Microsoft backtracks Xbox Live Gold price hike, also ends membership requirement for Free-to-Play Games [2021-01-22]

[ProgStopper]

@Mort

Does that make it any less expensive or invalidate any of my points?

No.

[BadNews]

this is awful if true because you can get PS+ for $60 12 month and you get much better selection of monthly games.

I think best thing Microsoft should do is scrap gold and gwg, and just focus on gamepass and make multiplayer free or cost as cheap as Nintendo online does. I think Microsoft needs to explain their plans with gold very soon because it has become awful these past couple of months

[Fiendflag]

@Mort

That’s way too expensive. It shouldnt exist at all tbh, not with all this talk about the Xbox ecosystem. Why is there a tax on console MP but not on PC? Yeah, no that is bs.

I subscribe to XGP Ultimate so it doesn’t matter to me personally but considering that PC MP is free, GwG is sheit compared to PS+ games and F2P MP is actually F2P on PS this just looks bad.

If this is indeed true it is pretty shitty…as you said PC mp is free, the games even if they were as good as PS+ (which aren’t that much better IMO) are definitely not worth double the price plus the f2p mp access and being able to party chat (both don’t require a sub on the PS5) being behind the gold paywall make this even worse.

Having to spend 120 dollars for basic online multiplayer a year on Xbox when the competition offers the same for half the price? I don’t get it.

[andrew_schmidt (HaloGaming08)]

My tweet about this topic

[Ruthwik_Rao]

@Fiendflag

If this is indeed true it is pretty shitty…as you said PC mp is free, the games even if they were as good as PS+ (which aren’t that much better IMO) are definitely not worth double the price plus the f2p mp access and being able to party chat (both don’t require a sub on the PS5) being behind the gold paywall make this even worse.

Having to spend 120 dollars for basic online multiplayer a year on Xbox when the competition offers the same for half the price? I don’t get it.

Not even half the price on playstation if you solely play the likes of fortnite, war zone, apex, so on, it’ll literally be zero for f2p games, I still don’t know what the fuck Xbox is thinking. MAKE F2P ACTUALLY F2P ASAP GUYS.

Imagine you’re that above mentioned casual and you buy two big games a year alongside playing just those f2p games. That 120 dollars you saved from not choosing Xbox could go to two whole AAA games (let’s ignore 70 dollar pricing for now, like you get it on sale, or some are cheaper than 70, etc). Don’t forget, these people are the actual market, not the self professed hardcore gamers arguing on twitter and forums like these. Like, in what way is Xbox making any good proposition for them to consider Xbox over playstation?

Hard mode: no gamepass. Xbox can’t just plaster every problem with “lol but gamepass tho?”.

[Opatschi]

Ehh not cool

[Staffy]

@andrew_schmidt

My tweet about this topic

Wtf. XCloud users don’t pay? Yeah this ain’t good.

And to think that some actually thought last year that Gold was going away, far from it, it seems.

[BadNews]

@andrew_schmidt

My tweet about this topic

yeah that’s a valid point, and Microsoft has some explaining to do because it seems like there’s a tax for playing multiplayer games on consoles

[Mort]

@BadNews

yeah that’s a valid point, and Microsoft has some explaining to do because it seems like there’s a tax for playing multiplayer games on consoles

At least make it less bad, like PS+. You can’t have both more expensive AND worse. Xbox never learns. A casual Fortnite-muppet won’t go with the console that charges another $120 to play the game.

[Ruthwik_Rao]

@Staffy

Wtf. XCloud users don’t pay? Yeah this ain’t good.

And to think that some actually thought last year that Gold was going away, far from it, it seems.

Xcloud users don’t pay by the virtue of it being only included in game pass ultimate right now which comes with gold already.

[BadNews]

@Mort

At least make it less bad, like PS+. You can’t have both more expensive AND worse. Xbox never learns. A casual Fortnite-muppet won’t go with the console that charges another $120 to play the game.

