Xbox Game Pass has become a much larger piece of Microsoft’s gaming sector over the past few years, with a greater push being made toward subscription services and a huge library of titles that can all be accessed under a single roof. Starting with some first-party releases and a healthy backlog of classics, the product has now grown to include 100s of different developers and genres, as well as bringing in brand-new day-one releases for the higher tiers. However, Xbox decided that more content demands a higher price, and back in October 2025, they raised the price of several Game Pass versions, with Ultimate seeing an increase of 50% up to $29.99. As a result of this major jump, many subscribers pulled the plug, and it only took another six months for the prices to trickle down closer to where they used to be, but still higher than this time last year.
That double-back seemed like it would be a big boon for Xbox, and the expectations were that many previous subscribers would jump in again, alongside potentially attracting new customers at the same time. Unfortunately, this turned out to be wrong, and in the end, it seems as though the major hike in price only served to damage both the brand and the revenue generated from Game Pass. I don’t blame Xbox for wanting to get a couple extra dollars out of their product, as on paper, by consistently adding new and old games to the library, the value proposition does go up from a technical point of view. But, in reality, most players aren’t that interested in maximizing the value out of a subscription service, with many consumers only buying a couple of games a year and choosing to focus more of their time on forever games, rather than playing through the entire Bethesda backlog. This means that no matter how many titles Xbox floods Game Pass with, for some players, they just simply won’t ever care, and will keep their cards firmly in their wallets.
Xbox Game Pass’ Biggest Problem Is Its Value, Not Its Price
-
Image via Xbox -
Image via Microsoft -
Xbox
I have been a lukewarm fan of Game Pass for the past few years, as I am someone who plays a good number of games, so the concept of being able to drop $20 and play some indie games or the new DOOM is pretty great. The problem is, I am in the minority. On the whole, people who play video games are on the much more reserved side of things, only buying a few new games a year rather than grabbing the latest sequel or breakout IP every other day. So, when Xbox rocks up to an event and announces their upcoming releases, as well as any other additions that may be coming to Game Pass, very few players are actually going to be that interested in clearing out the catalog in the way that the company may want.
Put the consoles in the correct order.
Let’s look at the current coming soon slate for Game Pass going into Q3/4 of 2026. We have Beast of Reincarnation, Resonance: A Plague Tale Legacy, Dune: Awakening, and Gears of War: E-Day, with a couple of extra indies and older games being crammed in between, but finally enough, no yearly Call of Duty this time around. Looking purely at things from a numbers perspective, if you chose to subscribe to Game Pass Ultimate and play through all these games in that month, you are going to be saving close to $200, and that excludes any extra titles you may try before the expiration date. For me, it’s amazing, because I can experience all these games I’m looking forward to, play a few random ones in my backlog, and still have plenty of time leftover to enjoy some multiplayer fun until I need to decide whether I want to resubscribe or not.
That’s exactly where the problem lies. Consumers are smart enough to know what they want and what they want to spend their money on, which means that although they might get sucked in by the prospect of being able to play through every single Fallout game for a fairly low price, they will quickly realize that they can just buy the entire franchise for the same price on Steam and gain access to mod support, the Valve ecosystem, and most importantly, they will actually own the game. And if you are a console player who already pays for Game Pass for the online features and are interested in playing a new game that just came out, then you are still much better off spending the extra $20 or so for Ultimate, rather than paying full price on the Xbox store, so when it comes to the less diehard gamers who just want to try the latest blockbuster, the devs and publishers still lose out the second the transaction goes through.
Most players aren’t that interested in maximizing the value out of a subscription service, with many consumers only buying a couple of games a year and choosing to focus more of their time on forever games…
Then there’s the problem with the different versions of Game Pass. Right now, there are four separate versions that all give you a range of bonuses, but it can be quite a challenge to know exactly what each one is giving you. The short version is that Essential is the bare minimum for console online multiplayer that also comes with a handful of games, Premium, which brings in even more, and then Ultimate at the top, allowing you to play day-one releases and have access to Cloud gaming should you need it. Then, for PC players, there is an additional middling tier that gives you almost all the perks of Ultimate, aside from the streaming, but for a much lower price, and when you consider how much Xbox has been marketing to both console and PC users, it is strange to have this extra service that effectively loses them even more money for not a lot of gain.
What it comes down to for Xbox is deciding who Game Pass is actually for. Is it a majority consumer-directed product that wants to draw in as many subscribers as possible across all platforms, or is it an optional extra for console players to enjoy, or just a cheap way for hardcore players to save a few dollars at the end of the month? I think it is hard to nail down a concrete answer, but if the service is going to continue and one day become a real success story, then they need to start thinking about who their target audience is, rather than attempting to create a serve-all product that misses the mark in just about every way possible.
The gaming world is in its most complex and contentious time, with price becoming a major talking point across the industry. As nice as it would be for Xbox, the truth is that even if you present people with an insane-value product that lets them access thousands of dollars’ worth of games all at once, they are still going to just play the new EA Sports FC game or boot up another round of Fortnite, and then may give Space Marine 2 a try on the weekend. It is safe to say that Game Pass is in an awkward spot right now, being almost a cheat code for some players and a real issue internally that the company needs to solve quickly if they are going to have any cards left at the gaming table. I don’t have a solution, and I don’t imagine anyone else does right now, but when all is said and done, I hope that everyone is happy, and we still get to enjoy some incredible games without needing to completely break the bank.
