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Updates to Xbox Game Pass: Introducing Essential, Premium, and Ultimate plans
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- Authors
- Joe Skrebels, Xbox Wire Editor-in-Chief
- Published
- Oct 1 2025
- Word count
- 1987 words
Sounds like the death of Xbox to me. 2 price increases this year on their consoles, and year over year increases on GamePass, with Ultimate now costing $35 USD/month. Might as well buy your 2-3 AAA games and save money along the way. I wonder if Microsoft will eventually scrap their console division altogether and solely focus on GamePass? What does everyone else think?
I was personally about to subscribe to PC GamePass starting in 2026 but have no decided not to due to the almost 40-50% price increase. Will just continue playing my uncompleted/unfinished steam games.
I'm not really a fan of "I told you so" remarks. But this seemed inevitable and we could have looked at every other medium doing this to realize that this was always an ineviability with this model. Video streaming, Music streaming, ebooks, Youtube. They all followed this same pattern. I don't know why some people thought games would be different.
In related news: https://thegamepost.com/canceling-xbox-boycott-game-pass-price-increase-microsoft/
Guess we'll see if the invisible hand can side with the consumers for once.
I don't think anyone who was remotely knowledgeable about the games industry thought that gamepass was sustainable long term, it was always just a question of "when" the price got jacked up. They have been losing money hand over fist for years, especially when they started spending billions acquiring so many studios and then putting their games on the gamepass for free. It was such an incredible deal it never made sense to buy games when they were going to be on gamepass. Even at 16 bucks for PC pass its still a decent deal if you're the kind of gamer who likes to pick up every new game for a few weeks and then move on. Me and my friends game the system because they don't seem to have any limits (yet) on how many people can log into a microsoft account so we've all been sharing the same Xbox gamepass for the last 2 years lol, they don't even limit you from playing at the same time.
Well Spotify isn't $35/month last I checked...
https://www.theverge.com/news/718038/spotify-premium-subscription-price-increase-outside-us
Give it a month or two. This is the same strategy the consoles did before finally raising prices in the US. They always try to make other countries foot the bill first.
And I bet my bottom dollar this isn't the last price increase either. Youtube had two price jumps in a year.
I suspect we may have seen the last Xbox made by Microsoft, at least for a long time. They seem to be going the Valve route of getting third parties to make their consoles.
Honestly, Xbox always seemed like a vanity project to me, well outside of Microsoft's core business area. Windows was their core product, so why make a device that meant fewer people needed Windows? Personally, I think Bill Gates just wanted to make a cool console, and had the money to make it a reality. Then Xbox Live became a cash cow, so they stuck with it for a while. They tried to reinvent the whole thing with the Xbox One, but that was a massive failure, and since then they've been doing the "play everywhere" thing. The Series was their last ditch effort, and since that was a flop, they're now outsourcing the whole thing and focusing on their core product again.
They entered the console game because video games are big money, plain and simple. Before the original Xbox Microsoft was investing heavily in video games, having published a number of them directly. They also invested in Sega; remember how the Dreamcast had the "Powered by Windows CE" Badge? That was an early attempt to get a cut of console profits.
I think that Microsoft is seeing now that the console part of the business is only of limited use. They have bought a huge number of studios and publishers which allows them to take an even larger cut of profit than if they merely took licensing fees, and focusing less on hardware helps them to avoid the huge negative PR hits they've had i.e. with the 360 overheating issues and the disastrous launch of the Xbox One. The console business is also just really tough, with one competitor constantly coming up with massively popular console exclusives and keeps outselling everyone else even though their consoles don't offer the same technological capabilities.
Personally, I haven't known anyone who uses an Xbox console for years now. Almost everyone I know of plays on PC, Steam Deck, or Switch/2 for modern games.
I really, really hope there will at least be a Steam Deck 2. Understandable if they're not capable of making a 3.
Steam Deck 2: Episode 2 in 2031?
Small correction since people are referencing the number elsewhere in the thread: unless I'm missing some hidden cost that you're accounting for, ultimate is 30 USD/month, not 35.
Still ridiculous.
Sorry about that, was thinking of the price in Canadian Dollars
The only response from this that I have appreciated, is surprisingly, is the one from GameStop.
My Series X hasn't even been plugged in for 6 months, and when I first got it , I stacked as much Gamepass as I could. It ran out early this year, I had a reorg in my room, and it just didn't seem worthwhile even plugging it back in. Nothing worth cabling it up for really. I lost access to FH4 despite having bought some paid content for it, managed to snag it on Steam before it was deleted and that was the last thing really.
