@Gabrie The problem is more than half of Game Pass subscribers would have to completely cancel their subscription in order for it to make a dent in Microsoft's wallet, and that definitely won't happen.
That's why Microsoft is unfortunately not gonna walk back the price hike; they don't care if a lot of people unsubscribe from the service, as long as most of them stick around, they'll still be making more money than they did before.
The question is, though, how exactly does Microsoft expect to keep Game Pass as a growing business as they continue to price out more and more people? Obviously Game Pass will go up in price again in the future, it might be $35 a month or even $40 a month. They won't attract many new users with those prices, and there's only so many price hikes you can do until you actually start losing subscribers en masse.
@GeeEssEff You're right, Sony does still make it easy for indies to get PS5 dev kits (since they give them away for free). Despite them being more expensive than Xbox's kits, the price is probably not that much of a burden for larger devs.
@IOI Not really a spin, just pointing out the facts. Yes, Microsoft deserves most of the smoke they've gotten, but the exaggerations and hyper-dramatization of everything Xbox-related does get tiring at some point. I've seen some people claim that this will lead to less indie games coming to Xbox, and that's either an uninformed take or a disingenuous one.
@dskatter @GeeEssEff I heard about it on a couple of sites, and I also saw a dev on social media claiming as such, too.
According to this site (https://generalistprogrammer.com/tutorials/playstation-game-development-complete-console-guide-2025), the PS5 dev kit does indeed cost $2500.
And I've found multiple sites, like Polygon, Techicy, and Xsolla, that say that the PS4 dev kit was, at one point, $2500 as well. Which is more than what the Xbox One dev kit cost upon its initial release in 2013. That adds credence to the idea that the PS5 dev kit would also cost the same.
In reality, the prices for dev kits probably vary depending on the company they're being supplied to, but there's evidence that suggests that PlayStation dev kits have historically been more expensive than Xbox kits for a long time.
@dskatter It's worth noting that Microsoft still gives away free dev kits to any company who signs up for the ID@Xbox program, and that Xbox dev kits are still cheaper than the PlayStation ones, even with this price hike. Sony charges $2500 for each dev kit.
Either way, this should only impact major developers/publishers, not so much indie ones. But it sucks for those companies regardless.
@themightyant No problem! To my knowledge, though, you can still technically subscribe to both Xbox Game Pass for Console and Xbox Game Pass Essential at the same time if you want. That way, you could get online and cloud features while still paying for GP Console.
@themightyant I don't have Game Pass for Console, but it only costs $11 per month AND it includes all day-one games. Microsoft even confirmed to Polygon this month, that in spite of the $30 Game Pass price hike, Game Pass for Console subscribers will still get day-one games as usual with no adjustments to pricing.
@themightyant Yes, the console tier still exists, but only a few people have it. You unsubscribe from GP Console once and you won't be able to subscribe ever again.
Rest in peace, such a shame we will never get to see another game from him again. I was really hoping that he would announce something soon. I wonder if Itagaki Games will continue working on their current unannounced project.
@GeeEssEff Plus, if you really go to the effort of boycotting an entire publisher's games, just because they skipped Xbox a handful of times, then there's a good chance you never actually cared about playing the games to begin with. Anyone who really wants to play FF7 Remake would not deliberately prevent themselves from buying the game on Xbox simply because it skipped the platform in the past. And besides, Square Enix really does want to support Xbox these days. Just look at how much stuff they've brought over lately.
@ButterySmooth30FPS Everwild was always going to be a live service multiplayer game, much like Sea of Thieves. Rare is done with traditional singleplayer stuff.
@Tdx I agree, the indie games should be on Premium, as well.
What's weird, though, is that Supermarket Simulator, which released on Xbox Game Pass and Xbox today, is on both Game Pass Premium and Ultimate, despite it being a day-one game. So maybe some indie titles will be on both tiers, and others won't be?
@BAMozzy If you actually owned a game, you would be able to do whatever you want with it, like print multiple copies of the game and sell it illegally. But ofc, you can't do that.
@dskatter That's true, also my bad for getting the price wrong.
Thing is, there are a lot of people who don't have the time to finish more than one game a month, and if you're the type of person who's gonna spend a lot of time in Powerwash Simulator, you're better off just buying this outright.
Like, I'm sure most Game Pass subscribers (myself included) check out several different games during a given month, but they don't always complete more than one game each time.
