I used to be a huge advocate for Game Pass. I've played so many games I never would have without, and have saved so much from buying games and not liking them.

30 a month is insane. It now outpaces my buying rate and I can't justify it. The lower tiers just don't do it for me. They finally killed an Xbox Live customer since the 360.

As with almost all subscription services, the enshittification was inevitable.

30$/month is hilarious. We all knew they were going to increase the price to justify how much microsoft is spending but at that point you might as well buy your games. I guess it would make sense if you're playing every day one release and are already subscribed to other things that are now included such as fortnite, ubisoft+...

but 99.9% of gamers are not that obsessed. I have a hard time believing there are many people willing to spend 360$ to play games that will disappear as soon as you stop playing. and I have a hard time believing most standard game pass subscribers will stay subscribed now that recently released games aren't included. That was the only reason I bothered subbing for a month every year or so

This was always the plan and it will absolutely get worse. corporations only care about "line go up" they have never and will never give a fuck about the "customer".

Steam fall sale is happening now. Just picked up a ton of good games for less than 30 :)

Well I’m glad I’m already not paying them for this anymore, saves me having to cancel my subscription now.

We all knew enshittification was coming, but it spooled up faster than expected.

Is this for the PC only version too? I can't tell through all the marketing speak.

Don't suppose there's still a cheap trick to buying 3 years of vouchers for relatively cheap and upgrading to Ultimate? That worked great in 2022, but I'm guessing they shut it down.

Those billion AI GPUs won't pay for themselves you know.

FYI - as of this posting sites like cdkeys (now loaded) have some og pricing but it's quickly rising. Buy em if you want to get through games like Outer Worlds 2 before dropping service.

do they inject ads into loading screens and cut scenes?

Canceled my subscription. Fuck you, Microsoft.

That's it, this is the last Xbox console I'll ever buy

At one time XBOX fanbase were so desperate to play games like Halo and Gears of War that they were wrapping their dead XBOX 360 in a towel and putting it in an oven to resurrect it. That sounds so insane but it actually happened. Fast forward to now, Microsoft has raised hardware prices twice since May and now raising price of their game pass by 50%. Clearly they're no longer interested in increasing XBOX market share or even retaining it. They've pivoted their strategy to milk their current XBOX fans as much money as they can until the brand is completely dead.

I don't think the Burberry strategy is going to work for you guys.

We used to really enjoy game pass as a family. I think the best part is discovering games that we wouldn't have played otherwise. But at some point we stopped using it, so we cancelled. We've gotten 1 or 2 months free or cheap a couple of times now, but I ended up mainly playing one game... Although I suppose I did discover that I liked Avowed more than Expedition 33 😳. If I'd had to buy them, I would have only bought Expedition 33.

So I think we'll keep going like this... Once a year or so use a cheap trial to get a month and try a lot of games, and use steam sales the rest of the year, and every now and then buy a full price game we really want.

I'm so glad I use Microsoft Rewards.

More than a 100% price hike in my country. Just downgraded from ultimate to premium because my kid has an Xbox and it is still cheaper than buying the games individually.

But, otherwise I would have cancelled the plan.

Woo!

The morons who love renting get to pay more now!

I love watching this!

Fuck that noise! Cancel that shit.

GOG is the only store you can actually buy games from and not merely renting them.

Support indie devs and not the subscription of some corporate shitheads

Xbox is BDS - if you support Palestine, now is a great time to cancel your Gamepass subscription and stop funding genocide.

My g/f is all about the x-box and pays for the game pass. She argues it lets her try games without committing to purchase. And I was like, "that's what demos are, and they used to be something the industry offered for free." $120 a year for the cheapest plan so I can demo single player games. I could buy 3-8 games that are new to me for that price by being a late adopter and getting it on sale after reading user/industry reviews to give myself a shot at being happy with the purchase. In the time I've known her, my g/f bought one game she played through the pass because it stopped being available through the pass, (party animals is the game in question.)

Including Fortnite Crew in Game Pass Ultimate is a terrible justification for the 50% price increase. How many people who play Fortnite enough for Crew to be useful also play other games enough for Game Pass Ultimate to be worthwhile?