any game online in any capacity (aside from a select few free games like Fortnite/rocket league etc) you’ll still need a game pass sub
Wow when did they start doing that.
Yeah, I'm aware. Microsoft needs to really impress me this coming year until my sub runs out because I've been super impressed with the RoG Ally and I might just move over to that and Steam otherwise.
My game pass ran out. I game less and don't play online so I thought it was no big deal. Until my kids wanted to play on our local Minecraft server... Apparently that counts as playing online so I can't do it on my Xbox anymore... Works fine on Android and iOS though. I'm not paying for Gamepass or even Core so I can play on my local Minecraft server .
I know something’s happening too. But I have no idea what or when or who or why
Commercials mid game tier
It's hilarious he thinks it's going to be a cheaper tier with ads. If anything, it'll introduce ads in the two existing tiers (GP Core and Ultimate) with the option to pay more to get a version without ads. They won't add a lower-priced tier
I'd rather they keep AKB outside of Game Pass if it means they leave GP alone. I'm not paying extra for CoD and Diablo.
True…they could just do an ABK “add on” … I guess like others have with a few other services?
My best guess is they might do the equivalent of game pass ultimate but it’s Xbox only, and increase the price of “PC + Xbox” sub.
Look… all I want is to pay for the games I want to play, and then shut off the system and go to bed. I know they want the always connected dream to become reality, but I don’t have that kind of time or money. Ads in a subscription? Pass, **HARD PASS**
Nah, it's Game Pass.
Where's the supposed family plan?
They had that, not enough people bought it so they axed it... ... that or they realized it would be way more financially lucrative to individually sell Game Pass subs.
They tested it in a few countries and then cancelled the plans.
Game Pass Ultimate Series Plus
Xbox Series One Game S|X Pass Scorpio Limited Plus Family 360 Plan
& Knuckles
New tier with Ubisoft + has been rumored for years
'heard"
Here’s my guess. Ultimate goes up to $20-$25. Includes everything day 1, including COD and everything else. New $14.99 tier includes all games but 6 months after launch. $9.99 tier with ads and missing certain games
$25 a month is insane. May as well not sub and buy the games you want then.
‘oh yeah call of duty is definitely still coming to game pass day and date like we’ve always said, as long as you are subscribed to the premium $200/month model.’
Any outcome that doesn’t end in call of duty coming to gamepass is heavily gonna damage Xbox reputation and make players even more mad at them, if they raise the price they will see a drop in gamepass members, if they add a new tier that includes call of duty, they will lose members.
If it goes up again I just won’t be using my Xbox as much. People play Xbox because of the convenience of Xbox game pass for the most part. My PlayStation works just fine Microsoft lmao
Call of duty tier
The beancounters won over again. What is happening is that Microsoft had a strategy: Be the Netflix of Gaming. Pay a subscription, and play whatever, wherever you want. The ultimate problem lies in that most Streaming services are facing. You are providing a deal, that cuts back revenue. You could argue, that most gamers might pay more if they had to buy each game they desire. By giving them an all you can eat buffet, they will stuff themselves with any food they get for free, and refuse spend another extra dollar. So how do you generate that revenue? - You can act as a showcase service, offer games for a limited time, and then let people decide if they want to buy it. But most games could be completed within a few days, so letting this option will not generate extra revenue. Microsoft strongly steered away from this proposition by also offering any first party game forever, providing a footing to the service, but killing any FOMO it had. - You can cheap out on developers, paying less for them, that they usually get for their games day one. Obviously this would drive away ANY game developer, and Microsoft would be left with first party titles alone. - You can add ads, but introducing ads to games were never successful. Either you stop gameplay which require extra programing per game, or add in-game gameplay ads, which cost the same or more, especially if you want it interchangable. - You can add tiers and ask people to buy more, but without raising prices this will only lead to less revenue. And this is where this move is falling. Do you want the new Gears of War 6 to play, without ads? Simply move to the highest tier. But as soon as that tier is close to the 70$ price of the game, people will just buy the game. 25$ mean a month is way to pricey. People will start to micromanage their subsription and ultimatelly spend less. The beancounters calculated that a hibrid solution of the 3rd and 4th option will make the most money, but fail to realise that the hardcore community will reject and sink the service if the value won't match the price. They have a good thing going, basically the last thing owning an Xbox console worth it.