@Fiendish-Beaver By June 2027, Game Pass Ultimate will be $50 a month, and it will include a membership to GTA+ or something, which you will never use.
Since the game costs $20, there's no real point in playing this on Game Pass, given that you actually lose $10 by doing so. This would have been acceptable with the previous price for GP Ultimate, but with the new one? Not so much.
You're gonna have to play and finish at least one other game within a month to make your Game Pass worth it. Preferably something that costs $70, like Ninja Gaiden 4, for example.
@Weebleman Thanks, and yes, that is true. Microsoft is still losing money when ppl sub to Game Pass for $20 (or even $30) a month just to play one brand-new $70 game and cancel immediately afterward.
And by the way, I could be wrong on this, but I think the "removing the $1 trial" thing is something that Microsoft has only recently started to do. If I remember correctly, you could actually sub to Game Pass for $1 in the same month when something like Halo Infinite was released.
Maybe this is me being naive, but I think if Phil actually had full, unrestricted control over Xbox (without having to worry about Satya and the shareholders or whatnot), he would have handled things at least somewhat differently over how he's currently handling things now.
@Mincey0 No one from Brazil is gonna sub to Game Pass anymore lol, Microsoft killed their audience in that region with the price hikes.
And Xbox was actually decently popular in Brazil, despite the fact that Xbox normally doesn't do that well internationally.
All I'm saying is that the "reducing Game Pass to an app on smart TVs" thing is a stupid idea, that won't actually work in the long run. Most gamers, even in America, won't sub to Game Pass for cloud streaming.
Don't get me wrong, though, I do like xCloud as an option. Just not as the sole or primary thing.
Tbh this discovery probably doesn't mean anything because it seems that these "platform slots" have nothing to do with platforms at all and are just blank spaces they put in the site a year ago, so that the PS5 and Steam logos can remain centered.
From what I can tell, Bloober Team hasn't actually modified the Silent Hill 2 page on their website in months, so this isn't really anything of note.
NateTheHate did say, however, that he heard Silent Hill 2 will be coming to Xbox and Switch 2 in the future, so there's that.
@Mincey0 The problem with that strategy is, that xCloud isn't available in most of the regions where Xbox consoles are sold.
The countries that Microsoft's recent Game Pass price increases have hit the hardest, namely the ones with weaker economies, like Brazil, do not have access to xCloud at all. So trying to sell Game Pass as an app on smart TVs is pointless in those places, without having any hardware to sell alongside it.
Microsoft could make xCloud available in more regions, sure, but they haven't hinted at any plans to do such a thing. Even though xCloud is no longer in beta, they haven't added any more regions to the service.
@OldGamer999 What I don't understand is that Microsoft really wanted to grow Game Pass and reach 100 million subscribers. Yet halfway through reaching that goal, they decided to stop caring about selling Xbox consoles completely, and they did this "everything is an Xbox" ad campaign.
Microsoft seemingly doesn't realize that, if they actually tried to sell Xbox consoles, Game Pass would have grown considerably as well, because most GP users are on console, not PC or cloud.
They cannot grow Game Pass by a massive amount with the strategy they're using now. They need to actually put in effort to sell their consoles in order to do so.
@Aidax89 Like with consoles, it seems Microsoft isn't in the consumer acquisition phase for Game Pass anymore. At least, not for the Ultimate tier, they're still trying to find growth on PC w/ PC Game Pass.
So, in their eyes, they probably don't care about growing Game Pass Ultimate subs that much anymore, and they just want to generate more money off of the existing subscribers. If enough people continue to subscribe to the Ultimate tier, the $10 price increase will more than make up for those who canceled their subscriptions. And they'll be making more profit than they did beforehand.
Of course, I don't know if this is actually the case, but this is likely Microsoft's mindset.
@Weebleman The answer to that question is zero because there was no $1 trial for Game Pass Ultimate when CoD Black Ops 6 was released. Microsoft knows people will try to pull stunts like that, so they deliberately get rid of the free trials for Ultimate in the weeks before and after one of their major releases.
@darylb24 I don't think Judson Althoff being involved is as big a deal as you think because Xbox is part of Microsoft's Consumer Business division, not their Commercial Business one. Althoff is now in charge of the latter.
