This past week, Microsoft confirmed to us that it is hiking the price of Xbox Game Pass Ultimate to $19.99 per month, and also compromising its previous promise of day one games across the service. A new "standard" tier priced at $14.99 will now include Xbox Live Gold multiplayer access, but will only receive Xbox's exclusive titles months after launch, within as-of-yet-to-be-determined timeframes. Current users of Xbox Game Pass for Console will maintain their access to day one games, but only if they remain subscribed. PC Game Pass is getting a price increase on top, too.
The switch up of the service echoes general price increases we've seen from other subscription services in recent years. Many companies took advantage of inflation to cover arbitrary price increases, while others were forced to by increases in costs, and also increases in profitability expectations. The economic aftershocks of the past two years seem to be evening out in some cases, but some companies are still looking at ways to increase profitability in what is, in many sectors, a stagnant economy.
