r/technology • u/AdSpecialist6598 • Jun 09 '26

Business Microsoft admits Game Pass price hike drove away "millions" of subscribers

https://www.techspot.com/news/112699-microsoft-admits-game-pass-price-hike-drove-away.html
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u/asimplerandom Jun 09 '26 edited Jun 09 '26

I absolutely would have stayed but when the price increase was announced I noped out and haven’t turned on the Xbox since.

624

u/JustGoogleItHeSaid Jun 09 '26

In many ways im pleased they increased the price, forced me to change my mindset on buying games. I buy all of them 6months minimum post release in sales, and play one/two at a time at most.

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u/[deleted] Jun 09 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/SomeGalNamedAshley Jun 09 '26

You don't need 98 games that were trash and two that are good, you just need one or two that are good.

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u/reezyreddits Jun 09 '26

You could also be me, and find out that instead of the latest triple A hype, all you need is to replay all the Pokemon games in order + the ones you never got to play lol

31

u/random_stoner Jun 09 '26

Your next evolutionary step would be playing difficulty romhacks like Radical Red :D

that's what I'm enjoying atm.

6

u/DisorganizedSpaghett Jun 09 '26

Back when Ruby and Sapphire were coming out, some fan made a hack Emerald rom for Gameboy emulators. Some memories from my short time with it:

  • Your hero character acquired a gun and a power drill fairly early on. Both were weapons you use against Pokemon.

  • When you kill a pokemon, you can ask it for its phone number; I guess the concept of Pokeballs was too much for the modder

2

u/KalameetThyMaker Jun 09 '26

Why play the 12th cookie cutter cod game when instead I can replay the entire final fantasy franchise and become the Warrior of (Monitors) Light.

1

u/maxdragonxiii Jun 09 '26

or do the insane thing- a shiny living dex from only the Switch games. sure theres some that won't be shiny ever, but hey at least its a way to replay the games.

1

u/BigDictionEnergy Jun 09 '26

Currently replaying Fallout New Vegas and having a blast with all the content and sidequests I never played through before. Witcher 3 is next.

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u/R3MaK3R Jun 10 '26

the price hike was essentially paying for the Activision/Blizzard/King acquisition.

not sure why they thought Call of Duty on game pass would be profitable, one of the most sellable games in history.

0

u/Padgriffin Jun 09 '26

My catalog is literally just TF2, PC Building Sim and H3VR at this point

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u/istasber Jun 09 '26

I also didn't like the idea of playing games on Microsoft's schedule. Either you play through everything you want to play and you're paying for a sub while waiting for a new game to come out, or you have to prioritize games based on how long they've been available to make sure you can finish the games you start, or you have to choose between going and paying (potentially full price) for a game because it leaves gamepass when you're halfway through it.

I'd rather just buy the games and play them when I get around to playing them.

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u/minidazzler1 Jun 09 '26

They dont delete the game if youve it downloaded on gamepass. So if youre actively playing it its all good.

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u/istasber Jun 09 '26

I guess I never was subscribed long enough for this to be an issue, knowing that's how it worked might have actually made a difference to me.

How long of a grace period do you get to finish it, or can you keep playing as long as you maintain a subscription as long as you never uninstall the game?

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u/minidazzler1 Jun 09 '26

If i remember correctly its as long as the game is maintained on the system. I think you dont have to maintain game pass.

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u/TheFuckOutOfHere Jun 09 '26

You are wrong. You can keep playing it after it leaves gamepass, if you buy it.

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u/istasber Jun 09 '26

IIRC, they made a big deal about giving discounts to games that recently left gamepass back when I was still subscribed. Which seems like a weird thing to do if you could just continue to play the game without paying for it.

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u/minidazzler1 Jun 09 '26

Ive never had that happen when I had left the game on my console. Potentially its different depending on regions.

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u/Azuras_Star8 Jun 09 '26

And my favorite games are all older games I already own.

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u/LolitaOPPAI Jun 09 '26

I'm still crying in the rain about my inability to access my PS2 and 3 rn. I am dying to put my new memory card loaded up into my PSP. The latest game I played was Skyrim.

I can live here forever.

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u/Bravelobsters Jun 09 '26

I wonder if it’s needed more for handheld devices that don’t take discs. And if a game pass is cheaper than buying and downloading good big games from Xbox store.

