- Microsoft has announced big changes to Xbox Game Pass
- An Xbox Game Pass Ultimate subscription now costs $29.99 / £22.99 / AU$35.95
- It comes with a new premium tier and additional benefits.
Microsoft has revealed Major changes are coming to Xbox Game Pass, with three upgraded plans and a massive price increase for Ultimate subscribers.
Xbox Game Pass Core is now called Xbox Game Pass Essential and offers subscribers the ability to enjoy unlimited cloud gaming in addition to the existing ability to play multiplayer titles.
The level’s modest game library is now available on PC. Subscribers can also earn up to $25 per year in in-store points when they play with the Rewards with Xbox program.
The pricing for this tier remains the same: $9.99 / £6.99 / AU$12.95 per month. So that’s just good news if this is your preferred level.
A new Xbox Game Pass Premium tier replaces the old Xbox Game Pass Standard and also retains the current price of $14.99 / £10.99 / AU$17.95 per month.
Like Essential, the new Premium tier offers unlimited cloud gaming and a huge library of over 200 games available to play on Xbox and PC.
The service also provides access to new games released by Xbox within a year of their release, although this does not include new games. Obligations Values.
Premium members also benefit from up to $50 in Store Points per year when playing with the Rewards with Xbox program.
Things only start to look really bad when you look at the new Xbox Game Pass Ultimate. Now includes a subscription to Fortnite Crew (which offers the game’s Battle Pass, 1,000 V-Bucks per month, and some bonus skins) and Ubisoft+ classics like Assassin’s Creed 4: Black Flag.
Subscribers also have day one access to major upcoming games, such as Call of Duty: Black Ops 7, ninjagaiden 4AND The outer worlds 2, along with a library of over 400 games.
Cloud gaming also gets a big improvement over Ultimate with lower latency and resolutions up to 1440p. Additionally, subscribers can earn up to $100 per year in in-store points by playing through the Rewards with Xbox program.
Unfortunately, all of this comes at an extremely high price.
An Xbox Game Pass Ultimate subscription now costs a whopping $29.99 / £22.99 / AU$35.95 per month, down from $19.99 / £14.99 / AU$22.95 – yikes.
Worse yet, we don’t see an annual subscription option in the Xbox Store. So it doesn’t seem like you can save by buying 12 months at a time. However, we reached out to Microsoft and asked if this would be an option.
In total, that means an Xbox Series S, which recently increased in price by $379.99, and a year of Xbox Game Pass Ultimate ($359.88) will cost a total of $739.87 in the US, which is about $10 less than the $749 PlayStation 5 Pro!
You may also like…
- My first 10 hours with the first chapter of Trails in the Sky have been charming, captivating, and completely overwhelming, and I can’t wait to play more.
- Ghost of Yotei is one of the best games I’ve played this year, beauty, style and heart-pounding action running through its veins.
- Super Mario Galaxy and Super Mario Galaxy 2 remain just as magical on Nintendo Switch 2
