Terrible, terrible decision by Microsoft. 25% price increase? With much better Games with Gold selection, maaaaybe. But a 100% price hike? Ridiculous. You have to steer your users towards Games Pass Ultimate in a different way. 12 months of Ultimate costs $180 in comparison. I get that this where they want people to go, but this decision today goes against their own credo of “player choice”, “accessbility” and “ecosystem” when online multiplayer in fact is so unequal between the platforms. The success of Xbox on PC and mobile on multiplayer cannot only be paid by console players. Also not at least announcing F2P games to not require Gold alongside this is… baffling.
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Both can be true. Currently offer the worst deal and the best deal.
It really isn’t.
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I don’t get this move, instead going down or removing it, they went up?
This has probably come from Satya Nadella, remember 5% of his income is from Game Pass subs.
Exactly, Gold being double the price doesn’t make Game Pass / Game Pass Ultimate not the best deal in gaming. But does make gold the shittiest in gaming.
They want people to move to Game Pass Ultimate.
PC gamers aren’t buying Xbox hardware and locking themselves into that closed ecosystem. That is a very important difference and the two platforms are not comparable from a business perspective. Microsoft didn’t build the Xbox brand to offer a PC alternative. They want to find ways to monetize that unique platform they created.
All the console platforms are charging for online play and have been for years now. It’s not going away. Customers have shown they’re perfectly fine paying to do this. I would not be surprised at all to see Sony increase the price of PS+.
Of course cheaper is better but when you look at the whole package xbox is not suddenly associated with negitivity regarding there value propersition.
Things are getting more expensive, sony reacted by pricing there games here and microsoft are pushing people to there subscription service.
Less choice is never a good thing, but $15/month for online play, cloud gaming on mobile and other devices and exclusives day 1 is excellent value.
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Which is precisely there goal. They want peoole to move to game pass ultimate.
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I think there are more organic ways to do this. There are now cheaper options to play online if you want to game on consoles.
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They can do that simply by offering an amazing service, which it is. GPU uptake has been moving incredibly fast as it is.
The way I see it, it simply makes Xbox look like a bad buy unless you’re getting GPU.
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Maybe they have data showing that growing organically was slowing down and they don’t have enough content in the near future to get people to sub that way. I seriously doubt they wouldn’t have thought about the pros and cons on this one.
Just a reminder that even though he wears cool tshirts and posts here, Phil Spencer is not your friend. He runs a business that needs to make a profit. Somewhere along the line, they found that pivoting the Xbox brand to be “Gamer / Consumer friendly” was what was going to set them apart from Sony.
Its marketing. That’s it.
Stop praising the man like he’s your buddy.
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So they are finally pushing now.
To me it appears as if Xbox Live gold is nearing its end and this price hike is both about testing the grounds and forcing people to XGP.
Now Both the companies have done it, one way or the another.
The announcement of XBLG’s end with the launch of Halo Infinte will be quite a sight.
I speculate offcourse.
The funny thing about a lot of this reaction is that it seems rooted in the fact that “insiders” claimed Gold was going free. Microsoft never said this, and never suggested this was happening, but insiders convinced a lot of people it was.
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This is a really poor tarnish on the Xbox brand which has done nearly everything right in the last few years.
What a disappointing announcement to wake up to.
@XboxP3 I thought Satya Nadella wants to have a Microsoft with the customer at the center? This does not seem to jive with the messaging.
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Sucks for the people who are affected by this 
This doesn’t change anything for me and, selfishly, if this means that GWG increases in quality to compensate, that’s a win in my book.
For what it’s worth, as of this post time, in the US, Costco offers
$95 - 24 months of Gold
$55 - 12 months of Gold
$40 - 3 months of GPU
$90 - $100 Xbox Gift Card
Not the best prices, but might be worth looking into.
Edit: I hate this move in terms of forcing people to upgrade, it stinks and is the kind of thing I would reject out of principle if I were in that position.
Phil isn’t describing buying an Xbox as locking yourself into a traditional ecosystem though. He’s saying its about letting people play how they want, where they want, with whom they want. IF Sony did this its understandable to an extent since its out of the traditional console playbook. You can’t play most of Sony’s games anywhere else. So yeah. But Xbox is letting you play their games all over the place and if your friend plays on PC but you do on Xbox you can play SoT together, for example. But you have to pay extra for the privilege of ‘going online’. Its so seriously out of date and out of whack its really hard to justify, but impossible when you are Xbox and have their strategy (other than they need the money which is fair enough but offer something much better in return). That’s before you get to the fact where the only platform you need to pay to play Fortnite or any F2P game is xbox…the whole thing is immoral IMHO.
Stop mentioning Phil directly
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Microsoft have the data that suggests the people who play on consoles generally would rather do so than play on a PC. The convenience and amazing specs you get out of the Series X are worth spending more on subscriptions for some people. We’ve all seen it said, you can’t build an Xbox Series X for anywhere near $500, and yet that’s we all paid. Microsoft has to make money somewhere, and they see the best chance to make money in Game Pass Ultimate, which is why everything is being focused on steering people towards that.
I do not understand this focus some people have on f2p games not being a part of Gold. This feels like an internet argument that very few people in the real world actually talk about, but it’s somehow become a console wars talking point because Sony doesn’t do it. I think the average consumer out there has no idea this is even a thing. They just associate online play with a subscription when it comes to consoles.