The same thing was said during the 360 generation and Xbox one generation yet price hikes were not necessary. If anything it should be a case by case basis as not all games have had 1000 or more people working on it and require such a price increase and trying to make this industry wide is a farce and an insult to us as consumers.
I think Gamepass in the end is a way to remedy that.
Due to the lack of a hike on the MSRP you saw things like Day 1 Purchasable DLC become a thing. We saw Special Editions become a thing. In many respects new practices became a standard for AAA (and some AA) games in order to deal with rising costs.
And it’s interesting that you brought up an important phrase here: industry-wide. Publishers probably balked at raising prices across the board last generation because the competition wasn’t doing it. And so we saw these alternative strategies at play.
Sony and 2K are in positions of strength and this time around they knew that at the end of the day the quality of the product will speak for itself. They are among the industry leaders in terms of sales so it might give other publishers the courage to follow suite. I wouldn’t be surprised if GTA 6 ends up being $70.
Tying this back to the main topic: MS could have obviously raised the price of Gold to adjust for inflation to maintain their profit margins, much like thesr game price increases, from $4.99 a month to $5.99 or even $6.99. What we ultimately saw would be akin to pricing a game at $80 and selling the special edition for $84.99.
So MS has now taken away the 12 month Live Gold purchase and only allowing monthly subs it seems? I think something is in the air, kinda like Sony did with theirs before coming out with Spartacus. Maybe MS is going to terminate Gold and just have GP? Maybe this is there way to stop people stacking three years of Gold and then converting it to GP for $1?
As said over a year ago, you can still get 12 months Live Gold subscription cards at stores like Amazon, Target, Walmart, Sams Club, GameStop, BestBuy.
This is a nothing burger this year just like it was last year.
They removed 12 month plan in 2020. It’s about two years since than.
That is just existing stock. Once those have been sold through there wont be any new ones. The price of gold will be $120 a year via monthly subs.
So why would they remove the 12 month discounted option? To make more money, or because of other issues such as people stacking years for GP conversion?
Thats what folks said over 14 months ago too. That’s some massive amount of stock of digital codes. 
But you believe what you want and I’ll believe otherwise.
Personally, Microsoft should just convert every Gold member to Game Pass Ultimate and eliminate Gold/online multi-player completely. It’s time. Just get rid of this shit. Besides, Games with Gold have sucked for years and isn’t worth anything anyway. Add in the fact that Microsoft always pushes Play Anywhere and they need to just drop Gold and the online multi-player paywall.
A nice little segment at their showcase in June along with a Family Plan announcement would be huge!!
Companies (including MS) work hard and long to build what Xbox has built with Gold.
Microsoft can afford dropping Gold, but that doesn’t mean they’ll abandon a huge source of revenue just to make things a little neater or to score a small PR win.
Removing Gold won’t convert 10s of millions into Game Pass subscribers.
I doubt people are waiting for Xbox to drop Gold to jump from Switch/PS ecosystems.
People are willingly paying for it, and I’m sure the vast majority don’t even know about the controversy around it in these small circles.
These extra 100s of millions every year pay for other services and games Xbox provides and the people behind it.
It provides a very affordable way into GPU through Gold conversion, I know people who will miss that when Gold conversion is gone, and might start to reevaluate their subscription.
Again, Microsoft can afford it. But I don’t think they’ll appreciate losing all that annual revenue with no comparable gain in return.
I suspect there are still around 20-25 million XBLG subs which is why they are not ending that anytime soon.
Yeah but i wish they brought it back, easier to just buy it on the console.
Posted this in the community thread too.
Brad Sams:
"I’ve heard that Microsoft is contemplating figuring out how to raise the price of these services to include Gold so that $15 per month is the new baseline, meaning you get Game Pass and also XBLG, and that’s the only tier.
It would not surprise me if when Microsoft closes this acquisition of Activision, they actually raise that base floor up price of how much it’s going to cost to get into their service."
The main problem is that PC Game Pass has Game Pass + EA Play for the same price as Xbox Game Pass, while not requiring gold. It is also a question how many people will swtich to basic Game Pass on Xbox, if it becomes the same as PC Game Pass. I guess a lot of people (as not everybody needs XCloud or PC)
I’m putting my money on the family plan being the differentiator for Game Pass Ultimate.
Meaning, PC and standard Xbox Game Pass stays the same, Gold goes away from Ultimate, but is replaced with the ability for multiple people to use the membership.
Price won’t stay the samef or Ultimate then.
I still think that price increase is too early. Microsoft does not have the same reputation as Sony so the community won’t be happy enmasse. I mean if people still are bothered with Gold existence, imagine what price increase will do.
If it’s like now where each month the majority are indie games then I agree, but if we start to see more AAA (old and new/more recent) then I think it can be justified. Honestly with the Gold and GP trick GPU can be had for a insane steal already, and those that did the trick won’t have to worry about a price increase for a long time. But had that trick not existed I don’t think a increase is warranted, not until XGS is firing on all cillinders and releasing at least three big games a year.
It wasn’t so long ago that all I had to pay for online multiplayer everywhere, was under £40 per year. If they move that to some forced game pass sub that approaches £100 per year, I’m out long term. Short term I did the 2year conversion to GP Ultimate. But for the future, careful how you tread MS.
I wonder if perhaps it would be a good idea to revamp Gold into an all new Game Pass tier.
Charge the same as Gold, and call it Game Pass Online. What you get is online multiplayer and xCloud. That’s it. You’re not able to install games. You’re not able to access PC Game Pass. And more importantly, there are no more Games With Gold.
It would expose people who are currently only Gold subscribers to the riches of the Game Pass library, possibly enticing them into upgrading. And it would also be a good tier to have available in preparation for the inevitable xCloud stick.
You woudlnt’ put your money on that because no way in hell will Ultimate family be 15 bucks when you have your competitors providing a much inferior service at a higher cost.