Reaction: Xbox Live Price Hike Feels Like A Huge Push Towards Game Pass

44% throwing toys out of the pram! Why? With Ultimate you will be getting much better value for money anyway. It makes sense and I am baffled as to why anyone is actually annoyed about it.
Its a common sense move and one that is hardly a surprise at all.

As I said in the other article, I think this is all part of a plan to phase out Xbox Live Gold and Microsoft will either:

a) make online multiplayer free for everyone (if they are smart and want to keep gaining more goodwill after the disaster that was the Xbox One)

or b) force people to get Game Pass Ultimate to play online multiplayer (if they are dumb and want to undo a huge chunk of the goodwill they have gained back the past couple of years).

I genuinely believe though that this is all part of Microsoft's strategy and that they have something better planned for us in the future. This is just all part of that plan.

For about the same price ($68 USD) , you can get 6 months of GPU from cdkeys. I haven’t paid full price for a subscription in years.

@jarvismp I think this will most likely affect people that just play a couple of MP games all year (CoD/FIFA). They will have no desire to get GP, so it would make since just to go to PS5. I understand their goal here, but I think it’s risky.

@Hypnotoad107 I think that MS strategy is risky anyway tbh. They are not interested in selling consoles they just want as many people as possible to have game pass. I can see Xbox being totally digital or cloud within the next 5 years. I love Xbox for ease of use but I can also see that they are at a huge crossroads where they seem to be unsure whether to stick or twist. It will be a very interesting few years for sure.

I was pondering on choosing Gold instead of GPU in late October before I realised GPU is just way too good to pass up. Been a happy customer since. It'a really a no-brainer to me, but I guess others may have a different perspective.

So many people conditioned to be Gamepassers. Microsoft loves you for falling for their marketing scheme.

Well, personally, I'm one of those few people who isn't interested in Game Pass. Like not at ALL. So, to now have to pay almost double the amount just for Xbox Live Gold seems like a pretty insane price raise to me.

Guess I'll have to reconsider what to do, or I need to find some regular Live Gold codes online, so I can stack them onto my current running plan, which is still good til July this year.

@Menchi I don’t really feel conditioned. I play it all the time and it’s really cheap (I paid $100/yr). It’s not like I bought a gym membership that I never use.

Not pleased. I've been doing the yearly renewals for as long as I've had my Xbox One, about five years now. I feel like I'm being priced out. I'm most likely going to jump ship.

Game Pass is such a ridiculous deal, at this point, where I don’t understand why anyone would not already be signed up for it (if you are an Xbox gamer).

And this is coming from a guy who still buys physical games from places like GameStop or Ebay.

Just get Game Pass & be happy in life. It’s really that simple. 😁😂👍🏻

@LtSarge

I do agree that they need to get rid of the ridiculous Xbox Live paywall on F2P games.

I just want to play call of duty and fortnite with my friends. My mom said $120 is too expensive and can't afford it now.

@Leuke You get a like for The Cheat.

Seems 76% have gamepass, so they probably just care about themselves and are fine with the change.

@Hypnotoad107 The people you mentioned are the majority of gamers. People like you and me, that don't want to miss on playing games, are nothing.

We can expect a price hike of gamepass too. Don't know how much, but it WILL happen.

@ThanosReXXX

Even though I have said my peace about Game Pass & how awesome I think it is......

I do get why you are irritated because you don’t want it. Phil has always talked about “choice” & all of that. And I can tell you are a long time Xbox guy. So this news is, literally, just costing you more $.

And that is messed up, to your point. I hope you don’t leave the Xbox ecosystem because you seem like a rare, level headed gamer & old, like me. 😂

But I get your point, is what I am trying to say in my long ass way. Lol.

@KelticDevil I agree. I think this wouldn’t have been as bad if we had a deluge of their AAA games on the horizon, but upgrading to GPU at this exact moment is a hard sell with none of their big games (except Halo) even announced for 2021.