That's surprising to me, this year has probably been the best year for GamePass yet, and I haven't been an Xbox Live subscriber since, well... it was called Xbox Live.
Avowed, Silksong, Oblivion Remastered, Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 are all good to great games, unless you're primarily a PC gamer/already own them.
There are some great games, but I think you picked some odd examples here. Silksong is now cheaper than a month of gamepass, and Oblivion is he exact kind of game I would not want to "rent". I will be modding that game for years to come, I'd rather buy it outright. Avowed feels the same but I haven't had a chance to play yet.
Clair Obscure is a very "me" thing, though. it's an "J"RPG, and I buy those on playstation when I have a choice.
I don't think those are weird examples. I was talking about why GamePass was considered good value this year, and just listed some games that I thought a decent amount of people who play games would enjoy. Most people don't mod their games, even on PC, and I am quite sure you cannot mod games on GamePass (at least last time I checked, mods did not exist for console).
And for a decent amount of people, SilkSong is probably far too difficult for them and would be glad they didn't buy it and 'wasted' their money and can move on to something else.
I don't know what you're trying to convey to me with your last sentence. Clair Obscur sold close to 4.5M copies of the game, doesn't sound like just a "you" thing to me.
I'm a PC gamer, so I have some bias, but I ran the numbers (USD) and didn't come up with a strong conclusion either way. Gamepass has a lot going for it, but the value depends on a lot of other factors.
An Xbox Series S is $380. $15/mo (previously) for gamepass is $180 for a year. So you're in $560 total.
Using historical lowest prices for the games you've outlined, on PC and compared with IsThereAnyDeal, is a total of approximately $138.
Saying the prices of gaming PCs vary is an understatement. You're going to pay at least double the price of the Series S. So if we say an $800 PC along with those games, $938 for the year. Maybe another $150 or so for your preferred hardware peripherals (controller or mouse/kb), so we'll round it up to $1100.
If you're using the cloud gaming portion, I would think you can play on a lot of cheaper (PC) devices, so maybe that's the sweet spot (assuming you have the right setup to get good streaming performance).
I'm solely a PC gamer as well, and probably have been for close to 10-12 years now. You also did not include a monitor in your PC total, but let's say you have a TV and use that instead (and forgetting about the used market as well).
In the end, I think most people are going to just look at the ending total, $560 and $1100, and still go with the former option even though after 1-2 years it'll end up being more expensive than buying a PC. Most people in North America aren't good with high upfront costs due to poor financial literacy skills.
A lot of people aren't fortunate enough to afford paying high upfront costs. There's a lot of "paycheck to paycheck" individuals and families with minimal savings. Even if you aren't stretched quite that far, it's still not easy for many people.
Most people know it's cheaper to buy some products in bulk at places like Costco. But spending $40 for 3 months of toilet paper is a big immediate cost vs $5 for a week's worth.
There's businesses in multiple industries that prey on these people. Family Dollar is one of the few choices in food deserts. And back to the topic at hand, places like Rent-a-Center are insane from a long term perspective. Sure, you can "rent" an Xbox Series S for $26 a week, but over 54 weeks you'll end up paying $1,400 for it. (RAC seems to be more of a loan/finance company at this point, with "rent to own" potentially applying to all their products. So that price may eventually end in ownership, assuming you finish the payment plan.)
There's certainly a large subset of people who fall into that category, and I feel for them. But there's also a large (but definitely smaller than the former) number of people who have more money than sense, or just make poor financial decisions along the way leading to them having to do a less economically favorable purchase for bigger purchases like these because of the smaller decisions they made down the road.
Also, if you're currently struggling paycheck to paycheck, buying consoles should not even be a purchase you should be considering, especially with how much free media entertainment is out there in the form of F2P games and videos.
I agree, but that just confirms your point that financial literacy is also a big problem. A Venn diagram would certainly have overlap there, along with the other subset you're referring to of people who have the means but do not make the best financial decisions.
I wish high schools would carve out a month of curriculum (maybe in a math course?) to go over these things. If they did, payday loans would likely go extinct (as they should). For the uninitiated, from the US Consumer Finance Protection Bureau website:
From a CNBC article summarizing some data in 2021:
@ShroudedScribe mentioned Rent-a-Center, which can be used by people that can't afford an upfront cost, but it's often used across the financial spectrum for limited-time use. I've never used their service, but I know plenty of people who have at least once rented the biggest TV in stock along with a couple of recliners for a week(end) when it's their turn to host the Superbowl watch party. It's like $20 per chair and $30-$40 for the TV, maybe $200 all-in. Could they afford to purchase everything outright? Sure, without too much burden. But why would they? Almost nobody needs four recliners year round (upwards of $1k each), and not everyone wants an 80" TV at $1-2k for a bit of network tv before bed.
