With crossplay becoming more and more a thing and streamers attracting bigger and bigger populations towards PC, the sooner consoles drop paid online the better. I know tons of people who would occasionaly play a round or two of Rocket League or do some co-op in a fun game but are not interested in paying a monthly fee for the possibility, nor they want to pay a single month for 2 hours of free time with an online buddy.
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Youāre absolutely right, I guess Iām looking at too much from my perspective. They could roll the GwG into Ultimate Perks? Call it GwU instead maybe?
I guess Microsoft will have the data that tells them who takes advantage of what offers and this will be driving their decisions.
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Yeah, I guessed that this is what they would do as well.
I donāt really see the sense in having Gold as a games only sub - it sort of competes with and contradicts gamepass in that gold games can realistically only make sense if they come from outside the gamepass pool. If you make allow people to play MP games without a sub (as you shoould) on Xbox then I feel they only need gamepass - but they could offer more gamepass tiers - say a low priced tier that lets you stream games only for a limited period and offers the purchase reductions - those could be analagous to a XBLG cost - and offers people a way to sample lots of games for free and then buy at a reduced costā¦
The demand that you see isnāt actually based on true advantages, just perfect marketing strategy adressed to the brand and to the idea of buying the shiny new product. Just like Apple managed to persuade its customers. But then the decline of this business model started to happen. Thatās why Iāve said that (to me - a 42 years old italian musician/teacher-) this strategy is only short-sighted and they will be forced to change in the future.
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Good to see Jez chime inā¦ I agree effectively doubling the price of the MP paywall wouldnāt make much sense. Would be a bit PR blunder.
Just know that Iām going to gloat like hell if the paywall goes down. 
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You and me both 
Well my gloating will be because I defended saying this would happen for over 2 years now (at this point in time) so Iām just waiting for my moment.
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I hope it does. The Games for Gold offerings havenāt been great lately and Iād rather them invest that money in Game Pass and free multiplayer would bring a lot more people into the Xbox ecosystem! Hopefully the Gold ādealsā will still be available for every member!
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Welp. This really is happening. :o
I wasnāt sure if they would keep live and do away with just gold. Guess this answers that.
Why does it mention Mixer in a new update though?
Just going to add before any speculation arises, there is almost 0 chance Xbox Live will be bundled with Gamepass. They arenāt going to charge you double to play online. Itās really a non starter
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Good catch, I think it is everything but confirmed at this point!
I still remember when you first predicted it (and no one believed it, myself included).
Makes a lot of sense now.
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Its clearly happening now, its a matter of when, probably end of September.
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It made sense back then. Just no one wants to believe meā¦now that other industry insiders are saying ish, now people say it makes sense and believe. The logic hasnāt changed. Iām still waiting for confirmation first though as I can still be wrong.
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The moment they started to break down the barrier to enter the Xbox ecosystem, Xbox Live gold didnāt make sense anymore. Take Sea of Thieves for example, why would PC players not have to pay for Gold, and yet console players have to, while playing on literally the same servers.
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