This morning, Microsoft’s Xbox announced that they are raising the prices of its Game Pass subscription service by as much as 50%.
The ‘Ultimate’ Plan, which allows access for console, PC and cloud gaming, is seeing its price raised 50% from $19.99 per month to $29.99 per month. The PC Game Pass only plan is up 40% to $16.49 per month.
The ‘Ultimate’ tier is getting the Ubisoft+ catalogue and a “Fortnite” crew membership that gives you battle pass access and in-game currency every month, along with access to 400+ titles and Day 1 titles.
Other tiers saw rebranding – ‘Core’ becomes ‘Essential’ as is $9.99 per month (around 50 games, no Day 1 titles), ‘Standard’ becomes ‘Premium’ and is now $14.99 per month (around 200 games, no Day 1 titles).
The price raises come ahead of the launch of two new handheld consoles on October 16th, the higher-tier one costing $1000.
In addition, Wario64 indicates that starting today, users will no longer be able to directly redeem Reward points for Xbox Game Pass subscriptions. Users will need to redeem points for Xbox gift cards to cover the cost of a Game Pass subscription which increases points redemption by at least 6,000 points for a month of ‘Ultimate’.
The resulting outcry has been swift and loud. Many fans on social media are calling for a boycott and cancelling their accounts. Reddit filled up with posts from players cancelling outright.
In fact, players rushing to cancel or downgrade flooded Microsoft’s account system, leaving many reporting errors and crashes as they tried to cancel their subscriptions.
The move follows on from a rough year for Xbox fans with console prices going up twice this year, attempts to raise the prices of their games to $80, and the company effectively giving up on exclusives. Sales for the consoles have been going downward for some time.
Source: The Game Post
