Microsoft slaps Game Pass Ultimate with a staggering 50% price hike

I’ve often considered that Microsoft’s Xbox Game Pass is the best deal in gaming, if you’re looking to get a huge amount of variety and access for a small monthly fee. I might have to recalculate after the latest price hike. This morning Microsoft announced prices going up in the U.S. by quite a lot, rising from $19.99 to $29.99 USD for the all-you-can-play Ultimate package.

That still includes hundreds of local and streaming games (heavily featuring titles published by Microsoft’s various studios, of course) across Xbox and PC, and sometimes jumping between them. Microsoft is also trying to convince players that the increased price comes with extra incentives, including a new selection of “classics” from the Ubisoft+ catalog of digital games. There’s also a new partnership with Epic which includes the Fortnite Crew subscription starting in November. This adds a bunch of skins and digital currency for the popular battle royale game.

Microsoft says these additions are worth $16 and $12 a month, respectively…but of course when it comes to all-digital assets, the “value” is set by the companies in question. Whether you agree with them is up to you…and I don’t. Even as someone who plays Fortnite regularly and gets the battle pass for most seasons, I’ve never seen the point of Crew, and I’m not especially tempted by creaky old Ubisoft games, either.

The PC Game Pass is moving from $11.99 to $16.49. This includes the full range of PC games in the library, streaming access on PC and other platforms, and those day-one releases…but notably omits the Ubisoft Classics. It’s a pretty sizeable price increase with no added value, save the arguable extras you get from new game additions in the announcement. These do include some notable newcomers like Hogwarts Legacy, Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown, Diablo IV, and Cities: Skylines Remastered.

Other tiers of Game Pass are getting changes, but less drastic ones. Game Pass Standard is now called Game Pass Premium, and it’s still $14.99. This one’s probably the least impacted by the changes, as it’s only getting a wider selection of games with the addition of PC access in addition to console games, plus streaming for both libraries. But it doesn’t get access to the full 400+ game library, and won’t high-profile, day-one releases like the recent Hollow Knight: Silksong. You’ll have to wait a year or so, according to the Xbox Wire announcement.

“Game Pass Essential” is the new name for Game Pass Core, basically the bottom tier needed to access online multiplayer for Xbox consoles. It now includes a wider selection of free game access and play on consoles, PCs, or streaming. Prices in territories outside the US are going up by roughly the same amount.

The price hike hurts, and I’m not the only one who thinks so, judging by the scuttlebutt in the PCWorld staff chatroom. (Hi, I instantly canceled my Ultimate subscription – Brad the editor.) I’ve dipped into Game Pass a few times just to try out a new release, as $15 or $20 to go through a new game that seems interesting (like, say, Hi-Fi Rush) is a lot more palatable than $50-70. But pumping that up to $30 means I can wait for a sale. It sure doesn’t help that in its flurry of acquisitions and layoffs, Microsoft has kneecapped a lot of its own studios and developers…like, say, the makers of Hi-Fi Rush.

There are other problems for penny-pinchers. You can no longer exchange Microsoft Rewards — which is getting a profile boost thanks to the upcoming Windows 10 cutoff — directly for an Xbox Game Pass subscription. Now, you’ll need to buy Xbox gift cards and cash those in for a Game Pass subscription — but said gift cards are available in $25 increments, while Game Pass Ultimate now costs $30 a month. Ick.

And it surely hasn’t escaped the notice of keen observers that this price increase is coming a couple of weeks before the arrival of the Asus ROG Xbox Ally, Microsoft’s play to extend the Xbox brand into portable devices and shine up Windows for handheld gaming PCs at the same time. With prices starting at $600 and stretching to $1000 for the Xbox Ally and upgraded Xbox Ally X, respectively, fans of the Xbox platform might be seeing a lot of sticker shock right now.