@AverageJoseph Yeah, the thing I don't get is, why is Microsoft planning to spend millions of dollars to get third-party games on the service day-one, if they don't want anyone to subscribe to Ultimate? It makes no sense, especially since they claim that they're gonna add more day-one games than ever before.
Seems to me Microsoft believes enough people will still pay for Ultimate to make up for the loss in subscribers, while still making more profit than before.
Also, on a related note, the thing about Microsoft reportedly losing $300 million on CoD sales due to Game Pass doesn't really factor in the amount of people who played the game but would not have bought it otherwise. So it's missing a lot of context.
It's not worth the money at all, you can buy almost all of those Ubisoft games for a fraction of the price on sale. If GPU included Ubisoft+ Premium, meaning we got all Ubisoft games on the service day-one as well as all DLCs, then I'd be more understanding of the price increase. But that's not gonna happen.
@Cikajovazmaj It's just two minutes of ads for a one hour cloud streaming session. GeForce Now has the same exact thing, ads and all.
Yes, yes, this is a slippery slope and all, but you're not spending much time on watching this stuff. Free w/ two minute of ads is still free, you're not paying anything. I'm not sure why people are getting that upset over this because it's literally just an additional demo service, I don't think Microsoft is actually expecting people to play games for 5 hours a month.
If Microsoft starts putting ads in paid tiers of Game Pass, which I wouldn't put past them to do, then I'd be legitimately upset. While I can see why you're critical of the ads part in particular, I don't think the idea of a free cloud gaming tier is bad in and of itself.
@SeaDaVie I believe I saw a chart of every day one Game Pass game ever added to the service or something not too long ago, I'll try to see if I can find it.
Edit: I couldn't find the chart I was thinking of, but I did find this list that contains every game that has ever been added to Game Pass. The chart mentions the release date of every game, as well as when they were added to the service, so you can check it out for yourself if you're interested.
@Fiendish-Beaver Well, in this case, I would say quantity counts as well. If Game Pass Ultimate gets only 5-10 outstanding AAA games in a year, then it's not worth the money anymore, especially since you can just buy the games for roughly the same price.
Quality isn't enough, you can't just have a few amazing games and call it a day. For the price they're charging, they need quality AND quantity. They need more day-one games on the service, and they need to be mostly AAA $70 titles.
Like I said in my other comment on this article, if they could get more major AAA third-party games on the service day-one, like Resident Evil Requiem, Crimson Desert, etc., then the price increase would be a bit more easy to swallow. But that's not gonna happen.
If these 75+ day-one games included blockbuster third-party AAA titles like Resident Evil Requiem, Battlefield 6, Dragon Quest 7 Reimagined, Yakuza Kiwami 3, etc. then maybe I'd be more accepting of the $30 price increase and potentially justify it. But most likely those 75+ day one games will consist largely of indie games, rather than any big AAA non-Microsoft titles.
They say they're listening to the feedback of players and yet they're forcefully adding stuff to the service that literally no one asked for. Like, the Fortnite Crew stuff makes no sense because the overlap between hardcore Game Pass fans and diehard Fortnite enthusiasts is probably pretty slim. Most ppl interested enough in getting a subscription to Fortnite will not want to sub to Game Pass, because they are typically casuals who only want to play Fortnite and a few other mainstream games.
Game Pass subscribers on the other hand most likely do not have as much interest in Fortnite or live service games, since they're trying to check out multiple singleplayer titles on the service.
@The-Doc It's not hard to find something decent on Game Pass, this year has (or should I say WAS) one of the best years for the service. I mean, seriously, three of this year's GOTY contenders, Clair Obscur, Silksong, and Blue Prince, dropped into Game Pass on day-one.
Now, however, it will be very hard to justify paying $30 a month for the service, even if there's a game you really want to play.
@FraserG At the bare minimum, they could have bumped the price of Ultimate up to $25 and made a separate tier called Ultimate Plus that includes all the extra content, like Fortnite and Ubisoft Classics. People would have still been pissed but at least that way, it wouldn't have been as bad.
So basically if you don't finish one of those day-one Game Pass games in a single month, you wasted your money and you may as well have bought the game at full price
@Markatron84 It's just a chart lol, it's not that serious. Seems you've never seen a roadmap that catalogues everything from a specific date onwards in your entire life.
This is just pointless semantics, and it's stupid to argue about it.