I really don't understand why they're doing this instead of discontinuing gold and rolling it into Game Pass totally, really.... A price hike has bad optics. Discontinuing a low value service has good optics. This is a strange move from a PR standpoint as it creates only a negative talking point when one of the platform's big selling points has been its other service that includes this one anyway (and for people that don't care about the online stuff at all, nothing changes.)

That aside though.....wasn't it always $60 for the annual? I'm pretty sure it was $60 years ago when I bought several years worth on a black friday (or E3 week?) deal for $40 and thought I got a bargain. PS Plus is also $60....so I'm not sure how this is more expensive. Am I missing something? Misremembering? These details seem off.

@NEStalgia it's now $60 for halve a year while ps plus is $60 for a full year.

@HammerKirby Ahh, that makes more sense. So $120/yr vs $180 for Ultimate.

Yeah, this does actually give Sony a pricing edge at the moment. Not really sure what they're thinking. It actually makes Sony's $70 games look kinda good.

since when was a year of xbl gold $39.99 for a year? i have always seen it priced at $59.99 a year

@NEStalgia tbf most retailers are putting ps5 game prices at £50, I believe its only the digital versions that are priced at that price.
Wouldn't be surprised to see digital sales to be lower this generation compared to last gen

@Hypnotoad107 I had every intention of buying a xbox for backward compatibility but I am one of the fifa and cod players you speak of and as a result have no interest in gamepass.. I will likely buy a playstation if Nintendo doesn't release a switch pro soon.

Personally I think it’s more of a push towards unifying Xbox live gold and gamepass,
Basically instead of the gold, gamepass and ultimate subscriptions it will just be 2, Xbox Live Gold (which would include gamepass) and Xbox Live Ultimate

wonder how many "its fine, i'm not bothered" voters already subscribe to gamepass...?

Also shouldn't xbox be doing everything and everything to win over Sony fans...

Since xbox bought Bethesda it sure seems there has been a growing confidence inside their company which often turns to arrogance which often leads to less friendly consumer practices.

Been a GPU member for a month, now. And I'm never going back from that.

@Menchi
The more comments of yours I read, the more I think you must be "fun" in real life. You complain here and at Push Square about just about everything. Don't worry, you have a choice. We made ours and I'm at peace with mine.

@UltimateOtaku91 That's pretty bizarre if so! That sounds like maybe a UK thing though. Here in the US, it's MSRP or close-to it everywhere I'm checking, as it always is. Our retailers don't really discount stuff like that. Of course that's because we're down to about 4 retailers.....

@Bobobiwan If it suits your play style, it’s hard to imagine going back to the way things use to be. And luckily, it suits my play style. It really does feel like Netflix to me. I’ll just always have a sub for it, and it’s kind of pointless to get rid of it, as I’ll want to have it again a month or two later.

Big mistake from MS.
Obviously a push to move people to GPU, but now their offering for literally Xbox Live services is double the price of Sony's offering, and Sony tend to offer better monthly games.

@sixrings Maybe they can knock Sony down a few pegs and make them the customer friendly one by the end of the gen again. I don't care which of them is the consumer friendly one, as long as one of them is

@NEStalgia though it seems to be the third part games that are around £50, sonys exclusives like demon souls and sackboy are around £60-£65

I think sony meant their own exclusive games would cost £70, though if you do enough searching you can find any game cheaper than that (in UK anyway)

Well at least it clearly shows by all the outrage everywhere that the Xbox fanbase doesn't have blinders on...they are being called out everywhere about their shady move. Let's see how it all plays out but in all honesty it's so off of their main messaging it's actually shocking. Great way to ruin that trust in one day you've been working on rebuilding over multiple years.

@Krzzystuff Well you said it yourself, why would they ruin the trust they've been working on rebuilding for numerous years? This is Phil Spencer we're talking about, the guy who brought back Xbox from the brink of the death. Why would he suddenly think "Well, I guess today is the day I'm gonna undo all my hard work".