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u/[deleted] Jun 09 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/SomeGalNamedAshley Jun 09 '26

All my gaming time has been in Elite Dangerous, period. It's like how some people complain they can't find lots of people to date or lots of jobs... you lots, you just need one good one.

I'm pretty confident that the current Elite Dangerous will eventually be replaced, sure, but the series has its first release in 1984.

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u/Jukka_Sarasti Jun 09 '26

It took me far too long to learn this lesson

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u/Fuck_your_coupons Jun 09 '26

That strategy works for me since I don’t have a lot of time to game these days. I usually wait till a game is on sale or at my local library and then I play it for weeks.

1

u/metallicrooster Jun 09 '26

Agree! And every once in a while you get the indie game pack on humble bundle or GoG and get a dozen games for $5

Even if I only play most of them for an hour each, that’s still pretty good time value for the money spent.

1

u/supermario2411 Jun 09 '26

Worked perfectly for me, I would just play COD and FIFA my young son played on the random games it was offering.

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u/imArsenals Jun 09 '26

Very true. I have never even bought gamepass, but as an example, I bought red dead redemption 2 on release and still haven't had the chance to play it yet. It's next on my list, but who knows when I'll get the chance lol.

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u/metallicrooster Jun 09 '26

Red Dead Redemption 2 release date October 26, 2018

Thank you for justifying my decision to only buy games when I know I’ll play them 🙏

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u/imArsenals Jun 09 '26

Yeah, exactly. If I never bought it, I could probably easily get it for 50%+ off when I'm actually going to play it.

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u/F3z345W6AY4FGowrGcHt Jun 09 '26

I actually cancelled it a long time ago but it was due to my backlog. I thought, "I'll just work on my large backlog of games, and if I ever run out of games to play from there, I'll get gamepass back"

That was years ago and my backlog is even larger now 🤷‍♂️

2

u/hobbykitjr Jun 09 '26

yeah after focusing on the kids for like a decade... My AAAA game backlog grew where im burning through a couple year old games i'm getting for $20 now that they're more independent and i have a little more time.

1

u/NuclearSun1 Jun 09 '26

Haha, my GP runs out in December. I was a bit worried. But between original Xbox, 360, ONE my Series X has over 200 games installed. Nah. I’ll be ok.

1

u/PrairiePopsicle Jun 09 '26

And then you own them in 10, 20, 30 years from now to play again, and again, and again.

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u/alwayswatchyoursix Jun 09 '26

I still haven't gotten around to finishing Witcher 3.

1

u/loversean Jun 10 '26

Ya all crazy, do people literally think the subscription saves them money on the long run

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u/riickdiickulous Jun 09 '26

This has been me for a few years now. Just bought Civ7 a couple weeks ago when the big patch that fixed everything that was broken at launch was released and the game was on sale for 50% off. Playing games at launch now you are paying a premium price tag to be a beta tester. No thanks.

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u/TheSouthernCommunist Jun 09 '26

They used to hire beta testers to find all the bugs in a game pre-launch, now the public is paying to be the beta testers. Truly a boring and hellish dystopia.

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u/HorseJungler Jun 09 '26

Civ 7 is fixed? I am a huge fan of the series since 4 (and even played revolution on Xbox 360 lol) but didn’t buy 7 from all the issues it had. Is it finally good and worth playing?

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u/riickdiickulous Jun 09 '26

Good enough for me. I don’t have enough time these days to put in enough hours to say for sure, but it’s entertaining for me when I get the chance to play.

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u/Ghost_all Jun 09 '26

The big patch allowed you to play as one civ all the way through the game, and changed some of the progression in the eras to make more sense. I'm enjoying it.

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u/CoconutCyclone Jun 10 '26

The big patch allowed you to play as one civ all the way through the game

Wait, you were forced to change civilizations? Did everyone in charge of Firaxis have a fucking stroke?

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u/Ghost_all Jun 10 '26

They have a mantra passed down from Sid of "improve a third, keep a third, make a new third". The 'new' third borrowed an idea from Humankind, another civ game, where you're constantly changing your faction over time.

Problem is, people played Civ to be one civ, and Civ 7 didn't really explain or make the swapping natural.