@Markatron84 Good thing this isn't an official business roadmap, then. This a roadmap that's meant to show everything Microsoft has released since 2020. Which is, you know, when Klobrille started doing this.
@ProjectCancelled You do realize that the roadmap is supposed to show everything that Microsoft has ever released since the beginning of this generation, right? If it didn't include old games, that would defeat its purpose.
@BaldB3lper78 Not sure why you think they're basing Xbox's growth exclusively on console sales. Of course, when they say that they're experiencing the most growth in Asia, they're likely also referring to cloud gaming users, PC Game Pass subscribers, Microsoft Store users, etc.
And yeah, yeah, the sales are miniscule compared to PS and Nintendo, but people often forget that the Xbox Series X/S is the second best-selling Xbox in Japan, so they must be doing something right.
Comments 521
Re: Roundup: Here's What The Reviews Say About PowerWash Simulator 2 On Xbox Game Pass
@Gabrie The problem is more than half of Game Pass subscribers would have to completely cancel their subscription in order for it to make a dent in Microsoft's wallet, and that definitely won't happen.
That's why Microsoft is unfortunately not gonna walk back the price hike; they don't care if a lot of people unsubscribe from the service, as long as most of them stick around, they'll still be making more money than they did before.
The question is, though, how exactly does Microsoft expect to keep Game Pass as a growing business as they continue to price out more and more people? Obviously Game Pass will go up in price again in the future, it might be $35 a month or even $40 a month. They won't attract many new users with those prices, and there's only so many price hikes you can do until you actually start losing subscribers en masse.
Re: Microsoft Is Reportedly Increasing The Cost Of Xbox Dev Kits In Latest Price Hike
@GeeEssEff You're right, Sony does still make it easy for indies to get PS5 dev kits (since they give them away for free). Despite them being more expensive than Xbox's kits, the price is probably not that much of a burden for larger devs.
Re: Microsoft Is Reportedly Increasing The Cost Of Xbox Dev Kits In Latest Price Hike
@dskatter No problem!
Re: Microsoft Is Reportedly Increasing The Cost Of Xbox Dev Kits In Latest Price Hike
@IOI Not really a spin, just pointing out the facts. Yes, Microsoft deserves most of the smoke they've gotten, but the exaggerations and hyper-dramatization of everything Xbox-related does get tiring at some point. I've seen some people claim that this will lead to less indie games coming to Xbox, and that's either an uninformed take or a disingenuous one.
Re: Microsoft Is Reportedly Increasing The Cost Of Xbox Dev Kits In Latest Price Hike
@dskatter @GeeEssEff I heard about it on a couple of sites, and I also saw a dev on social media claiming as such, too.
According to this site (https://generalistprogrammer.com/tutorials/playstation-game-development-complete-console-guide-2025), the PS5 dev kit does indeed cost $2500.
And I've found multiple sites, like Polygon, Techicy, and Xsolla, that say that the PS4 dev kit was, at one point, $2500 as well. Which is more than what the Xbox One dev kit cost upon its initial release in 2013. That adds credence to the idea that the PS5 dev kit would also cost the same.
https://www.polygon.com/2013/7/24/4553842/so-how-much-does-it-cost-to-develop-for-playstation-4/
https://xsolla.com/blog/score-dev-kits-for-xbox-playstation-and-nintendo
https://www.techicy.com/heres-how-to-get-your-hands-on-the-ps5-dev-kit.html
In reality, the prices for dev kits probably vary depending on the company they're being supplied to, but there's evidence that suggests that PlayStation dev kits have historically been more expensive than Xbox kits for a long time.
Re: Microsoft Is Reportedly Increasing The Cost Of Xbox Dev Kits In Latest Price Hike
@dskatter It's worth noting that Microsoft still gives away free dev kits to any company who signs up for the ID@Xbox program, and that Xbox dev kits are still cheaper than the PlayStation ones, even with this price hike. Sony charges $2500 for each dev kit.
Either way, this should only impact major developers/publishers, not so much indie ones. But it sucks for those companies regardless.
Re: The Sinking City 2 Suffers Last Minute Delay, Now Aiming For The First Half Of 2026
Why does the guy in that thumbnail look like Indiana Jones...?
