Just watched an IGN video by Ryan McCaffrey and he is finally coming around to what people have been saying for years, day and date is a mistake and Xbox would rather not give it to you so they are pricing you out of the market.
The free fall of Xbox is all very sad to see as competition is good, for both companies.
As someone who doesn't play on console and just uses Game Pass on PC, the price bump deffo sucks, but it could be worse. When I first read the announcement (as everything around this seemed to be delivered so messily and the only place I could source just plain information about what all this means is on their subscription purchase page) I thought PC Game Pass was gone, and Ultimate was your only way to get Day One titles, and for that price bump, it would have invalidated Game Pass' worth to me, but that isn't what is happening. At least right now. It may end up there in the end and at that point we cancel.
Honestly though, COD and Black Friday both in November right? Its the ultimate grift. You put up the price for Cod, the hike is so big, you factor in the lost revenue from the cancellations to keep a profit. Then a month later you say 'we heard you loud and clear, we want to remain competitive, but we realised we got it wrong this time', you reverse the price hike, or offer some kind of shorter term reduction to review later. Community falls for it, celebrates Xbox, calls it a win for the consumer. Its called anchoring or something like that, I watched Destiny do this push pull for YEARS and the community fell for it every single time
It's a sad state of affairs. A brand's popularity is dependent on having a certain appeal. When Xbox came into the gaming industry, it had Halo, Xbox Live and amazing hardware among other things. Nowadays, it has nothing that distinguishes it from other gaming brands. It will continue to freefall.
A sad day for the industry really. Despite XBOX having lacked 'brand identity' for some time now, undeniably Gamepass was the feather in its crown... and 2025 had some day 1 absolute bangers! (Silksong, E33, Doom, Tony Hawk, Blue Prince... COD of course)
But this price jack for Ultimate is just so horribly 'corporate' and out of touch with the average consumer. My kid has a series S, and we have just bumped him from Ultimate down to 'Essential' so he can still play online with friends.
I'm so glad that I didn't trigger pull on preordering the XBOX Rog Ally X.... Very corporate how MS waited for the pre-order launch date, gave it a few day's breathing room, and THEN announced the GP increase. Feel like I dodged a bullet
EDIT - This makes Nintendo's NSO and Son'y PS+ look very reasonable in comparison - especially PS+ 'Extra' tier
I think it has been said a million times by people that there was no way GamePass was a viable service. So many people called Game Pass the best deal in gaming. And "the best deal" of anything is often too good to be true.
We've seen what happens to subscription services anywhere. They either get more expensive to the point where it becomes an extremely premium or the quality of the service deteriorates at some point. This has happened to every service from Spotify to HBO Max and it was bound to happen here too.
So combining these two facts, this was bound to happen at some point. In all honesty, so many people over the years have called Game Pass unsustainable, that I'm surprised at the amount of people who are in any way surprised by this news.
And, with regard to the price hike, it sucks for anyone affected in any way, but I think it's less worse than it could have been in a way. It's why I suspect the service might take another hit like this next year, but we'll see.
It's a good reminder of why buying games might still remain a good idea for the overwhelming majority of gamers.
@Herculean You're last point is really poignant I feel - especially when we consider that there are 'only so many hours' in a given day, and only so many of those hours that an individual would be willing/able to put aside for a hobby such as gaming.
Generally speaking, and depending on my travel schedule, I might play maybe an hour or slightly more a day. Been on Silksong pretty exclusively since release, have FF Tactics lined up for after, and then Metroid for December. The cost of those 3 games combined is probably around 3-4 months of Gamepass Ultimate, and I actually get to own/trade/keep the games.
A lot of rumours/leaks circulating from people who are apparently credible and reliable insiders, that Microsoft have cancelled their planned next generation Xbox console and are set on becoming a third party publisher and cloud streaming service provider. Take it with a pinch of salt until any official confirmation… but it wouldn’t surprise me.
@Hapless yeah I’ve heard the various rumours and theories, from supposed journalists to fans… if it is it’ll be tres-expensive as the third party would need to profit off each unit, as they won’t be making anything from the Xbox storefront.
It would also be extremely niche, as it is very likely to sell less than the Series consoles (which in turn is selling less than the Ones). That trend would be very likely to continue as, at least they were made and subsidised by Microsoft.
In which case, small orders for parts, would lead to higher unit production costs, which in turn would be passed on directly to the consumer. That together with the lack of cost-subsidy would be… well from the outside looking in at least, not worth it from business perspective imho.
edit. and GamePass made no sense to me from a business perspective either… didn’t mean they didn’t go all in on it (and now we’re here). So just because an OEM Xbox would make no sense to me, it doesn’t mean it wouldn’t happen… though it also doesn’t mean that I won’t ultimately end up being correct with regards to my initial assessment.
@graymamba Yikes 😬 Too bad this was all so hard to see coming or, as consumers, we could have collectively made decisions that would have put more power in both creators’ and buyers’ hands instead of a multi trillion dollar black hole of a corporation. (oh, and that mightykeef fellow cracks me up. Thanks for sharing that 😂)
@Metonymy 🍻 not 400 years ago, Galileo was killed for speaking the seemingly abundant truth… we should count ourselves lucky for simply having to deal with a bit of digital hate these passed few years 😉
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