According to their announcement, the Xbox Game Pass Ultimate will be priced at $29.99, which represents a 50% increase compared to the previous price of $19.99 monthly. At first glance, this price hike seems unjustified, but the Xbox owner company is promising that the price hike is justified by many upgrades and improvements for all the Xbox Game Pass subscriptions.
“What’s new for everyone across all three Xbox Game Pass plans is bigger game libraries, including PC games across each of the plans. There is also unlimited cloud gaming, which is new to Essential and Premium subscribers.” Dustion Blackwell, the director of gaming and platform communications from Microsoft, stated.
On the other hand, the popular Xbox Game Pass Core will have a new name and will be rebranded as the Xbox Game Pass Essential. More so, the gaming company is also changing the name for the Xbox Standard plan, which will become Xbox Game Pass Premium.
Let’s go through all the new improvements and price hikes for Xbox subscription plans:
Xbox Game PassThe subscription plan that gets the biggest price increase will cost $29.99 per month for users. It should be mentioned that this Xbox subscription plan also experienced last year a price increase but without any justified improvements.
Right now, Xbox will add various new features and improvements, such as access to more than 400 worldwide titles, the addition of about 45 Xbox Game Pass Ultimate games like Assassin’s Creed, Hogwarts Legacy, and many more. In addition to these Xbox Game Pass Ultimate games that will be available starting from today, the gaming company promises that add at least 75 day one releases every year.
Rebranded from the previous Xbox Standard plan, the Xbox Game Pass Premium price remains the same at $14.99 per month. Even if the price remains the same, its subscribers will now have a bigger games library, with more than 200 games to choose from, such as Hogwarts Legacy, Diablo IV, and many more.
Another good news for gaming fans is that if they have this Xbox subscription plan, they will also benefit from unlimited Xbox cloud gaming access for the first time.
Previously named the Xbox Game Pass Core, the Xbox Game Pass Essential price remains the same $9.99 per month for users, but it will now offer more than 50 new titles in the library. The original Core subscription plan offered only 25 library games to users, and they were also unable to play them on PC or console. This plan now includes unlimited cloud access.
It seems that even the PX subscription plan will suffer a price hike, from $11.99 to $16.99 per month, which represents a nearly 40% price increase. According to the company’s statement, the PC Game Pass will gain 50 additional Ubisoft titles, marking the only change expected soon.
“This last year alone we’ve made our largest investment in Game Pass so far, signing deals with more than 150 partners to expand the catalog over time,” Dustion Blackwell stated.
But these are not the only changes that are about to happen, as Microsoft is also focused on increasing the price of the Xbox consoles soon.
“We understand price increases are never fun for anybody, but we’re trying to reinforce by adding more value to these plans as well. It’s something we don’t take lightly, and we’re listening to the feedback of players and the community to try to provide them with more of what they’re asking for.”, the director of gaming and platform communications from Microsoft states.