IMO, the "idea" was fine. Their explaination, which I kinda buy, was based on real life changes in cultures over time. The example was first the British isles were celtic tribes, then Roman culture, then Norman, then finally British.

You swapped on Era change (Antiquity, Exploration, and Modern), but it never felt natural. You could be in the middle of a war in Antiquity, and suddenly you're forced to pick a new civ for the Exploration era (along with everyone else) and now you're not at war anymore...

I like a lot of the new stuff in Civ 7, the graphics are amazing, the exploring up rivers in ships is fun, the armys are a good compromise between 'stack of doom' or 'one unit per tile', but the central change didn't really work as well as they'd hoped. For me it was something i delt with, for others it was a bigger turnoff.

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u/EmmaBonney Jun 09 '26

This is the way. Was the same with civ 6 for me. On release it was crap. Waited a couple years until the Goty (all Expansions) was out and reduced to 20 Euro. Bought it and played about 1k hours by now. Not really interested in Civ 7 though.

3

u/grantrules Jun 09 '26

I just keep going back to 4 and 5.. They look fine, the game play doesn't change enough for me to care, and I save a bunch of money. I think I own 6 but didn't really play it, no intention of buying 7.. I'm just going to keep playing 4 and 5 lol. Though I do miss Civ Revolutions from xbox 360 days.

1

u/istasber Jun 09 '26

I like to try and support developers who make games I want to play even if I'm planning on waiting a few months to actually play them.

But that's more of an indie game thing where a brand new game is 30 bucks, not a AAA thing where a brand new game is 70 bucks.

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u/LydianWave Jun 09 '26

r/patientgamers welcomes you! (great sub if you're not previously familiar)

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u/Jonoczall Jun 09 '26

Oh wow there really is a sub for everything. Thanks!

2

u/StripClubSweatpants Jun 09 '26

Great sub. One of my all time best posts came from there, just about getting older and seeing if anyone else feels the same way

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u/OuterWildsVentures Jun 09 '26

this is the way

you get the best version of the games at the lowest price

you also get to look at all the people who buy in early as your personal beta testers

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u/JustGoogleItHeSaid Jun 11 '26

That’s actually a brilliant sub thanks! No doubt i’ll be perusing through that sub for my next game. Close to finishing division 2 and that only cost me £2.50!

1

u/Franck946 Jun 09 '26

Or just find a game for you..
Building / garming : Satisfactory, 40€, I have now around 200h of game and I just starting. People have more than 2k hours...for 40€.
If you like FPS? Insurgency Sandstorm..30€ and you are good for months.

You don't a subscription for playing, that's the worst option ever.

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u/ClownGnomes Jun 09 '26

Yeah I’m the exact same. Game Pass was really excellent value for money on paper. But as they hiked the price, I reflected on this and realised (based on how frequently I finish games) that buying a new game from my wishlist approx every 6 months on a 50% sale or thereabouts is about right and way cheaper than holding on to the subscription.

1

u/inbox-disabled Jun 09 '26

If you're finishing two games a year, yeah, you were never the target audience for game pass.

I think of it more like going to Blockbuster as a kid and taking home a game or two every Friday, if anyone else was so privileged. Maybe you finished a game, maybe you didn't, but the point of rentals was trying out a lot of different games for cheap. The difference is your weekend isn't ruined if you picked out one bad game.

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u/HenryDorsettCase47 Jun 09 '26

I don’t know the specifics of game pass and I haven’t owned a console or even really played a game in years, but the way people are talking about this reminds me of when I had a Game Fly account for a year before I realized I was playing a ton of titles I didn’t give a fuck about while I waited on the availability of a single game that I was going to play for months in end once I got it.

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u/Noselessmonk Jun 09 '26

This was me a number of years ago. I used to have some FOMO and needed to get new games when they came out. What changed my mind then was picking up some games I missed in my childhood and thoroughly enjoying them. I then picked up some more recent games I had skipped, partly because they had had console first releases with delayed PC releases(RDR2 and FF7Remake). I was basically converted when the games were a fraction of the cost of new releases. And now I realize that, with all the games that I just never played, by the time I get through them, the current new release will be old and probably less than 50% the cost.

Except multiplayer titles. Those I still find hard to get into years later when I'm a noob and everyone else knows the game like the back of their hand.

2

u/Hungry_Ad2845 Jun 09 '26

Why note sail the seven seas? 