I can picture this happening within a couple of months: Microsoft announces their next acquisition, which will be another huge one, and people will go crazy at that. Then when the hype is still going strong, they drop a little post where it says "Oh yeah, and online multiplayer will be going free as well". I have faith in Microsoft and Phil because they've done so many right things so far that I refuse to believe that they're going to ruin all of that in such a short time. It just doesn't make sense.

Sometimes you have to do things that you don't want to do in order to achieve something greater.

While $70 for PS5 games isn't good, this is a lot worse. I really hope Sony pulls another E3 2013 esque moment regarding this.

@KelticDevil Well, if it came across as irritated, then allow me to correct that: not irritated, just disappointed. I like options, and this is just Microsoft pushing all punters towards Game Pass, whether they want it or not.

The only thing that does irritate me, is the hefty increase in price: that's just not fair to people who don't want or need Game Pass. Oh, well. I guess we'll see how it goes.

And I'm not really about to just stand up and leave, so I'd say that a couple more things need to happen, before it comes to that. Here's hoping that this will be the only negative thing for me and people like me.

We can speculate a lot about what this means for Live — for example is this just an attempt to encourage Game Pass Ultimate subscriptions, or is it part of a larger effort to eventually phase out Live as a separate service altogether? I think the bigger question that needs to be asked though is if this is a precursor to increasing the price of other services, such as Game Pass Ultimate? If the answer to that question is "yes" I think, for now anyhow, it could be a lot more detrimental to the success of Xbox than this Live price hike will be.

@101Force You raise a good point actually. A price hike for Game Pass and Game Pass Ultimate is inevitable, however it's very pivotal that Microsoft times it just right. To announce a price increase now when we're still in the beginning of this generation and Microsoft is still building momentum for Xbox after messing up last generation, they would basically be erasing all their progress that they've made up until now. I personally doubt that this will happen now. It's definitely going to happen at some point, but now is absolutely not the right time for them to announce that stuff and I think they are aware of that.

@NEStalgia the worst culprit to me is arrogant Nintendo... they are in their own league with apple and Disney... I have a love hate relationship with them.

@Kefka2589 Well, let me rephrase that: there's bad, and then there's less bad. Better now?

But yeah, Sony is allowed to take hits since they basically won last generation. Microsoft is more vulnerable, they're like the kid who has done a lot of bad things and has been given a second chance and is now squandering their second chance. Now is definitely not a good time to announce a price hike, especially not immediately after a price hike to Xbox Live Gold.

Imagine a couple of years down the line when Game Pass has reached 500 games due to the additions of other services such as Ubisoft+ and just an increase in general. Then you have all the great first-party titles being added to Game Pass, such as Halo Infinite, Fable, Perfect Dark, Hellblade II, Elder Scrolls 6 and so on. When all of that has been done and people have enjoyed the price point of €15 for a couple of years, then I think they'd be more willing to accept a price increase because people have started experiencing the true potential of Game Pass. We're still not there yet though and so increasing the price now would not be wise at all.

@Kefka2589 Eventually there reaches a point where the price hikes push a limit though. They're really playing with fire in a collapsing economy in freefall. Today they can get away with it. Who knows where the tipping point is. I think the industry is overestimating their importance based on some short term trends. Consumer spending is fickle and turns on a dime. The gaming industry seems to see itself as ever more premium and moving ever more upscale. I'm really not convinced that's a good strategy while Amazon, in particular, is entering the fray.

In this case though it's clear it's not about price increases. It's a hamfisted attempt at nudging everyone into Game Pass to boost the all important subscriber number, after Spencer already said they don't have immediate plans to jack up the Gamepass pricing. IMO this is just a mismanaged PR move. The real goal isn't getting more sub money, it's about boosting GP subs. The sub number is what matters. This does however give more backing to the voice of people that insist the goal of GP is to lock everyone in and then jack the prices. It's just a dumb move, in general vs. eliminating the service.