Re: Double Fine's Keeper Is Available Today With Xbox Game Pass (October 17)
@themightyant No problem! To my knowledge, though, you can still technically subscribe to both Xbox Game Pass for Console and Xbox Game Pass Essential at the same time if you want. That way, you could get online and cloud features while still paying for GP Console.
Re: Double Fine's Keeper Is Available Today With Xbox Game Pass (October 17)
@themightyant I don't have Game Pass for Console, but it only costs $11 per month AND it includes all day-one games. Microsoft even confirmed to Polygon this month, that in spite of the $30 Game Pass price hike, Game Pass for Console subscribers will still get day-one games as usual with no adjustments to pricing.
https://www.polygon.com/xbox-game-pass-console-grandfather-accounts/
You basically get to play stuff like CoD and NG4 for a fraction of the cost that you would by paying for Ultimate.
Re: Double Fine's Keeper Is Available Today With Xbox Game Pass (October 17)
@themightyant Yes, the console tier still exists, but only a few people have it. You unsubscribe from GP Console once and you won't be able to subscribe ever again.
Re: Ninja Gaiden & Dead Or Alive Director Tomonobu Itagaki Has Passed Away
Rest in peace, such a shame we will never get to see another game from him again. I was really hoping that he would announce something soon. I wonder if Itagaki Games will continue working on their current unannounced project.
Re: Absolum Studio Clarifies Xbox Situation, Tells Fans To 'Stay Tuned For Upcoming Announcements'
@GeeEssEff Plus, if you really go to the effort of boycotting an entire publisher's games, just because they skipped Xbox a handful of times, then there's a good chance you never actually cared about playing the games to begin with. Anyone who really wants to play FF7 Remake would not deliberately prevent themselves from buying the game on Xbox simply because it skipped the platform in the past. And besides, Square Enix really does want to support Xbox these days. Just look at how much stuff they've brought over lately.
Re: Everwild Screenshots Leak Online Several Months After Xbox Cancellation
@ButterySmooth30FPS Everwild was always going to be a live service multiplayer game, much like Sea of Thieves. Rare is done with traditional singleplayer stuff.
Re: These 12 Games Are Coming To Xbox Game Pass (October 8-21)
@Tdx I agree, the indie games should be on Premium, as well.
What's weird, though, is that Supermarket Simulator, which released on Xbox Game Pass and Xbox today, is on both Game Pass Premium and Ultimate, despite it being a day-one game. So maybe some indie titles will be on both tiers, and others won't be?
Re: New Silent Hill F Xbox Advertisement Makes It Clear You're Only Buying A 'License'
@BAMozzy If you actually owned a game, you would be able to do whatever you want with it, like print multiple copies of the game and sell it illegally. But ofc, you can't do that.
Re: PowerWash Simulator 2 Gets Official Release Date, Coming To Game Pass This Month
@dskatter That's true, also my bad for getting the price wrong.
Thing is, there are a lot of people who don't have the time to finish more than one game a month, and if you're the type of person who's gonna spend a lot of time in Powerwash Simulator, you're better off just buying this outright.
Like, I'm sure most Game Pass subscribers (myself included) check out several different games during a given month, but they don't always complete more than one game each time.
Re: Strange Xbox Email Suggests Game Pass Price Increase Doesn't Apply To Certain Members
@Fiendish-Beaver By June 2027, Game Pass Ultimate will be $50 a month, and it will include a membership to GTA+ or something, which you will never use.
Re: PowerWash Simulator 2 Gets Official Release Date, Coming To Game Pass This Month
Since the game costs $20, there's no real point in playing this on Game Pass, given that you actually lose $10 by doing so. This would have been acceptable with the previous price for GP Ultimate, but with the new one? Not so much.
You're gonna have to play and finish at least one other game within a month to make your Game Pass worth it. Preferably something that costs $70, like Ninja Gaiden 4, for example.
Re: New COD Sales 'Estimate' Helps Explain Xbox's Price Hike For Day One Game Pass Releases
@Weebleman Thanks, and yes, that is true. Microsoft is still losing money when ppl sub to Game Pass for $20 (or even $30) a month just to play one brand-new $70 game and cancel immediately afterward.
And by the way, I could be wrong on this, but I think the "removing the $1 trial" thing is something that Microsoft has only recently started to do. If I remember correctly, you could actually sub to Game Pass for $1 in the same month when something like Halo Infinite was released.
