Today, we’re continuing our commitment to give players more choice and value by introducing Xbox Game Pass Core , launching on September 14. Game Pass Core is the evolution of Xbox Live Gold. Game Pass Core will give players access to our advanced multiplayer network, a select collection of over 25 games to play with friends around the world, and exclusive member deals, all for $9.99 USD per month or $59.99 USD per year.
For over twenty years, Xbox players have been connecting via Xbox Live to compete, cooperate, and experience the world’s biggest online multiplayer games. In 2017, we introduced Xbox Game Pass which provided a curated library of games. Game Pass Core brings online play together with Game Pass in a new offering for gamers around the world.
With this evolution, we’re saying farewell to Games with Gold. We wanted to use this opportunity to re-imagine how to include content with this subscription. We found that the answer to the most compelling catalog was to leverage select titles from our Xbox Game Pass catalog.
Our launch collection of more than 25 titles from Xbox Game Studios, Bethesda, and our content partners will offer something for everyone to play on their Xbox Series X|S and Xbox One consoles. Today we’re confirming the following titles for launch*, with more to be announced in advance of September 14. New titles will be added 2-3 times a year.
First batch of games:
Among Us
Descenders
Dishonored 2
Doom Eternal
Fable Anniversary
Fallout 4
Fallout 76
Forza Horizon 4
Gears 5
Grounded
Halo 5: Guardians
Halo Wars 2
Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice
Human Fall Flat
Inside
Ori & The Will of the Wisps
Psychonauts 2
State of Decay 2
The Elder Scrolls Online: Tamriel Unlimited
On September 14, Xbox Live Gold members will automatically become Game Pass Core members, with no change in pricing, and have immediate access to a new library of over 25 high-quality games.
Member deals & discounts will also be part of Xbox Game Pass Core.
Games with Gold will come to an end on September 1.
Players can continue to access any Xbox One games they previously redeemed through Games with Gold if they remain a Game Pass Core or Game Pass Ultimate member.
Regardless of subscription status, any Xbox 360 titles redeemed via Games with Gold in the past will be kept in a player’s library.
The only concern i have is what happens to the library of games we’ve collected over the years will they default to our libraries or will they take them away?
They can’t cancel Gold and risk losing millions of paying subscribers, and they can’t move them to regular Game Pass and lose them what they are paying Gold for, and they can’t add GPU’s most differentiating feature to console’s Game Pass and lose GPU subscribers.
A new lighter Game Pass with Gold’s main feature is a good compromise.
Also, a good thing that the entry Game Pass now has online multi-player.
On the other hand, I guess there’ll be confusion regarding upgrades to Game Pass. You can’t upgrade and lose features, so you have to upgrade to GPU. I don’t know if they’ll try to deal with that.
I still believe that Gold/online paywall should be eliminated. PC online is free and yet, you have to pay to play online multi-player? And I just noticed that PC Game Pass gets EA Play for $10 but on Xbox consoles, I have to pay $17 a month? Come on man. I’m sorry but Microsoft continues to favor PC over and over compared to console owners such as myself. I honestly don’t like this change at all and don’t see it as any better than what it was before because you’re still paying for online multi-player.
No one on PC will pay for online multi-player, so it’s not there.
Tens of millions of people are paying subscribers for it on console, every company on earth dream of such revenue stream. No one will cancel that just because people on some other platforms don’t pay for it.
The reason why I believe that Microsoft should eliminate the online paywall is because they support cross-platform play with all of their games and one purchase gives you both PC and console. But that’s just me. I also think that eliminating the paywall now that they’ll have COD will entice many people to jump to Xbox or guarantee that they buy an Xbox for their online multi-player games. Oh well, it is what it is.
I’d like to take this moment and voice my approval to the removal of Games with Gold. No longer will I have to see people complaining about the quality of those games even when they know they’re going to be bad.
I agree. The paywall has to go. The thing is…presumably, there are something like 10-15m Gold subscribers still remaining…and none of them went for the $1 upgrade path. This kind of forces them into it. That is a very important psychological step.
