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Beverly Friddle
I use my reward points to pay for game pass. Spent 20 dollars on a black friday deal and haven't put down any money in over two years. I still think it's a great deal especially for new people to gaming or the xbox ecosystem. I rather have game pass over any streaming service.
Nobody needs to play full price for Gamepass, if you don't already have Gamepass or its expired you simply buy up to 3 years of Very cheap Xbox Live Gold (From Cdkeys etc) and then enter a 1 month Ultimate Gamepass code which will convert All the Gold to Ultimate Gamepass .
It was the same BS with Sony initially for charging 10 bucks more for the PS5 version of games than the PS4. You just felt completely fleeced by these companies for giving them money for their hardware in the first place.
If they'd closed the ABK deal and were adding those games on there, I would say that it would be fine but increasing the price before the court date tomorrow is increasingly risky if it doesn't work out and they would look very very silly.
@Cashews So they are putting the price of the Series X to the same as the PS5, but you think MS should keep losing money on every Series X sold whilst Sony increased their console price months ago, if anything blame Sony at least Xbox and Nintendo didn't just use the same excuse as Sony and put their prices up at the same time.
I understand the increase for the console since production costs can shift too but the Game Pass increase is frustrating. First, Xbox just had an abysmal 2022 as far as content goes and 2023 has had a rocky start. We are only a little over a month removed from Redfall and I doubt anyone can argue Xbox deserves a bump in revenue for that.
Second, even if the increase has nothing to do with Activision Blizzard is still looks terrible that the company has decided to put $69 Billion towards a purchase but says they need to increase prices for their streaming services to remain competitive. If there are 30 million Game Pass subscribers and all of them stick around and pay the $2 more a month, it would take 96 years to pay off the Activision deal. Microsoft isn't going to get anywhere near the revenue from this increase than they would be allocating the Activision money somewhere else.
"adjusted the prices to reflect the competitive conditions in each market"
??
Xbox is last in every country. What competitive conditions are they talking about, the race to have the most expensive console?
The timing of this is really fascinating. On the game pass side, they have been in a big lull on the content side for some time now. I have to believe they will see a decent drop in subscribers over this.
The hardware side, now that the supply has caught up with demand, the Series X isn't selling very well. They must believe that Series X buyers are not as price sensitive. To be fair, that could be true.
This will be fine for the die hard fans but not the casuals, they will most likely not continue with their subscription once they find out. Only time will tell how this will effect gamepass numbers as Microsoft have already said growth had stopped.
While definitely a move with the famed 'bad optics' I have to say I haven't seen people react so violently when cars (a standard commodity these days) have become absurdly expensive. Nobody saying they will just walk lol. So once some people overreact it will be business as usual I guess.
People.. look at Forza Motorsport and Starfield! This was plannend all along. Xbox and Gamepass wil have big games coming to the platform and Gamepass service. Along with so many new subscribers. Gamepass wil still be a steal compared to buying these big budget games. This is the start of the new Xbox era, and the price raise is part of it.
And yeah @SplooshDmg if they keep raising prices on OLD hardware in this economy, which is unprecedented and insane, there's basically no chance of "Pro" models IMO. We've never seen old technology INCREASE in price over years.
The GP price is worrisome as Phil (lying phil as the ponies call him may be true enough) keeps saying they're happy with the price, then they change it. Yeah it's an inflationary price increase, but there's no way around a bad look when they say one thing and do another.
@gollumb82 Consumer spending on discretionary items is down. Waaaaay down. Retailers keep sounding those alarms. People aren't "complaining", they just stop buying things. You don't need an Xbox while waiting in the bread line.
@Cashews You do raise very important point. The big reason Activision deal getting shot down was over Microsoft having monopoly in the cloud. So what do they do? Price gouge the consumer even more. Stupid move.
I'm curious why the US did not get a price increase for this or PS5. Our middle class has largely disappeared? Our neck beards are particularly whiny and willing to make death threats? Or I guess maybe US market share is particularly important to console makers?
@NEStalgia
Gaming has never been a cheap hobby. Sure, it has become a mainstream type of entertainment over the last 15 years, but things haven't changed that much regarding the overall costs. I'm 40 and this gen is the first time in my life I can afford pretty much any gaming gear I want, but it didn't use to be this way so I just stayed with one platform, usually a used/cheap option. If one can't afford something it's logical that you should just consider your options and maybe buy a Series S. I see a lot of people still gaming on PS4 or XB One.
