New Xbox CEO Reportedly Told Employees That “Game Pass Has Become Too Expensive for Players”

Peter_Brosdahl

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Xbox CEO Asha Sharma has reportedly commented on last year’s price increases to staff, hinting at subscription changes coming soon to its gaming service. It’s been barely two months since taking the reins from Sarah Bond and from scrapping the “This is an Xbox” marketing slogan, to now supposedly telling staff that Game Pass is […]

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Not wrong.

When it was $9 for one device, or $15 for ultimate - it was fine. I subbed on and off, and enjoyed it on both my PC and Xbox. I always found the rotating menu annoying though - games kept rolling off and that just doesn't seem like a great idea, but anyway, was nice to be able to try out newer games with little investment, or just bounce between a large number of titles

But now.. they segregate the available games depending on what tier you are subscribed. And, of course, the lower tier games you are just better off buying. I mean, you could legitimately argue that for all tiers really, but it's especially bad when only ~50 games are offered, and most of those are indy junk.

When the biggest draw is Fortnite... a free game anyway.... and roughly 1/4 of the library are other F2P games as well - why bother?
 
I bailed a month or so before the price hike. Played Indy Jones and a couple of other new releases, which made the monthly $15 worthwhile. After that there was nothing I wanted to play that I did not already own. Now that I am on Linux full time, microslop can suck it.
 
Well of course it is, anything over 0$ is too expensive. As far as I'm concerned game subs are a plague and shouldn't be a thing.

In fact I hated it even when I had it for free as it was constantly on the back of my mind to not let it go to waste. It incentivized me to try games I'd never have touched otherwise, and even the games I wanted to play I couldn't play at my own pace but instead was compelled to finish as fast as I could.
 
It still has value, just not much. It should be $20 a month, at most, for everything.
 
Riccochet said:
It still has value, just not much. It should be $20 a month, at most, for everything.
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No. $5. They need to stop being greedy. The lower the price, the more trivial it is to stay subscribed and forget about it and avoid the kind of anxiety MadMummy mentioned. More people would think, "Heck, it's just $5. Why not keep paying?". This is the way.
 
igor_kavinski said:
No. $5. They need to stop being greedy. The lower the price, the more trivial it is to stay subscribed and forget about it and avoid the kind of anxiety MadMummy mentioned. More people would think, "Heck, it's just $5. Why not keep paying?". This is the way.
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Then enjoy your indie junk games for $5 a month. Nothing is $5 a month anymore. Xbox Live has never been $5 a month, and that didn't include any games.

$20 for access to a lot of AAA titles is reasonable.
 
Riccochet said:
Then enjoy your indie junk games for $5 a month. Nothing is $5 a month anymore. Xbox Live has never been $5 a month, and that didn't include any games.

$20 for access to a lot of AAA titles is reasonable.
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you get below $10 in other regions. such as India, I think
 
I had a fire stick and ultimate for all of 2 months, the intention at 20$ was to keep it you forever like netflix.
The service I had no complaints with, but a 10$ hike was an inmediate cancel, 20 I thought it reasonable enough even if a few games are played on the regular (you know finish one take on another slowly, no rush, other family member would play other games and such). I expected the 20 price point to stick for a good while, as in 2 years, or more, but of course.price will always adjust a bit here and there.
But a huge hike was a shock, so I was out.
I dont know if.they are really running things at a loss or something (at 20 bucks) who knows.
 
So... What does that mean in practical terms? Time to lay off a bucnh of folks at the studios MS purchased from Zenimax?
 
Reading some old articles things seem.interesting, they had cracked 5 billion in revenue (pre hikes).
I guess that means 5 MEASLY billions to MS executives.
Supposedly the 20$ tier did not make money because the people there used the service, can really read it any other way.
Getting legit subs numbers seems impossible, though some suggest 34million in 2025.
Its curious that this memo "leaked out" such a coward move btw, just be like effin Walmart, we are cutting prices, call it a day, idk 5 dollar footlongs whatever.
Anyway for it to leak out, how bad was those cancellations anyway? Sensentional articles in 2025 say even the cancel.page crashed briefly, but that doesnt mean much of anything just a cool headline.
Anyway interesting stuff.
 
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