Surely at least F2P won’t require gold anymore. But I really think it’s going to go further than that. Otherwise everything they’ve done lately doesn’t really make sense. Streamlining their subscription offerings and making it as easy as possible to on-board new customers, particularly with streaming, should be their primary focus now that they’ve got the services pretty much ready.
Pretty sure they also denied the development of a new fable game at one point right? I still think they’ll announce it later this month along with the price for both consoles and release dates.
I remember in 2011, they tried to tell people Halo CE Anniversary was not a thing like a week or so before E3.
1 Like
The possibility of Xbox All Access for ~$20/month netting you Lockhart + Game Pass + xCloud + f2p and maybe even Gold for free is batshit crazy in the right kinda way.
That wasn’t the smart way to go about it anyhow. The smarter approach is to keep XBL Gold but make it free or make it included in Game Pass. That way it adds a bullet point to the GP marketing and is framed as a value add for either the whole platform or for GP.
2 Likes
What is Gold becomes part of baseline Game Pass, no additional cost? Customers fork over a few bucks more per month compared to just having Gold and get into GP. In this sense, it is free for GP users and is incentive to get into GP but Gold’s paid option remains at the monthly pricepoint. It just becomes really unappealing in the face of GP. They give 3 months of GP with each console and ppl stick around in the subscription.
Lines up with some folks talking of it ‘going free’ and others talking of it ‘being absorbed into GP’. Also lines up with Halo’s MP being f2p, since it is free to GP users as they no longer need to pay for Gold (though it’d be a real ugly look to tout it as f2p if it requires GP or paid Gold sub).
I think the very least should be no paywall whatsoever for F2P games, and if they roll Gold into Game Pass, give at least a yearly 60 dollar subscription for Game Pass, so the proposition would be even better than now for everybody.
1 Like
Good point. Yeah doing a transition to higher price barrier should be in tandem to covering any edge cases as is out of MS’s pocket. It seems hard to imagine all the smoke and all the insiders that each are rock solid suddenly are wildly wrong here. Something is goin on for sure.
1 Like
I think that way they maybe could lose less money than making everything free, and at the same time drive more people to Game Pass. Gold would still be there, so the spokeperson wouldn’t be wrong on that, as well as other insiders.
1 Like
I believe that Gold and the entire online paywall will be gone with the release of Series X but it will be announced beforehand. I’m sticking with them announcing it this month.
1 Like
I think too something is gonna be announced this month, Jeff Grubb was talking about 1 month when someone asked him a question about Xbox Live Gold and all that.
I would push back a bit on that though and point out that instead of only giving you online access for a fee you are also getting hundreds of games to try and play at your leisure including all first party
They removed the 12 month option and only have 1 and 3 month options. 3 months equals - August, September and October. Wouldn’t be surprised if the 3 month option is gone after September.
This is true, but for some who are not interested in Game Pass and who just wanted Gold, they may find themselves being forced into an option they didn’t want for double the price they paid.
2 Likes
Again they were paying more anyway because discounts from buying in bulk have been removed
1 Like
Yeah, but only recently.
1 Like
Yeah true. So it might be something like: $120 for standard GP with Gold included for a year, $180 for GPU with Gold and xCloud and discounts and GWG for a year, $120 for Gold by itself for a year. This would basically convert all those non-GP Gold members into GP subscriptions. Hmmm.
Maybe do XSX+GPU @ $35/month for 2 yrs and XSS+GPU @ $25/month for 2 yrs. That’s a damn good setup imho. If you are paying $15/month for GPU as is, another $10/month gets you XSS. Another $10 beyond that gets you XSX. Might be a real slick upgrade path.
They are gonna do things for sure with Xbox All Access. For standard Game Pass, I was thinking something along the line of $60/year with Gold included, like you had previously with just Gold. That would show people with a Gold subscription that they would get the same things they already had with the Gold subscription, but even more with Game Pass.
It would give them a reason to at least try Game Pass, and if they don’t like it, they are not paying more yearly than with just Gold. It would still take away a choice, but they would be force into a better option where they don’t lose anything.
1 Like
Maybe. Might get messy if GP adjusts price though as then you’d have to convert existing subs from 1 yr to 2 yr I think (if it goes from $120/yr down to $60/yr). Seems more likely Gold is changing in some way instead of GP though, given insider chatter had been all about Gold. What you outlined is basically giving away GP as a perk for having Gold. Insiders made it sound more the other way around.
I can also see them maybe putting Gold behind GP paywall but at no additional price. $120 for GP which now includes Gold. No other way to get Gold by itself beyond November. Ppl will complain that the price of MP is $120 instead of $60, but OTOH they get GP included so…
Could be but I fear the reactions of people who only had Gold and who feel like they are obliged to pay for something they didn’t want for double the price. It could get messy.
1 Like
Yeah, but maybe they can add value to Gold in other ways. Like include xCloud or something? Or even take existing 1yr-2yr Gold subs and convert them into the new GP/Gold combo? I def think they need to streamline their sub options though. Once ya add in All Access it is gonna get real messy.
1 Like