- The service needs to make money and price increase due to a lack of mass-market buy-in is the only choice right now
- The wide scale adoption of a successful, on-going gaming subscription still appears far away
Microsoft is raising Game Pass prices, with PC Game Pass increasing by £2 to £9.99, Ultimate by £2 to £14.99 per month while Game Pass Core: Annual will go up from £49.99 to £55.99.
Come September, Xbox will replace its standard subscription tier on Xbox consoles, requiring gamers to subscribe to Game Pass Ultimate for access to new games on release day.
This comes after the company announced that Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 will be available immediately to Game Pass subscribers. New subscribers will see price changes immediately; existing members in September. Basic Xbox subscriptions remain until expiration.
Game Pass under pressure
We’ve previously written about why there’s no profitable subscription service for games, and right now the only way ahead for Xbox to make Game Pass profitable (or at least viable) is put the price up… Which is hardly a good move when you’re trying to attract users and grow a user base.
This price increase is happening due to a lack of mass-market buy-in, putting its viability at risk. The company face a dilemma between selling local hardware and launching a remote access streaming service, hoping for a shift in popularity that seems farther off than expected.
Furthermore, the price hikes now make Game Pass more expensive than Sony’s PlayStation Plus Premium, which costs £13.49 per month in the UK.
It remains to be seen as whether the tactic of pushing the latest Call of Duty immediately on Game Pass proves to be enough of a draw to push dedicated users onto a pricier tier.