When I first bought my XSS, I stacked 3 years of Gamepass form Turkey for 70. I've enjoyed gamepass, and after having been away from gaming for a long time or had helped me get back into it. But old habits die hard, and I play mostly EA sports games and Sonic! Plus puzzle platformers. I've purchased several games that I still haven't played that aren't on gamepass. Long story short, I think gamepass is great value, if you're trying to find your new gaming niche or have lots of time to Game, but I doubt I'll be attacking up years again,at any price.
Others have said it's been terrible recently and whilst I'd be hard pushed to criticise people who want more "big budget" games on the service, we will be seeing some soon enough, although I lost my mind and bought the Starfield Constellation Edition because I simply couldn't resist ? .
I've just completed Planet of Lana and loved every minute of it. Beautiful game. I'd have happily paid 20 for it, even though its asking price is 16.99, but I paid my 10.99 sub and got to play it along with any other games I want that are currently on the service. Money well spent, in my opinion.
@Sifi why the living **** are we talking about sony? MICROSOFT JUST RAISED THEIR PRICE. You can be excited about price increases. I'm not about to pretend this is helpful to me - THE CONSUMER. Why the hell would I care about MS's balance sheet?
@Kaloudz It is a 15% hike. You can appreciate the value or not - rooting for this type of bs makes a person a corporate stooge. It is our job to fight for lower prices not throw a party when they hike 15% - past the rate of inflation.
I remember Phil saying they're not going to raise prices in the last holiday season but he hinted at a price increase will come at some point as they can only take losses for certain periods and people now forgot that. Price increase is bad no doubt in this time but Why should Microsoft take losses when competition has been profiteering for almost a year now. And as for gamepass prices if you don't see any games worth your time simply cancel your subscription. You can always come back if something catches your eye. And those of you who are stating concern about this either you already have a Xbox or you don't care about to buy it anyway. Why this hardware price increase should concern you anyway. At this point Microsoft should brand themselves as charity to feed us cheapskates.
Personally, I don't find any of these price increases to be a big deal at all. PS+ and GamePass are both amazing deals. I'd even argue that paying $600-700 for a console like PS5 or XSX is a good deal, given the amount of enjoyment that it provides and the amount of time that is spent on the console over the years.
I wish Sony's service gave me the same value for money, then maybe I wouldn't have downgraded from Premium to Essential. My PS5 is a paperweight anyway, until Spider-man 2 comes out, and only then if I can tear myself away from Starfield.
Not available everywhere but Game Pass can be bought cheaper or for next to nothing with the XBox Live conversion trick, CDKeys and Microsoft Points. Since I started with GP in early 2019 I've only payed 10.99 twice and got a year free with my Internet.
@Kaloudz I'm not calling YOU a stooge. Just a general term really. It is a good service. But there is a limit to what it is worth. $17/month flirts dangerously with that value to me. If/when the $70B deal goes through I have no doubt a good portion of that will be passed on to us - even though MS has the 2nd most cash than any other company on the planet.
On the topic:
I got to admit I am a bit surprised, but only a bit. I stated plenty of times that I expected a price increase not to occur until they simply first killed off the platform specific tiers, forcing everyone into the GP Ultimate tier.
The deal is still great, Ultimate goes up by about $24 US a year, GP regular goes up by $12 US a year. Not a bank-breaking amount by any means, but I'll be way more likely to pursue seasonal sales in the future instead of keeping my account on auto-renew.
Obviously that question will change with each person in here as no 2 people get the same amount of value out of Game Pass. How much you play, what games you play, how long you play them etc. will all factor into it. That being said, here are just some of the games i have enjoyed over the last roughly 2 years with Game Pass:
@Kaloudz I mean Phil P gave us the heads up about this increase last year. PS Plus Premium is like 13.49 monthly and there is little of interest to me on it. Even if GPU goes up 2 it's still 50p cheaper than that and I get 1st party games day one as well? I'm not gonna quibble over the 2 quid a month. I sense a lot of faux outrage here.
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