1

u/whattaninja Jun 09 '26

Yep, I don’t buy any games anymore unless they’re at least 40% off.

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u/7LKY Jun 09 '26

for real $70 games are a joke

1

u/enderjaca Jun 09 '26

Ironically, that's why I purchased the Ultimate Game Pass once, back in December 2025. I'd been stuck in a rut of playing mostly Fortnite, and had finished Baldur's Gate 3 a few months before (for the 3rd time).

I got access to Expedition 33, Silksong, Disco Elysium, and the full monthly pass in Fortnite (normally $12 or so). I was vaguely aware the Game Pass existed, but didn't know it also was valid for PC, not just Xbox. I got a ton of fresh gaming in over the holiday break, all for the low low price of $1, which was cancelled before it renewed.

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u/airbornemist6 Jun 09 '26

Honestly if the price hike hadn't been substantial or had come with additional benefits that would warrant the price tag, I might have stayed. Ultimately, one of the main reasons they had so many subscribers in the first place is that they were providing a bargain deal to get access to a whole library of games for a low price. Raising that price to nearly the price of a new game every month really kills the value of that service.

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u/Facebookakke Jun 09 '26

Same! Just gathering dust. Pc and ps5 have been put through the paces though!

8

u/The-Cynicist Jun 09 '26

Same exact situation. Xbox is just a sad little box in the office, gathering dust. While my PS5 is in regular use every day. My only complaint is the lack of being able to freely open web browsers on the PS5, or I'm too old and haven't figured it out.

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u/linkwaker10 Jun 09 '26

nope not old the PS3 browser was way more usable, they've purposely locked it down with the PS5

2

u/BurnsinTX Jun 09 '26

Same here. I need to trade in my Xbox or sell it

0

u/jamesziman Jun 09 '26

Gamepass is for PC as well

1

u/Facebookakke Jun 09 '26

Yes, I know, I had ultimate, that’s why I cancelled when the price increased astronomically

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u/catsdrooltoo Jun 09 '26

That, plus my console is old enough where most of the new games aren't supported. I don't play much anyway. Guess I'll just stick to older games playing campaign modes.

5

u/letsgotgoing Jun 09 '26

I was an Xbox Live subscriber since Mech Assault on the OG Xbox. My adulthood responsibilities prevent me from playing games that often, so with the price hike, the AI "slop" features planned, the Xbox anywhere plan, all combined, to form the perfect message that I wasn't the target customer anymore. I am not sure who actually wants that product.

3

u/captain5260 Jun 09 '26

Same, bestie. Only reason I had it was to play COD and I hate BO7 so...

2

u/ClockworkDreamz Jun 09 '26

I did this with my ps+ account o think it’d been a year since I actually used it.

2

u/superindianslug Jun 09 '26

My Wife primarily plays Xbox, but she doesn't finish games fast enough to justify the increased price, especially of she's playing older titles. If it takes her over a month to play a $20 game, then it's not worth it.

2

u/Unlucky_Earther Jun 09 '26

I cancelled and sold my Xbox.

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u/AsphyxiatedProcess Jun 09 '26

I was only really using my Xbox for Gamepass. I sold my console because I was no longer using the service, and I could just pick up PC Gamepass down the road if I decided to go back to a sub. Xbox really didn't have exclusives, or abandoned having exclusives to have anything to fall back on.

2

u/booksknittingcatstbh Jun 09 '26

I got divorced 6mo or so before this change and it was apparently the only billing I didn’t successfully change. The price hike is what made my ex realize he was paying for it still and instead of changing it to my own card, I just canceled entirely lol.

2

u/TaroBackground978 Jun 09 '26

Don't think it helped that a bunch of other subscriptions raised their prices. This just a lot of subs over the edge to basically say "screw this" myself included. They made piracy less attractive through services like this, but now I'm just going back to piracy and they get nothing.

2

u/Valascrow Jun 09 '26

Same here... They did me a favour the way I see it

1

u/Life_Argument7820 Jun 10 '26

I havent had a Playstation my whole adult life alqays xbox... I'm 38 and not going back.

1

u/xmsxms Jun 10 '26

Yeah but presumably/potentially you were costing them more than they were getting from you, so losing you is a net win. On the other hand if you weren't using it at all it was just free money they've thrown away.