It's been a busy old month since Asha Sharma took the reigns as Xbox boss over at Microsoft HQ, and according to a new report from The Information, she's already considering how she can lower costs for Xbox Game Pass.
The report says that, "according to people she’s spoken to", Sharma has explored ways to make Game Pass (and apparently even consoles) more "enticing" to more people, which could involve a new tier of XGP in the process.
"To try to win over new gamers, Sharma has been considering ways to make future consoles and products like Game Pass more enticing to a broader range of customers, including potentially revamping pricing models to offer lower-priced tiers, according to people she’s spoken to."
There have long been rumours about Xbox potentially adding ads into Xbox Game Pass in order to provide a low-cost tier, and although the report says nothing about this, we assume this is something Team Xbox could be looking into.
Interestingly, the report cites Netflix co-CEO Greg Peters as well, who mentions he's been meeting with Asha Sharma and has "kicked around ideas" with the Xbox boss about how they could potentially partner on subscription bundles in the future. There are apparently "no solid plans" for this, but Peters "wouldn’t eliminate any possibilities".
Here's a bit more of what he had to say about a potential partnership:
"You would have to do it in a way that works for the consumer and works for both companies, and frankly, I think Microsoft’s still trying to figure out how to make the Game Pass bundle work for Microsoft. But what I like about Asha’s thinking is, it’s all about, how do we do more? And it’s already been exciting to watch."
Now, as always with reports like this, we don't suggest reading into it too much. While it's interesting to get inside information from "people she’s spoken to", it likely doesn't paint the full picture of what Sharma is planning at Xbox.
The other thing is that Sharma is still new to the Microsoft Gaming CEO role and the industry in general, so it's literally her job to be "considering" all possibilities right now. That doesn't necessarily mean she's going to put all of them into practice, especially when it comes to Game Pass which has traditionally gone up in price rather than down.
We'll have to wait and see - hopefully the Xbox boss will clarify all of this in the not too distant future.