Re: Fable's Peter Molyneux Describes Xbox Boss As 'One Of The Best People I've Worked With'
Maybe this is me being naive, but I think if Phil actually had full, unrestricted control over Xbox (without having to worry about Satya and the shareholders or whatnot), he would have handled things at least somewhat differently over how he's currently handling things now.
Re: New COD Sales 'Estimate' Helps Explain Xbox's Price Hike For Day One Game Pass Releases
@Mincey0 No one from Brazil is gonna sub to Game Pass anymore lol, Microsoft killed their audience in that region with the price hikes.
And Xbox was actually decently popular in Brazil, despite the fact that Xbox normally doesn't do that well internationally.
All I'm saying is that the "reducing Game Pass to an app on smart TVs" thing is a stupid idea, that won't actually work in the long run. Most gamers, even in America, won't sub to Game Pass for cloud streaming.
Don't get me wrong, though, I do like xCloud as an option. Just not as the sole or primary thing.
Re: It Looks Like The Silent Hill 2 Remake Is About To Go Fully Multiplatform
Tbh this discovery probably doesn't mean anything because it seems that these "platform slots" have nothing to do with platforms at all and are just blank spaces they put in the site a year ago, so that the PS5 and Steam logos can remain centered.
From what I can tell, Bloober Team hasn't actually modified the Silent Hill 2 page on their website in months, so this isn't really anything of note.
NateTheHate did say, however, that he heard Silent Hill 2 will be coming to Xbox and Switch 2 in the future, so there's that.
Re: New COD Sales 'Estimate' Helps Explain Xbox's Price Hike For Day One Game Pass Releases
@Mincey0 The problem with that strategy is, that xCloud isn't available in most of the regions where Xbox consoles are sold.
The countries that Microsoft's recent Game Pass price increases have hit the hardest, namely the ones with weaker economies, like Brazil, do not have access to xCloud at all. So trying to sell Game Pass as an app on smart TVs is pointless in those places, without having any hardware to sell alongside it.
Microsoft could make xCloud available in more regions, sure, but they haven't hinted at any plans to do such a thing. Even though xCloud is no longer in beta, they haven't added any more regions to the service.
Re: It Looks Like The Silent Hill 2 Remake Is About To Go Fully Multiplatform
@Fiendish-Beaver Just buy it on Xbox, your digital library won't disappear anytime soon, no matter what Microsoft does with hardware
If you want to get it for cheaper, though, then you should get it on PS5 or PC
Re: New COD Sales 'Estimate' Helps Explain Xbox's Price Hike For Day One Game Pass Releases
@OldGamer999 What I don't understand is that Microsoft really wanted to grow Game Pass and reach 100 million subscribers. Yet halfway through reaching that goal, they decided to stop caring about selling Xbox consoles completely, and they did this "everything is an Xbox" ad campaign.
Microsoft seemingly doesn't realize that, if they actually tried to sell Xbox consoles, Game Pass would have grown considerably as well, because most GP users are on console, not PC or cloud.
They cannot grow Game Pass by a massive amount with the strategy they're using now. They need to actually put in effort to sell their consoles in order to do so.
Re: New COD Sales 'Estimate' Helps Explain Xbox's Price Hike For Day One Game Pass Releases
@Aidax89 Like with consoles, it seems Microsoft isn't in the consumer acquisition phase for Game Pass anymore. At least, not for the Ultimate tier, they're still trying to find growth on PC w/ PC Game Pass.
So, in their eyes, they probably don't care about growing Game Pass Ultimate subs that much anymore, and they just want to generate more money off of the existing subscribers. If enough people continue to subscribe to the Ultimate tier, the $10 price increase will more than make up for those who canceled their subscriptions. And they'll be making more profit than they did beforehand.
Of course, I don't know if this is actually the case, but this is likely Microsoft's mindset.
Re: New COD Sales 'Estimate' Helps Explain Xbox's Price Hike For Day One Game Pass Releases
@Weebleman The answer to that question is zero because there was no $1 trial for Game Pass Ultimate when CoD Black Ops 6 was released. Microsoft knows people will try to pull stunts like that, so they deliberately get rid of the free trials for Ultimate in the weeks before and after one of their major releases.
Re: Multiple Xbox Games Temporarily Delisted Due To Security Issue With The Unity Engine
@darylb24 I don't think Judson Althoff being involved is as big a deal as you think because Xbox is part of Microsoft's Consumer Business division, not their Commercial Business one. Althoff is now in charge of the latter.
