{"id":1343288,"date":"2025-10-01T21:06:01","date_gmt":"2025-10-01T21:06:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/aWZJh6D9HhxPsoUVwd8UPf"},"modified":"2025-10-01T21:06:01","modified_gmt":"2025-10-01T21:06:01","slug":"game-pass-gets-major-price-hike-to-offer-more-flexibility-choice-and-value-microsoft-says-with-a-completely-straight-face","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/arcader.org\/news\/game-pass-gets-major-price-hike-to-offer-more-flexibility-choice-and-value-microsoft-says-with-a-completely-straight-face\/","title":{"rendered":"Game Pass gets major price hike ‘to offer more flexibility, choice, and value,’ Microsoft says with a completely straight face"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Canadians of a certain age will likely recall the Friendly Giant urging them to “look up\u2014way<\/em> up” at the beginning of each of his children’s television adventures. I thought of those words today in the wake of Microsoft’s announcement of an overhaul of its Game Pass program, which among other things is now a whole lot more expensive than it used to be.<\/p>\n

In an announcement<\/a> reminiscent of Phil Spencer’s comments about how great things are looking at Xbox as the company laid off 9,000 people<\/a>, the Xbox team said “creator participation and player engagement in Game Pass are at an all-time high.” But, it continued, “we have the opportunity for Game Pass to help more players find the creators and games they love.”<\/p>\n

“We know not everyone wants the same thing in their Xbox experience, so we\u2019re evolving Game Pass to offer more flexibility, choice, and value to all players, whether you love day one releases, discovering hidden gems, or playing across multiple devices and screens and across Xbox consoles, Xbox on PC, and Xbox Cloud.”<\/p>\n

That evolution means two things. First, renamed pricing tiers that pack a more powerful punch: Instead of Core, Standard, and Ultimate tiers, it’s now Essential, Premium, and Ultimate tiers\u2014”Ultimate” gets to stay because, I guess, it’s already ultimate<\/em>.<\/p>\n

And second, well, that price hike: Game Pass Ultimate, which if you’re going to get anything is probably the one you should get, took a whopping 50% jump, from $19.99 to $29.99 per month. Game Pass Premium is remaining at parity with the old Standard plan at $14.99 per month, while Essential is holding steady at the previous Core price of $9.99 per month.<\/p>\n

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\"Xbox<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>

(Image credit: Xbox)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

And don’t think you’re going to escape unscathed if you’re a PC-exclusive gamer: PC Game Pass went up from $11.99 per month to $16.49, an also-very-substantial increase of nearly 40%.<\/p>\n

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\"PC<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>

(Image credit: Xbox)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

There are changes in specific offerings for each package\u2014things like “in-game benefits,” whatever they may be, access to games on PC and cloud as well as console, and unlimited cloud gaming, which I suppose is nice if you’re into that\u2014but broadly speaking, life will continue for lower-tier subscribers more or less as it always has.<\/p>\n

It’s that Game Pass Ultimate (and, to a somewhat lesser extent, PC Game Pass, although as a percentage that’s a hell of a jump too) price increase that’s hard to swallow. $30 a month is $360 a year, an amount that’ll buy you a half-dozen big-budget releases at launch, close to double that number of mid-tier games, or literally years’<\/em> worth of games in a Steam sale: You could, for instance, snag The Elder Scrolls Franchise bundle<\/a>\u2014Morrowind, Oblivion, Skyrim, Redguard, Battlespire, and TESO\u2014for about $65, less than 1\/5 the cost of a year of Game Pass Ultimate.<\/p>\n

Or consider this: Microsoft made a lot of noise about Silksong, one of the biggest games of the year, being available on Game Pass Ultimate on day one. As multiple people have pointed out, you can own it on Steam<\/a> for $20\u2014or you can rent it, for one month, for $30.<\/p>\n

Since we’re on a roll, I’ll point out you can play Call of Duty: Black Ops 7<\/a> for a couple months, or for as long as you like, for essentially the same amount of money. <\/p>\n

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