The same applies to these digital subscription services (video streaming, game library, cloud gaming, etc.). They can be be more expensive than outright purchases when subscribed indefinitely, but if you only subscribe during school holidays or for a month or two each year when the content you're super interested in releases, it makes sense.
Interesting! Would never think of doing something personally like that for myself, but it's cool that option is there and seems viable for those that can use it responsibly.
I thought Avowed was terrible (and I was gutted, because the first reveal trailer looked /fantastic/ but the end product was nothing, at all, like it), Silksong is cheap (and I only bought it to support it because it, and its predecessor are much too difficult for me), Oblivion was a let down, and I had to get E33 on PC so I could mod it to be easier, otherwise I'd never have been able to play it.
All my favourite exclusive is on the PS5, so I'll stick with that. I just can't think of anything I'd want to play that I can only get on XBox, or cheaper on Steam.
Found I was only using GP as a free demo platform.
A bit off topic: PC Hollow Knight and Silksong are both easy to mod and have mods that lower difficulty. Only really mentioning this because you mentioned doing it for E33.
More on topic: the way Microsoft has consolidated their gaming platforms such that they've more-or-less erased the divide between console and PC is.... interesting. On one hand it's kind of cool and better for customers, but on the other it massively devalues the console because there will be practically no console exclusives. Aside from wanting the Game Pass subscription itself the it feels like most people will find themselves better served by Steam, which is just a very weird market position. This leaves the console seemingly only targeting the segment that wants a plug-and-play solution rather than a gaming PC minus those that would pick PlayStation or Switch instead.
Thanks for that, I hadn't really considered trying this for Hollow Knight because I abandoned it due to difficulty quite the time ago. I'll investigate those options, thank you.
this is the logic that makes me absolutely sure that microsoft has no interest in consoles anymore, their vested interest in PC gaming means they can never make xbox a truly compelling package like sony or nintendo can. i assume that they're looking to make xbox closer to "windows for gamers", which would work with their conflict-of-interest.
While this would be an absurd thing for them to actually do, the weird way they're positioned makes me think that if they want to continue making consoles they should just ship a well-performing plug-and-play box that has full compatibility across all Windows games (at least as much as anyone would expect of a custom PC) that just directly integrates the various competing storefronts, although presumably via some cross-service integration (like needing to link Xbox and Steam, Epic, GOG, etc accounts). The idea being that rather than fighting this losing battle against Steam where Steam is making it easier than ever to drop Windows, embrace it and capture the audience that wants a Steam box for their TV that doesn't have the limitations of Proton. Make that audience stop being interested in competing OSes and compatibility layers by just supplying the box that "just works" for what they want as a route to steer them back into the MS ecosystem. Send a signal to developers that they can stop thinking about a future that needs to consider Linux compatibility of future "Steam boxes" because Microsoft is embracing Windows as a gaming OS for all users, including console users, so go ahead and just help entrench Microsoft rather than supporting those other boxes that lack a competitive advantage now that they aren't the only ones with Steam library support.
I obviously don't see any of that as even remotely realistic though. Doing it would mean sacrificing the storefront slice that they want, although if I'm being realistic that's probably not doing great for them anyway. It's possible they would be literally better off giving that up just focusing on the revenue streams they could extract from being the hardware platform, such as data harvesting and integrated ads. A model much closer to something like a Roku.
Twice I bought three years worth of gold and converted it to Game Pass, so when it expires in a few months, I think I got my money's worth. Bought Vampire Survivors and Balatro outright, and probably put in as much time into those as everything else on the service.
Steam autumn sale's on, by the way, if you wanted something worth paying for. Because hoo damn, that is one poor value prospect, Microsoft.
I would, but still have lots to play in my collection! Really tempted to buy Age of Mythology: Retold and one or two others lol. Maybe during the winter sale!
I bought 3 years of ultimate before, which is expiring in 9 months. Will not be renewing at this price point.
As someone who bought an Xbox to play GTA 6 on launch next year, I'm just bummed I'll have a glorified BluRay player after I've had my fill of the game. I was hoping to use it to play games before they came to PC until it became obsolete, but after everything I've heard I'll probably have mine sold by this time next year, if not sooner.
Any reason you bought the Xbox instead of a PS5 for GTA? Unless you're a GamePass user it's a probably an objectively worse console in every way.