Re: Talking Point: How Do You Feel About Ubisoft+ Classics Being Added To Game Pass Ultimate?
@AverageJoseph Yeah, the thing I don't get is, why is Microsoft planning to spend millions of dollars to get third-party games on the service day-one, if they don't want anyone to subscribe to Ultimate? It makes no sense, especially since they claim that they're gonna add more day-one games than ever before.
Seems to me Microsoft believes enough people will still pay for Ultimate to make up for the loss in subscribers, while still making more profit than before.
Also, on a related note, the thing about Microsoft reportedly losing $300 million on CoD sales due to Game Pass doesn't really factor in the amount of people who played the game but would not have bought it otherwise. So it's missing a lot of context.
Re: Talking Point: How Do You Feel About Ubisoft+ Classics Being Added To Game Pass Ultimate?
It's not worth the money at all, you can buy almost all of those Ubisoft games for a fraction of the price on sale. If GPU included Ubisoft+ Premium, meaning we got all Ubisoft games on the service day-one as well as all DLCs, then I'd be more understanding of the price increase. But that's not gonna happen.
Re: Microsoft Set To Announce 'Free' Xbox Cloud Gaming Tier With Ads
@Cikajovazmaj It's just two minutes of ads for a one hour cloud streaming session. GeForce Now has the same exact thing, ads and all.
Yes, yes, this is a slippery slope and all, but you're not spending much time on watching this stuff. Free w/ two minute of ads is still free, you're not paying anything. I'm not sure why people are getting that upset over this because it's literally just an additional demo service, I don't think Microsoft is actually expecting people to play games for 5 hours a month.
If Microsoft starts putting ads in paid tiers of Game Pass, which I wouldn't put past them to do, then I'd be legitimately upset. While I can see why you're critical of the ads part in particular, I don't think the idea of a free cloud gaming tier is bad in and of itself.
Re: Microsoft Set To Announce 'Free' Xbox Cloud Gaming Tier With Ads
@Cikajovazmaj This is supposed to be free, there is no deal lol.
Re: Xbox Game Pass Ultimate Will Now Get 75+ Day One Titles Per Year, A '50% Increase' On Before
@SeaDaVie I believe I saw a chart of every day one Game Pass game ever added to the service or something not too long ago, I'll try to see if I can find it.
Edit: I couldn't find the chart I was thinking of, but I did find this list that contains every game that has ever been added to Game Pass. The chart mentions the release date of every game, as well as when they were added to the service, so you can check it out for yourself if you're interested.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1kspw-4paT-eE5-mrCrc4R9tg70lH2ZTFrJOUmOtOytg/htmlview#gid=0
Re: Xbox Game Pass Ultimate Will Now Get 75+ Day One Titles Per Year, A '50% Increase' On Before
@Fiendish-Beaver Well, in this case, I would say quantity counts as well. If Game Pass Ultimate gets only 5-10 outstanding AAA games in a year, then it's not worth the money anymore, especially since you can just buy the games for roughly the same price.
Quality isn't enough, you can't just have a few amazing games and call it a day. For the price they're charging, they need quality AND quantity. They need more day-one games on the service, and they need to be mostly AAA $70 titles.
Like I said in my other comment on this article, if they could get more major AAA third-party games on the service day-one, like Resident Evil Requiem, Crimson Desert, etc., then the price increase would be a bit more easy to swallow. But that's not gonna happen.
Re: Xbox Game Pass Ultimate Will Now Get 75+ Day One Titles Per Year, A '50% Increase' On Before
If these 75+ day-one games included blockbuster third-party AAA titles like Resident Evil Requiem, Battlefield 6, Dragon Quest 7 Reimagined, Yakuza Kiwami 3, etc. then maybe I'd be more accepting of the $30 price increase and potentially justify it. But most likely those 75+ day one games will consist largely of indie games, rather than any big AAA non-Microsoft titles.
Re: 'Price Increases Are Never Fun For Anybody' Says Xbox Exec Defending Game Pass Changes
They say they're listening to the feedback of players and yet they're forcefully adding stuff to the service that literally no one asked for. Like, the Fortnite Crew stuff makes no sense because the overlap between hardcore Game Pass fans and diehard Fortnite enthusiasts is probably pretty slim. Most ppl interested enough in getting a subscription to Fortnite will not want to sub to Game Pass, because they are typically casuals who only want to play Fortnite and a few other mainstream games.