They def need to drop paying online for free to play games because every other platform does that

[Fiendflag]

@Ruthwik_Rao

…u solely play the likes of fortnite, war zone, apex, so on, it’ll literally be zero for f2p games, I still don’t know what the fuck Xbox is thinking. MAKE F2P ACTUALLY F2P ASAP GUYS. Imagine you’re that above mentioned casual and you buy two big games a year alongside playing just those f2p games. That 120 dollars you saved from not choosing Xbox could go to two whole AAA games (let’s ignore 70 dollar pricing for now, like you get it on sale, or some are cheaper than 70, etc). Don’t forget, these people are the actual market, not the self professed hardcore gamers arguing on twitter and forums like these. Like, in what way is Xbox making any good proposition for them to consider Xbox over playstation? Hard mode: no gamepass. Xbox can’t just plaster every problem with “lol but gamepass tho?”.

I totally agree that this can’t be brushed off as something that “will try to make people sub to gamepass”, this is just bad. If you want more people to sub to gamepass just make it better and more enticing and success will come, you don’t double the price of your already inexcusable “access to basic mp and party chat” sub to force people to sub to your other more expensive subscription.

Phil said many times that it’s all about choice and (as Klob said in Andrew’s tweet) that the gamer is the center for eveything xbox, this move simply contradicts both statements. I think that we can all agree that this is definitely not a pro consumer decision (if it turns out to be true of course).

[Ruthwik_Rao]

@Fiendflag

I totally agree that this can’t be brushed off as something that “will try to make people sub to gamepass”, this is just bad. If you want more people to sub to gamepass just make it better and more enticing and success will come, you don’t double the price of your already inexcusable “access to basic mp and party chat” sub to force people to sub to your other more expensive subscription.

Phil said many times that it’s all about choice and (as Klob said in Andrew’s tweet) that the gamer is the center for eveything xbox, this move simply contradicts both statements. I think that we can all agree that this is definitely not a pro consumer decision (if it turns out to be true of course).

All no

[Ruthwik_Rao]

There are people arguing that this is because xbox subtly wants people to get into Gamepass Ultimate.

But when you tout the “best value in gaming”, that value should come by the virtue of itself, not by artificially making supporting services trash in comparison. This is clearly the latter. “Make gold look bad so gamepass looks good.” That’s not choice at that point, but a mere illusion of it.

[Kris]

I’m hopeful that the team at Xbox didn’t misread the room ‘that’ badly as to double the price of one of their services, during a global pandemic, straight after they’ve asked their fans to spend £450 on a brand new product, without making a single improvement to the service to justify a price increase that dramatic.

The optimistic half of my brain is telling me that this has just been revealed prematurely to them announcing the Gold revamp that was being whispered about last year. But then there’s the pessimistic half of my brain…

[Thanathorn]

I can play Minecraft online for free on PC but if you want to do it on Xbox you have to pay. How does that make any sense? Xbox Live Gold is obviously good money and no smart company would throw away a good revenue flow for free but it doesn’t make any sense with the current Gamepass model. If anything Gold should be cheaper, not more expensive.

[RayDonaldson (Ray)]

I guess positivity towards the brand was on an incline. Can’t have that, now can we?

[BlackheartVinyl]

Oh yikes. That’s bad. I guess they wanna shuffle most everyone into GPU, but I don’t think this is a great way to do that at all.

That being said, if you’re not on GPU, you’re doing Xbox wrong.

[TheGriizlyBear (Dan)]

Who’s ready for an epic tinfoil hat theory?

Microsoft removes the option to buy a 12 month subscription, and several months later bumps up the price of a sixth month subscription.

What does this do? Limits the amount of people buying long-form subscriptions of XBL Gold.

Suddenly, fewer and fewer people have subscriptions spanning past the next few months which makes it a much easier transition when Microsoft… Gets rid of XBL Gold entirely.

Everyone with any built up months gets changed to Xbox Game Pass or Ultimate which is the same price as XBL Gold now and Microsoft doesn’t have to eat a loss because fewer people have extra months and the price of the subscriptions are the same.

Right???!!?

somebody say right please

[cupcake]

minus ruthwick. i don’t think any sane person would pay more than 60$ a year for gold. hence this is a joke.