Xbox Game Pass Standard and the rising price of play | Kaser Focus

Things are rough out there in the games industry. That much is obvious — between thousands of layoffs and who knows how many project cancelations, companies on every single level in the industry are retrenching to survive the year right now. But unfortunately, things are also getting rough for players too, as games and gaming-related services are starting to get more expensive. This week, Microsoft announced that it is once again raising the price of Xbox Game Pass, and it’s adding a new “Standard” tier that is cheaper, but doesn’t have day one games.

Game Pass’s PC and Ultimate tiers are going up in price by $2 and $3 per month, respectively, and Xbox Game Pass for Console is also going away for new users (existing users are getting grandfathered in). This is all happening shortly before Microsoft reportedly plans to begin adding Activision Blizzard titles to the service. From a business perspective, it makes sense to try and get the most value out of a service that will have Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 at launch — there will be plenty of gamers who subscribe for one or two months just to be able to play that game at launch for lower than full retail price, and then unsubscribe. From a consumer perspective, though, those extra two or three dollars can hurt.