Xbox Game Pass „ist zu teuer geworden“, sagt Microsofts neuer Gaming-Chef in einem durchgesickerten Memo | Microsoft bereitet sich darauf vor, Bedenken hinsichtlich der Game Pass-Preisgestaltung auszuräumen

A couple key points:

>Microsoft’s new Xbox chief, Asha Sharma, has signaled that Xbox Game Pass pricing is about to change. In an internal memo to Xbox employees, obtained by The Verge, Sharma admits that “Game Pass has become too expensive for players” and that Microsoft needs “a better value equation.”
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>“Game Pass is central to gaming value on Xbox. It’s also clear that the current model isn’t the final one,” says Sharma. “Short term, Game Pass has become too expensive for players, so we need a better value equation. Long term, we will evolve Game Pass into a more flexible system which will take time to test and learn around.”
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>Microsoft hiked the price of Xbox Game Pass Ultimate to $29.99 per month last year, a massive 50 percent hike. The company tried to justify the price hike with a variety of upgrades across all of its Xbox Game Pass tiers, but the cost increase has clearly taken its toll on Game Pass.
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>Sharma references the “online chatter” about rumors of Microsoft changing Game Pass pricing, and says she’ll “go deeper” with Xbox employees next week. I wouldn’t expect any immediate price changes in the coming days, but it certainly seems that Sharma is aware of the Game Pass pricing issues and is getting ready to address them in the coming weeks.

Better late than never, but this initial move by MS shows how out of touch they were with their customer base.

Physical media is the only way forward, and that terrifies these companies.

They’ll squeeze until there’s no juice left, and private equity will just move on the next industry they’ll ruin.

I used to buy game pass for a month to play one or two games I fancied on there when I had time. (this was pre 2025)

Then they upped the price, and I thought „ehh“ and then they really upped the price. I’m sure it’s still a ‚good offering‘ but it’s a lot of money to play some games for a few hours a week at most.

TL;DR I feel like the price hike chased off all the casual gamers.

The whole value of such game passes were aways its affordability, it didnt take a genius to correctly predict what increasing the prices by that much would do to their userbase

Me and 3 other friends all built PCs when they hiked the price up. Right before all the other companies hiked prices for storage.

It is definitely too expensive. I subscribed and played on our Frame TV app when it was $12.99ish/month. I’m busy with kids and very casual, not hardcore. That price was great.

$30/month for 5-7 hours of play was not worth it for me.

I cancelled it like a year ago after a decade + of having it. Fucking absurdly expensive. They could halve the price and still make an incredible profit.

Yes and they LITERALLY just raised the price. When it was ten bucks (PC GP) I just let it lie, but as soon as it when to $16 I dropped it.

Honestly $120/year is still a lot, if you think about it, don’t think I will re-enable if they cut the price. I’ve almost bought the games I was playing on GP anyway (at steep Steam discounts, mind you)

Funniest part of all this is I’ve paid like 10 bucks a month for 15 years on various versions of Xbox Live/Game Pass. After they increased prices, I realized I could happily survive without Xbox live entirely. Never woulda crossed my mind til they got greedy

The sweet spot is $15 for them, and it will not hurt much for average consumer wallet. $20 is the maximum ceiling they should charge, and putting $199 yearly charge for the $20 would be wise to lock in subscribers. Personally $160-180 yearly subs is their magic number, the goal is to make people forget they pay subscription and not want to cancel. Heck put more „advertisements“ if they have to for their cloud gaming service, so when you „load“ the game, there is 60-120 seconds of advertisement running while you can go grab a snack or drinks.

$20 a month was my limit. They FAFO

Holy fuck, I’ve not had game pass for 2 years and it’s £23 a month now for ultimate!?

I bet they’ll gaslight users and then keep the price the same

Too fucking late now. This is the problem with these subscription services, they jack the price up over time, price out their casual subscribers, then try to run it back like most of their casual audience will come back. I played maybe three games a year when I had gamepass, I liked it for the ability to try newer games without having to spend for it when they would drop, but not only did I wound up canceling game pass, I got rid of my Xbox.

Really it screws them because I allocate a certain amount to games per month per system I own. For Xbox I just have game pass now. I used to buy a game every month or two. Not that it’s a lot, but I’m sure I’m not alone in that. Whereas on Steam I’m buying games almost weekly.

Game Pass was a great differentiator with Playstation. And they fucked it up. With the multiplicity of tiers and price hikes. Now they say it doesn’t make enough money. Well a price hike will not resolve the issues MS.

I not only cancelled but sold my Xbox Series X when they raised the price. The whole benefit of owning an Xbox was lost.

>That’s why we’re offering more value while keeping price manageable.

Game Pass now comes with copilot. This is on top of existing offerings. Additionally, we will be adding ads to Game Pass to keep prices reasonable.

We are also excited to announce the launch of Game Pass Pro, the ad-free offering that comes with more copilot features. More details to follow.

Is what I expect MicroSlop to do following this announcement.

(Btw if anyone is looking for a CEO to enshitify their product, I’m available.)

Having to pay just to co-op play a game both me and my friend owned (Halo 5), is ridiculous. We had to pay for 2 months to finish it because we’re both busy adults. Thankfully the rest are on Steam. I’m done with xBox.

Ah yes, leaked * wink *

I stop the game pass when the price rise around November. Never look back and super happy with Steam.

Next month I will probably sell the Series X

I think many companies are now pushing that threshold of “how much is too much” when it comes to services like this . Everyone keeps raising the price and it all just becoming a bit too expensive.

I gladly left. I have a PS5 and Nintendo. I have tons of games for both and still have PS+. You would never catch me paying that much for GamePass. It was already a bit expensive before the price hike, and that just showed me I’d rather save the money and own my games.