- Due to a lack of mass-market buy-in, Microsoft has made the decision to increase the prices of their Game Pass subscriptions.
- Although the widespread adoption of a successful gaming subscription service is still a distant goal.
Microsoft has announced price increases for its Game Pass subscriptions. PC Game Pass will now cost £9.99, Ultimate will be priced at £14.99 per month, and Game Pass Core: Annual will increase from £49.99 to £55.99.
Starting in September, Xbox will be replacing its standard subscription tier on Xbox consoles, requiring gamers to subscribe to Game Pass Ultimate in order to access new games on release day.
Recently, Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 was also made available immediately to Game Pass subscribers. New subscribers will see the price changes right away, while existing members will be impacted in September. Basic Xbox subscriptions will remain available until they expire.
Challenges for Game Pass
As we have discussed before, creating a profitable subscription service for games is a difficult task. However, the current approach for Xbox to make Game Pass profitable is to raise prices, which may hinder efforts to attract and retain users.
The lack of mass-market buy-in is pushing Microsoft to make these changes, putting the viability of Game Pass at risk. The company is facing a dilemma between selling local hardware and launching a remote access streaming service, with the hope for a shift in popularity that is seemingly further away than expected.
Moreover, with the recent price increases, Game Pass is now more expensive than Sony’s PlayStation Plus Premium, which costs £13.49 per month in the UK.
It remains to be seen whether offering the latest Call of Duty game immediately on Game Pass will be enough to entice dedicated users to upgrade to a more expensive tier.
