It’s that time of year where everyone starts reviewing their monthly outgoings, and with Microsoft’s price increase to its Game Pass service, it’s debatable whether the subscription still represents the incredible value it used to.
When I bought my Xbox Series X back in 2022, I happily locked into the maximum of three years of Game Pass Ultimate, and – by using one of the official conversions deals from Xbox Live Gold – it worked out at just over £10 per month, paid upfront.
Much like takeaway pizza or chain restaurants, Game Pass is one of those things that very few people pay full price for, but even the official monthly cost sat at £12.99, and then £14.99, until Microsoft dropped its bombshell late last year. Effectively, since its Activision takeover in 2023, the cost has more than doubled.
While official press releases tried to frame it around the value of Call of Duty, Fortnite Crew & Ubisoft+ Classics, as well as better quality cloud streaming, for the majority of users many of those aren’t collectively applicable to their everyday gaming. And although lesser ‘Premium’ and ‘Essential’ tiers still exist, they have considerably less games, and come without crucial AAA Day One releases.
The whole offering is confusing, and nothing more than a classic framing sales technique, effectively forcing you to ‘Ultimate’ to get any value at all, and, in effect, paying for many other features you may not use. Combine that with the removal of any conversion offers, and no saving for committing to a long term purchase, and it’s a harsh double blow.
For this year at least, my renewal fortunately fell between the announcement and the start of the price rise, and I was able to stack up codes at the old monthly price. Interestingly, however, I only choose to do this for 12 months, even though the cap remained at 36 months, largely as I couldn’t see long-term value after the price increase made me question what I was really paying for.
Unfortunately for Microsoft, the maths just doesn’t stack up for most people – at roughly £275 per year, that’s the equivalent of 4 brand new AAA titles, or more likely, 8-10 reasonably priced games. Even with the benefit of a ‘pick-up and play’ library, allowing you to trial whatever you want, it’s an incredible amount of gaming needed just to break even.
For me, it’s likely that I’ll run out of Game Pass titles that make it worth while fairly quickly. Yes I might play Forza Horizon 6 on Day One, but equally I could wait a year until it drops in a sale. And with the second hand physical market still strong, and even decent digital sales two or three times a year, it’s a no brainer not to renew for 2026 – although with this new era, that could of course itself change.