Xbox Game Pass may be getting more expensive, according to a new report that claims Microsoft is exploring the possibility of getting rid of the current base tier of Xbox Game Pass alongside getting rid of the base tier of Xbox Live Gold in favor of making the combination of these two, Xbox Game Pass Ultimate, the standard going forward. This means that if you’re paying $10 for Xbox Game Pass every month, you may soon be paying $15 every month. Meanwhile, if you’re paying $5 every month for Xbox Live Gold, you may soon be paying $15 every month. These may not seem like big price increases, but if you look at the increase as percentages, they are both substantial.ย
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The report comes the way of Xbox insider and journalist, Brad Sams, who claims Microsoft is aiming to combine the two subscription services into one service. To this end, Sams suggests this could all happen when Xbox’s pricey acquisition of Activision Blizzard is completed.ย
“I’ve heard that Microsoft is contemplating figuring out how to raise the price of these services [Xbox Live Gold and Xbox Game Pass] to include Gold so that $15 per month is the new baseline, meaning you get Game Pass and you also get Xbox Live Gold, and that’s the only tier,” said Sams via Pure Xbox. “It would not surprise me if when Microsoft closes this acquisition of Activision, they actually raise that base floor-up price of how much it’s going to cost to get into their service.”
For now, this is the extent of the report, which, of course, should be taken with a grain of salt. Even if everything here is accurate, it’s also subject to change, but it lines up with rumblings that we’ve heard, which is that Microsoft isn’t sure what to do with Xbox Live Gold and has been exploring ways to increase the price of Xbox Game Pass. It would make sense for the solutions to both of these problems to be a single shared solution.ย
At the moment of publishing, Microsoft has not addressed this report and the speculation it has created. For a variety of reasons, we don’t anticipate this changing, but if it does, we will be sure to update the story accordingly. In the meantime, and as always, feel free to share your thoughts and hot-takes in the comments section or, alternatively, hit me up on Twitter @Tyler_Fischer_ and let me know over there. What do you think of this new report? Is this the right course of action for Xbox?