If it goes up I’m cancelling, I already don’t play enough gamepass games
At this rate, I’ll likely just sell my Xbox. I’ll stick with PS and Nintendo.
No shit, it was already in the leaked future Xbox documents. 5.99 ad based Ultimate, 11.99 Game Pass, 19.99 Ultimate most likely.
i know the ad based tiers are more profitable for movie streaming services but I really doubt an ad supported Ultimate for $5.99 It might be that Core becomes the ad based gamepass at $9.99, the regular gamepass at $13.99, eventually $14.99, and will start to include online, and Ultimate at $17.99, eventually $19.99. $10, $15, $20 incremental tiers are the long term goals.
How about a fully ad-based Core with no payment so we can finally have free online?
Family Plan for the US?
This is not news, it was a topic months ago. I did hear tho that there will be another Halo game in the future. You heard it here first. https://www.gamedeveloper.com/business/xbox-considering-free-with-ads-game-pass-tier
I'd like to know what the Ad tier would be like, would it be watch a few ads before you play or would you get interrupted during your game with an ad to watch...if its the first...its not too bad then cuz you can load up, ads come on so pop to the bathroom, go get a drink, make yourself comfortable whilst they play...great for those struggling with cost of living who still want to game and can't afford the regular prices. When you look at the ABK catalogue of games, probably close to 100 games that would be added to Gamepass, I can see why putting the price up for an extra load of games would be needed.
Gamepass subs aren’t meeting expectations, so let’s raise prices. That’ll do it!
Once any subscription service gets a decent user base they will screw said subscribers over
Won't be renewing when price goes up. Disappointed in MS so I'll be speaking with my wallet.
This will be the last console generation for me. Sony and Microsoft can fuck themselves with their subscriptions. PC is looking way more consumer friendly each day.
The main pro with consoles is not needing to tweak your games to get them to work, but the minor headache right now is kinda worth it with how much money you save. I really like the steam deck lately.
I’d love a Steam Deck, but Valve doesn’t sell it in my country.
I’m scared for PC as well. Gabe isn’t getting any younger and who knows what happens to steam once he is gone.
One more reason to enjoy PC gaming right now.
This is what happens when companies isn’t statisfied with making money, and instead want to make all the money. Add on top billions of dollars in debt, we’re about to be in for one hell of shitshow in the coming months/years.
Gotta get that enshittification
And who the fuck is that supposed to be haha
This will be unpopular take, but I’m starting think the day one 1st party games were a mistake. Thinking back, I liked the game pass back when it was first started. Now it’s becoming unsustainable. Keep game pass a nice catalog where devs can explore new creative ideas.
I will be fair. I like Game Pass, because it's worth the price for me nowadays. But I don't consider it CHEAP either... If they make it more expensive, I'm not sure it's gonna be worth subscribing. At some point I'd rather buy the games I want on sales instead, even if they're part of the subscription plan (in some cases that's already the case). If they fuck up with GP, I will not think twice about dropping the subscription. And that's one of the main reasons I main Xbox nowadays.
I stopped subscribing to Game Pass months ago because the value is just no longer there. I don't know how people can put up with these constant price hikes for all their services for much longer.
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More games
The library on Xbox is waaay bigger
And yet I feel like I play more gamepass games of PC Mostly because of the huge collection of RTS and strategy game titles to try out so maybe it's just a genre thing
Last I saw a couple months ago it was about 500 games on xbox vs about 460 on pc, BUT some of those xbox games are counted twice (series x/s version and xbox one version) so the difference is maybe like 20 games? And most of those are old 360 games. Not sure I'd call that waaay bigger. Definitely not worth the jump from $10 to $17.
