As expected I still think paid online is here to stay. Just as I say here I don’t think MS cares about “customer confusion” or anything like that as long as paid online money keeps coming in
I can’t say much about losing our monthly “$17.85 in value and 2000 gamerscore” games but I do agree with @Mort that we are losing something for nothing.
Overall it’s pretty much a nothing update I guess.
Some really great discussion in these last few posts, love to see it.
I would hope the answer is yes, but do we know if existing Gold codes would be honored at the same rate?
since it doesn’t changed the price, i think they will honor it
Yeah, they’ve fucked it by having Core not being fully included in Console.
If Core was included in Console nobody would use Ultimate
Core = Mutliplayer access + some Game Pass library
Console = Full GP library/Day 1
Ultimate = Both
Day 1 Games or Multiplayer are the main reasons people will subscribe to these services, including both in console would give people far less reason to sub to Ultimate
So console would be a slightly more expensive pc game pass? That seems like what it should be. Console game pass and pc game pass should be similar. Ea play included with console level and it being a bit more makes up the small difference in games. Leave ultimate to be console and pc and cloud with perks.
That’s the biggest disconnect i see. Pc gamepass pricing compared to console and core and what’s included in both. Because console gets less than pc and cost more and can’t play games online.
So is ‘Xbox Live’ a thing anymore?
Once September hits xbox live changes its name to Xbox Game Pass Core and instead of monthly games you get a catalog of 25 games that rotate. So it still exists just under a different name. Other then that everything is the same.
That’s Xbox Live Gold, isn’t it? Xbox Live is the network services as a whole, or at least it was, wasn’t it?
network services still exist xbox live was just branding of network services. Now the branding would in essence be xbox game pass core services.
But Microsoft retired the xbox live branding for network services a year or two ago. It was at that point Larry became just major nelson instead of xbox live’s major nelson.
I see things that way :
Previous Gold subscribers : they get in my sense a much better deal for the same price.
Console Game Pass and PC Game Pass subscribers : everything stay the same.
Ultimate subscribers : a bit less value with the loss of GwG, but seeing as people were always complaining about it, it could have been worse.
https://twitter.com/dexerto/status/1680997887050653697?s=46&t=O_AGT9SEnlptKOF_2SxtqQ
Hell of a trade.
Re: Core including online play, while Console doesn’t
This is why I’ve been saying for over a year now that the perfect Xbox Live Gold replacement is Game Pass Online, where you’d get online play as well as full xCloud access, but no ability to actually install games anywhere.
Would avoid any confusion, and would let people sample the full Game Pass library, thereby tempting them to upgrade to Ultimate.
I realize the ABK acquisition and the regulatory hurdles, with CMA insisting cloud is its own service and with Xbox saying it’s just an add-on, basically makes this impossible without playing into the CMAs hands. But it would’ve been a nice, elegant solution.
in theory, i think adding online to console gamepass would help them gain subs, gpu already distinguishes itself by having access to ea play (freaking huge), xcloud (extremely convenient depending on your internet connection and will only improve), and having access to the pc library. it’s also close enough in price to gamepass core that it would an extremely enticing proposition.
To be honest, if I didn’t have 3 years of gold converted to ultimate I would probably stick with core as I plan to use my Series X mainly for Street Fighter 6, with very few day ones (Starfield) if you top-up that with some game deals and the must play games that core actually has…that’s 150% of my gaming allowed time.
I am glad all is Gamepass now.
PC is more interesting than console, but PC is a harder market, they need to push more to make a footing.
I had Ultimate for a few years thanks to the Gold conversion trick. I will probably shift down to PC only.
Something tells me a CoD game will be included once the acquisition is done.
Costco has reasonable prices for Xbox Gamepass and currency. These aren’t sale price, just everyday prices. I have a Costco membership for the gas discount, the only thing I ever even buy from Costco besides gasoline is Xbox cards 
