Xbox Game Pass and Xbox Game Pass Ultimate are some of the best deals in gaming not just right now, but in the history of gaming. At $10 and $15 a month respectively, the deals almost feel too good to be true, which is why many are skeptical they will remain these prices. That said, Activision has once again reiterated a price increase is not on the horizon. Well, kind of. Of course, eventually the subscription service will increase in price, as everything does for a myriad of reasons. However, if you’re a subscriber worried about this happening soon, you don’t have anything to worry, according to Microsoft at least.ย
With Xbox’s massive acquisition of Activision Blizzard looming, many have grown concerned the $68.7 billion deal could impact the subscription service as presumably all of Activision Blizzard’s catalog going forward will be added to the subscription the day of release. That’s a lot of money Microsoft will lose in sales and unless it can make up for this with a massive increase in subscribers, it’s hard to imagine how Microsoft will begin to recoup its mammoth investment. That said, Microsoft has committed to not increasing the price of the subscription service as a result of the Activision-Blizzard deal.ย
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“Finally, the FTC ignores critical variables in the economic analysis by disregarding the new options the merger will create for playing Activision content,” reads page 25 of Microsoft’s defense against the FTC’s attempt to block the deal. “Here, the acquisition would benefit consumers by making Call of Duty available on Microsoft’s Game Pass on the day it is released on console (with no price increase for the service based on the acquisition), on Nintendo, and on other services that allow cloud streaming.”
Of course, you should never put too much faith to these type of commitments, however, it’s a public commitment made to a regulatory arm of the US government. That said, the coffers of Microsoft allow them to make these type of commitments. They have enough money to burn it everyday for the rest of our lives. Further, it’s worth noting that Microsoft doesn’t commit to no price increase across the board, just to not increasing the price as a result of the acquisition. In other words, there’s wiggle room for them to get around this, but it would look bad if they did so, especially to the FTC, which it will no doubt need to cooperate with in the future.
H/T, Wccftech.
