Microsoft Raises Xbox Game Pass Top Subscription 50% To $30 Monthly (hollywoodreporter.com) 35
Microsoft has announced that Xbox Game Pass Ultimate will cost $29.99 per month, up from $19.99. The company restructured its subscription service into three tiers ahead of the October 16 launch of two Xbox ROG Ally handheld consoles. The new Essential tier offers 50-plus games for $9.99 monthly. Premium includes 200-plus games for $14.99. Ultimate subscribers gain access to more than 400 games, day-one releases, improved cloud streaming quality, and services including EA Play, Ubisoft+ Classics, and Fortnite Crew.
Game Pass generated nearly $5 billion in fiscal 2025 revenue with 34 million subscribers in 2024. Console hardware prices are also increasing, with the Xbox Series X rising $50 to $649.99 starting October 3.
Game Pass generated nearly $5 billion in fiscal 2025 revenue with 34 million subscribers in 2024. Console hardware prices are also increasing, with the Xbox Series X rising $50 to $649.99 starting October 3.
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This should help you out https://www.autismspeaks.org/ [autismspeaks.org]
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please share you steam library sir, excited to see the catalog you keep with your values here
Re: Woke Games. BOYCOTT Microsoft. Anti-Male (Score:2)
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But Microsoft is helping with the ethnic cleansing of Palestine. That doesn't get your dick hard?
Xbox has been disappearing... (Score:4, Interesting)
Xbox (and accessories) are now gone from Costco and Target, whats the strategy?
Re:Xbox has been disappearing... (Score:5, Interesting)
I think that they're just trying to kill off the XBox brand at this point. Their product strategy is suicidal. For example, the XBox Series S is now almost 5 years old. This is the point in the product lifecycle, they should be discounting the product and getting it's replacement ready. Instead, they increased the price from $300 to $379 without making any hardware upgrades to the unit.
Who on earth would be willing to pay that much for a 5 year old gaming console? Nobody. Which explains why Costco and Target aren't selling them anymore.
re: Killing it off (Score:2)
I hadn't even considered this, but I think you're right. Microsoft doesn't really stand to lose anything by getting rid of the console hardware at this point. They probably realized the income brought in by selling the hardware isn't even worth the marketing costs, the need to provide warranty coverage, etc. etc.
Everything they sell to play on X-Box can run just fine as a native Windows PC game, and there's a convenient Microsoft Store included in every copy of Win 11 for people to shop in and download the
Re: re: Killing it off (Score:2)
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I think that they're just trying to kill off the XBox brand at this point. Their product strategy is suicidal. For example, the XBox Series S is now almost 5 years old. This is the point in the product lifecycle, they should be discounting the product and getting it's replacement ready. Instead, they increased the price from $300 to $379 without making any hardware upgrades to the unit.
Who on earth would be willing to pay that much for a 5 year old gaming console? Nobody. Which explains why Costco and Target aren't selling them anymore.
They want to keep the brand, just get rid of the expensive hardware that doesn't pay for itself.
It's been the dream for a console generation to last 10 years, now it's a requirement as the hardware is sold at so much of a loss that you're not going to break even for years even when you're nickel and diming everyone for everything you can.
The problem with the loss leader strategy is that you have to make up that loss somewhere else, the bigger the loss the more you need to squeeze in other areas. Games
The strategy is Windows (Score:2, Interesting)
Xbox is becoming the gaming component of Windows.
They aren't getting much of a share in consoles because they don't have much of a presence in other countries. On the other hand Windows is available and used worldwide. They are folding Xbox into Windows, and you can see the beginnings of this in the Xbox ROG Ally portables. Improving the gaming experience in Windows is the future for Xbox because there is no growth for them in the console space.
Their next console's dev kit is just a Windows dev kit and dist
Probably the same thing games workshop does (Score:2)
So like 40K is up to five bucks a pop for a basic space Marine. And you can't really just buy the cheap starter sets to army build like you could back in the day because of the selection in the set is set up to make it so you can't do that.
But it's hard to quit because it's been your main hobby for years.
I think that's going to be the same thing here we've got lots of people that have t
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Those loss-leader products actually leads to losses for those keeping XBox consoles in stock.
It's PlayStation, Nintendo, PC (incl. handhelds) and SteamDecks, for the console (or better) gaming experience. XBox was never really a big player outside the US. My experience comes from working in retail (toy store) in the Netherlands and just walking around for 20 years in malls from Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Chile. What you don't see is XBox, what you see a lot is PlayStation and Nintendo.
It's the Xbox $360 per year (Score:3)
Microsoft can't drop the crack pipe of subscriptions. At some point customers are going to say "screw it" and these companies will suffer the fate of Sears.
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Brilliant!
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Fell behind even though they started successfully all those decades ago as 'The Sears Roebuck Catalog' and never chased or bothered to continue with internet dominance until it was way too late. Then their bones were picked clean by a Vulture claiming 'I am here to help'.
They actually owned the land their buildings were built upon instead of amassing huge ongoing debt with the modern Lease model.
That's asking too much (Score:5, Insightful)
This seems like a good way of losing a lot of customers to end up with barely any additional revenue.
Re:That's asking too much (Score:4, Insightful)
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I did the 1$/month promo when it first came out. I played through a single game and canceled it.
Gaming is sadly not nearly as magical as it was when I was younger. I've always been a pc gaming fan, and if feels like consoles peaked at Xbox/PS2 before the always online every game must be connected day 1 200gb patch bullshit. My favorite game of all time is still the OG XBOX softmod and hard-drive lock-key extraction game.
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I used the conversion trick 3 years ago so I wasn't even paying $20 per month. But due to that trick going away and the constant price increases and other reasons, I've made sure recurring billing was off on that subscription long ago. It's finally going to expire on the 11th this month.
30 bucks a month? (Score:4, Insightful)
30 bucks a month comes out to $360 per year. No thanks, I'd rather stick to the $200-$300 I spend buying games per year and not have to worry about games I'm interested in playing being taken away from me on a whim.
The other tiers don't sound very appealing either.
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The issue is that some (maybe all?) games require an xbox subscription to play multi-player.
This is why I maintain an xbox core subscription, which still comes with game pass.
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That's not true on PC but I see after googling it that you're right about Xbox. What nonsense you folks have to put up with, pretty soon you won't even have the benefit of used games which is one of the few things in my book that console gaming had over PC. Even cost wise, price creep is bringing console costs up to that of cheaper PC prices. I've seen fairly decent pre built gaming rigs for the price that I see the newest Xbox being listed for.
This saves me $20 a month! Thanks! (Score:2)
My kid doesn't use his XBox very much anymore. Will be cancelling the subscription tonight.
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I've barely touch my Xbox. Most of my gaming is on PC (Steam) now. Much better games from all the small studios.
Ever since i cancelled my subscription i am happie (Score:2)
why is anyone still using Xbox (Score:1)
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why is anyone still using Xbox
Because I own one. And it still works. Then again, I'm not the typical gamer they target. The last game I bought within a year of its release was Outerworlds. And I have never, nor will I ever, subscribe to Game Pass. MS may think I'm a chump, but I'm a chump that doesn't give them a lot of money.
I'm sure of one thing (Score:2)
Greed perhaps?
Sunset of Microsoft (Score:2)
If Microsoft is so eager to die, let them.
The next Xbox is Game Mode in Windows 12 (Score:3)
Simple math (Score:2)
So since they've doubled the price, they should now generate $10 billion in revenue! How can that simple math be wrong?