The series x looked to be comparable on a technical level to a PS5 while being cheaper to buy used and I wasn't aware that an Xbox controller can be paired to a PS5. If I could do it again I'd have bought a PS5, but how many things in life can we say we did right the first time anyway?
I've probably barely done anything right in my life even after successive attempts lol - however, electronics purchasing is the one thing I do get right often :P
I normally do when it's something I'm familiar with like a computer part or monitor, but to be honest, aside from the hit on my credit score I took to buy this thing, as long as it plays what I bought it for I'm not gonna lose any sleep over it. This is a high cost, low stakes sort of purchase for me and I'll have no problem selling it for less than I paid for it down the road.
Completely off-topic, but why does Tildes show the favicon of xbox.com to be the 360 logo, when the site itself uses the up-to-date flat version?
The tildes code downloads site favicons so they can be served from the Tildes server. Could be for performance and/or privacy reasons. Once the icon is downloaded for a particular domain, it skips downloading it again, so it won't get any changes after the first download.
So, something that's come to my attention that I figure is worth mentioning: the Premium tier will no longer be getting day-one releases of Xbox titles, but will get them "within a year" of release... except for Call of Duty games, including Black Ops 7. So that will be exlusively available on the Ultimate plan for at least a full year. This has been communicated by Microsoft mainly through fine print on the graphic showing the plans.
Microsoft is also removing some discounts for DLC/add-ons associated with the Ultimate Plan, and then something about changing the reward points system...? I don't know, I don't play COD or have an Xbox or Game Pass.
Figured it was worth sharing because from what I know, COD is used by Microsoft as a selling point for Game Pass. So the fact Microsoft isn't clearly communicating these particular changes, and that Black Ops 7 is coming out soon... The timing just feels skeevy to me, like they're hoping people will buy at least the Premium tier unaware that it's excluded, for at least a full year. Possibly forever.
Closely related: Blomberg reports that Microsoft lost $300 million in potential sales on COD BO6 because it was on Game Pass on day one. (Note, paywalled. Archive link here.) Basic gist is that people would subscribe to Game Pass for one or two months to play it then unsubscribe, which cut into direct profit since people wouldn't buy the game at full price. Note, the game was still highly profitable and the top selling game in the US last year, they just lost out on a lot of retail sales for Xbox. I'm seeing much speculation that this was a major factor in the changes to Game Pass.
I did not mention that in my original comment, but I did notice that. For me, personally I don't care about Day 1 releases, because the best version of the game is usually after 6 months or when all DLC/patches have been released, but it would be extremely scummy of them to not release games within a year time frame as well.
Game Pass really does seem like the only path forward for Xbox. Seems like they'll pivot to being more like Valve and publish/distribute games on their own store and move away from building their own hardware. Kinda sad to see this slow death of Xbox hardware in real time.
Game Pass is pretty cool stuff though. Only tried it once when I had a free month and I spent that month playing No Man's Sky and Forza Horizon. I don't game much anymore so spending $60+ dollars on a game I'll only play for a short while isn't something I can justify often. It is a bit easier justifying temporary subscription costs to play whatever games I want (as long as its within the Game Pass list). Though, to me, this value proposition starts to break down the longer you're subscribed, especially at the higher tiers.
Yeah I guess it makes sense if you are saving over half the price of a full price AAA game, but I simply don't play one of those every month.
I've been a long time Xbox Live subscriber, ever since I first got it to play Halo 3 almost two decades ago. But, this push to more subscription based stuff is losing me. I want to own my games, not rent them.
Gonna keep an eye on the UK pricing, but if they hike it similarly here, I'm cancelling.
I may as well not subscribe for a few months and buy MS Flight Sim for my kid to play at this price. Which is equally fine, I guess. Just less convenient, maybe?
I miss old Xbox Live and not needing to update games all the time. It’s been downhill since Halo 3 if I’m being honest. Or I’m old now.
I was also in the Halo era, and I think it's part nostalgia and part reality. We got the privilege of living in a very interesting time of having a balance of analogue and digital technology, and probably no other generation will be able to partake in a feeling like that. Doing LAN parties, staying up all night at your friends playing the Halo 3 campaign, riding your bikes together from school to your place to get on Xbox Live right away - and play all day long, I don't see any of my Gen Z cousins ever doing that.
At the same time, I think every single person in a first-world country laments their childhood to some extent, and there have been plenty of great experiences that have happened since, as well. Pokemon Go was really cool to me, seeing everyone get into gaming during COVID was nice. It's mostly the FPS genre other than COD that has decayed since that time, every other genre has been thriving in my opinion.
As for your original question. That's what I would do lol. Providing you and your kid play MS Flight Sim enough to justify the purchase.