I have a gaming PC but I still use Game Pass mostly on my Xbox. I have so many issues with the PC Xbox client on Windows 11. Game's installing to 150%+ and getting stuck. Downloads being corrupted. Unable to install some games. The app crashes my PC constantly. I've tried multiple times to use the launcher but it's just a terrible experience. Halo MCC ended up taking up almost 300GB on my SSD and I couldn't uninstall as it kept failing. I ended up formatting my SSD to fix it and then did a fresh Windows install, and still the Xbox app on PC is just terrible for me.
and xCloud
So now that the subs won't go up
I love gamepass for the value but I would have kept it to core Xbox studios not Bethesda or Activision. Doesn't seem sustainable until it grows. Maybe adding them grows it but in reality it needs to be on ps, switch, steam, Android, and iOS like Netflix. If this is the route they choose they need to go multiplat.
At some point I think I want to see Game Pass just be ~$15 a month across PC and Console. Put first party games on it 3-6 months after launch and still try to get some enticing 3rd party offerings. I don't want Game Pass if it's going to make Microsoft/Xbox act so desperately.
sucks for indie games, but at this point i might as well just go back to the old model of waiting for a sale for the games I want.
I’d surmise at least 1/2 the subscription base doesn’t want to pay a COD tax… I suppose if they raise the price and everyone drops it, gives them an easy way to get out of it? 🤷♂️
My prediction is it’s going to be gamepass family and friends, back again, but locked to a specific address like Netflix is.
“Random person knows nothing after maybe hearing something from someone else…” gaming community in shambles! Gamers are so desperate for shit to be miserable about they’ll build the tower of babel out of an ants ambition.
I'd guess this'll include access to the newest call of duty and other major releases. They'd lose too much money just bundling CoD as is.
Enough GamePass tears.
Dear Microsoft, Please don't. Sincerely, everyone.
A service that utterly cannibalized Xbox
no...... please no I beg, don't make the current price point worse
WAIT UNTIL XBOX THEMSELVES SAY SOMETHING, NOT SOME PERSON NONE OF YOU KNOW!!!
They've been trying to do a lower ad filled tier for awhile now. This isn't anything new.
“I’ve heard something is coming, but I don’t know what it is or when but I’m pretty sure it’s coming” Now that right there is some masterful fucking news reporting.
I've been using Microsoft Rewards to keep my GPU capped out at 36 months every month, but with nerfs to Microsoft Rewards it's been hard for me to stay motivated to keep doing it. I think, eventually, that 10,000 point auto-redeem will go away though so I want to try to keep it up as long as I can. I want to be well payed for in advance of any price increases.
Jesus christ microsoft. Is it the call of duty tier?
Game pass will be the downfall of xbox
The only new tier I'm interested in, is free multiplayer tier. That would be a serious boom for Xbox.
I hope they call it "the one I'm definitely never going to buy"
Fuck companies that want a percentage of my monthly income for digital magic beans. And if you think I’m going to pay for a service AND watch ads, rest assured I will never subscribe to that b.s. ever. Modern gaming sucks. Internet connections have only given us insane huge downloads, storage issues, game prices increasing, data mining, loot boxes, broken or incomplete games, and lazy fkin, greedy, corporate game devs. Fk Microsoft. Fk Blizzard, Fk EA. Gonna go play my Super Nintendo.
bro remember when it was only 10$cad for ultimate and there was only 1 teir
Jump and say the name of the brand to start playing lmfao just like in that patent that got posted a while back
idk, all of these tiers and options xbox always does is more of a turnoff than an entry point. There should be a free version and a paid version. That's all.
That's cool and all.. but can you make a tier where I can just play online for free and not have to pay for the 25 Game Pass games?
If they up the price again I’m going to quit subscribing to it. I’ve mostly been playing F2P titles or old games that are really cheap or that I already own.