Game Pass subscribers on the other hand most likely do not have as much interest in Fortnite or live service games, since they're trying to check out multiple singleplayer titles on the service.
Re: 'Price Increases Are Never Fun For Anybody' Says Xbox Exec Defending Game Pass Changes
@The-Doc It's not hard to find something decent on Game Pass, this year has (or should I say WAS) one of the best years for the service. I mean, seriously, three of this year's GOTY contenders, Clair Obscur, Silksong, and Blue Prince, dropped into Game Pass on day-one.
Now, however, it will be very hard to justify paying $30 a month for the service, even if there's a game you really want to play.
Re: Xbox Game Pass Premium May Be The Best-Value Tier Right Now, With Almost 50 Games Added
@FraserG At the bare minimum, they could have bumped the price of Ultimate up to $25 and made a separate tier called Ultimate Plus that includes all the extra content, like Fortnite and Ubisoft Classics. People would have still been pissed but at least that way, it wouldn't have been as bad.
Re: Xbox Game Pass Is Getting A Major Overhaul With New Names, Games & Price Changes
So basically if you don't finish one of those day-one Game Pass games in a single month, you wasted your money and you may as well have bought the game at full price
Re: Here's A Look At The Updated Xbox Game Studios Roadmap From September 2025
@Markatron84 It's just a chart lol, it's not that serious. Seems you've never seen a roadmap that catalogues everything from a specific date onwards in your entire life.
This is just pointless semantics, and it's stupid to argue about it.
Re: Multiple Yakuza Games Announced For Xbox At RGG Summit, Including Yakuza Kiwami 3
@BattleMonkey I think you can pre-order them, except for Yakuza 0 Director's Cut. Could be wrong, though.
Re: Here's A Look At The Updated Xbox Game Studios Roadmap From September 2025
@Markatron84 Good thing this isn't an official business roadmap, then. This a roadmap that's meant to show everything Microsoft has released since 2020. Which is, you know, when Klobrille started doing this.
Re: Xbox Boss Names Four Franchises That Fans Keep Asking To See Revived
@DaPrince Yeah, the Blue Dragon anime is based off the games.
Re: Here's A Look At The Updated Xbox Game Studios Roadmap From September 2025
@ProjectCancelled You do realize that the roadmap is supposed to show everything that Microsoft has ever released since the beginning of this generation, right? If it didn't include old games, that would defeat its purpose.
Re: Asia Is Now The Fastest Growing Region For Xbox, Says Sarah Bond
@BaldB3lper78 How is that even worse? Lol, you didn't expect the Series X/S to outsell the 360 in Japan, did you?
Re: Here's A Look At The Updated Xbox Game Studios Roadmap From September 2025
@Feffster They're gonna announce a new Halo game next month during the Halo Championships
Re: Asia Is Now The Fastest Growing Region For Xbox, Says Sarah Bond
@BaldB3lper78 Not sure why you think they're basing Xbox's growth exclusively on console sales. Of course, when they say that they're experiencing the most growth in Asia, they're likely also referring to cloud gaming users, PC Game Pass subscribers, Microsoft Store users, etc.
And yeah, yeah, the sales are miniscule compared to PS and Nintendo, but people often forget that the Xbox Series X/S is the second best-selling Xbox in Japan, so they must be doing something right.
Re: Capcom Is Bringing The First Two Monster Hunter Stories Games To Xbox In 2025
@Nighto4 It is discounted lol, you can get Monster Hunter Stories 1 and 2 together for $35, whereas the normal price is $60
Re: Multiple Yakuza Games Announced For Xbox At RGG Summit, Including Yakuza Kiwami 3
@BattleMonkey @Vipor007 All of the Yakuza games announced here are getting physical releases for Xbox, and not by Limited Run Games.
So yes, that means you can get an Xbox copy of Yakuza 0: Director's Cut, Yakuza Kiwami 1+2, and Yakuza Kiwami 3 physically.
Re: Capcom Is Bringing The First Two Monster Hunter Stories Games To Xbox In 2025
This is a dream come true, hopefully we get Mega Man Battle Network and The Great Ace Attorney on Xbox at some point