An extra $5 a moth not being a big deal just sounds crazy. It's paying TWICE as much to do nothing but play online..... not to go all PC master race, but it's something that on PC you do for free. $5/mo for something that's free is bad enough. Doubling that is madness. And for a mere $5 more a month you get access to all first party games and temporary access to tons of others, and access to a cloud library. This is a move to officially say "XBLG is so low value there's no reason anyone should actually buy it." rather than just cancelling it. And it includes the insinuation that Gamepass is a temporary loss leader before they gouge you YoutubeTV style. That's not a good message right now.

@sixrings Yeah, I hear that. The new management seems to have a really unlikable angle. They officially moved it as a brand management company, not a games company.....and they certainly behave like it. They're not quite Apple/Disney yet...but they're not

Game Pass Ultimate is definitely the way to go about your Xbox online services, in fact I don't even see the point in only having Gold anymore, it's just priced out of it's usefulness by it's self. I get how they are just trying to offer it for those people who have no interest in Game Pass, for whatever reason (whoever they are), but having it as a part of Game Pass Ultimate is the only way it makes sense, otherwise I would probably just forget about Gold and only stick with Game Pass.

I find it a bit disgusting that they're increasing it by so much. Same like Sony with the price increase for games. Ppl are suffering in this crisis and they are making more money on gaming than ever. It's inappropriate imo

what happened to the free online rumour..... I was all onboard with xbox when that rumour was being reported almost as news... now im quickly grabbing my stuff to get off this xbox train (wreck).

No matter what any of us may think about all of this.......it seems MS have scored a huge own goal. The backlash is relentless.

@sixrings pretty sure that will happen eventually to games like Fortnite. The entire thing seems to be a push to get people onto GPU, and weed out those who only want online.

The big question I have is how is this going to effect the GWG.

This is a really bad move. A lot of gamers who just want to play Apex Legends, Fortnite, etc with their friends, will definitely not be doing that on Xbox any more. With PS4 allowing you to play those games without a PS Plus sub, and now this huge price hike...it doesn't make any sense. GamePass of course is their big thing now, so they either need to get rid of gold, or make it free. It just looks bad otherwise.

@mousieone used to have a xbox one simply to play fifa and f1 with my nephew four hours away. he nor me would be buying gamepass.. this news is brutal from our perspective.

I already have a 12 month sub to Gold. MS is only getting me to Ultimate if they force me to. Tbh, I kind of expect them to impose it further.

@LtSarge scenario 2 is more likely than the first. Of course they will do something after Ultimate, whether it's better or not is going to be debatable.

@Kefka2589 Sony can hike prices because, generally speaking, they have a higher margin for error compared to MS. For them, they have to royally screw up for it to affect hardware sales or their overall image.

And yes, there will be more price increases. It's inevitable.

I currently have ultimate game pass using the stacking method. Which came up close to 100 dollars Cad. I personally think its a great deal but I have friends that only play Warframe and have no interest in the games on game pass. For them it’s be a bad deal.

@sixrings oh no I don’t agree with it; I’m saying that’s where the rumor probably came from.

I have gamepass but I think this is pretty bad for the more casual gamer. I guess MS have decided what kind of gamer demographic they are targeting. Unless they have something up their sleeve to reveal they will probably push a chunk of their fans to PC/PS. Doubling up with no additional value just doesn't look great. It certainly looks like the are attempting to push the market down the GPU route.

I'm a GPU subscriber and think this is very narrow minded on MS account.

When you think about it, it's actually 1 cent more expensive to subscribe for 6 months than it is to subscribe for 3 months! This ridiculous!

A bigger commitment should come at a discount, and there should be a yearly plan!

@Kefka2589 how about PSN, the more successful competitor?

It offers the same discount MS offered and even if they take this chance to bump their price, I doubt they will go for a 200% hike on their yearly rate.

@GunValkyrie and they made F2P free !?! Wow that didn’t take long.

Well seems the backlash worked. Prices will be reverting to normal and free to play games will no longer require it.

@Casco really?

@Kefka2589 Well, considering Microsoft reverted everything, and Jeff Grubb stated even MS people were caught off guard, I guess they disagree with the take.