Just under a week ago, a report started getting a ton of attention when it suggested that new Xbox boss Asha Sharma might be considering a price revamp of sorts for Xbox Game Pass, potentially in the form of a new tier that could offer cheaper access to the service. From a consumer standpoint, we're always going to be happy with lower-priced options, but Baldur's Gate 3's publishing director has warned about the negative impacts it could have.
Speaking in response to that report last week, Michael Douse (known as Cromwelp on Twitter) suggested that because of things like mass layoffs, rising development costs and worsening hardware sales, it's very hard to "make quality games at low cost" if the industry (including Game Pass) is just trying to engage in "race to the bottom pricing".
Here's a sample of what he had to say:
When questioned about why players shouldn't want "quality games at low cost" by a commenter, Douse pointed to a humorous Austin Powers quote - "and I want a toilet made out of solid gold, but it's just not in the cards now is it?".
He then followed up by explaining that he of course wants gaming to be cheaper, but only if it's "sustainable not just for the platform but for the creators & their ambition", and that nobody has come up with a perfect solution yet.
"Whatever makes gaming cheaper for people I think is cool if it is sustainable not just for the platform but for the creators & their ambition. Still waiting for someone to come up with that."
We think this is a really interesting point from the BG3 exec that we hadn't fully considered until now, but we're also hopeful that Xbox can find ways around it - for example, there's a rumour that a new tier could involve just older first-party titles rather than anything new.
The point still stands though - if Xbox creates a new lower-priced tier, and then PlayStation does the same to match it, do we eventually get to a point where the "race to the bottom" becomes even more detrimental to the industry than it arguably is today? It's something we're sure Asha Sharma and her team at Xbox are already thinking about.