A very interesting piece Xbox This week’s news was the emergence of Microsoft’s new Xbox CEO Asha Sharma the firm is considering creating a game subscription service Xbox Game Pass cheaper. In particular, it is said to be exploring ways to offer “lower priced tiers” to make memberships “more attractive to a wider range of customers”.
For many, this is an exciting prospect, especially since then major price increases that took effect last year was extremely controversial and alienated many users PC Game Pass and especially Xbox Game Pass Ultimate. The monthly price of the former increased from $11.99 to $16.49, and the latter increased from $19.99 to $29.99.
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You can add the cost tiers all you want, but relying on affordable quality content in the face of headless management and employee insecurity is foolish outside of indie. In other words, now is the worst time to make quality games at low prices or expensive games with stars.March 25, 2026
When asked why trying to deliver quality games at a low price is a bad thing, Douse he answered “There’s an Austin Powers quote about a gold toilet,” referring to this: “And I want a solid gold toilet, but that’s not in the cards right now, is it?” In other words? This is simply not possible.
If I’m interpreting Douse’s position correctly (which I believe I do), it seems that he’s arguing that with the gaming industry as volatile as it is, making games (and services like Game Pass) either too cheap or too expensive will result in an unsustainable business that doesn’t bring in enough money to recoup costs and turn a big profit. (According to Game Pass does profitable…but is it profitable enough?)
“Content is always king, but costs have risen and erry1 has been fired” he added in the follow-up post. “The powers that be didn’t create an economic reality for sustained quality content within that model. Now there’s even less. Bottom-up economics (good).”
Now, to be clear, I actually agree with the main point that Douse made. So to speak, I think Xbox Game Pass Ultimate’s current $29.99/month price tag is very expensive, and as a result has made it less reasonable in many budgets, especially with how tight money has become for many in the past few years.
With that in mind, I’d like to see a price cut for the Ultimate, or at least a similar cheaper tier. old Ultimate, which removes some new perks that many won’t be able to use, such as Fortnite Crew access. I don’t think we need tiers cheaper than the $9.99 Game Pass Essential or the $14.99 Game Pass Premium.
Finally, it’s an interesting discussion. Before you deal with it yourself, Douse calls considering the wider context of the industry: “Before anyone responds, let’s first consider the mass layoffs, rising development costs, reduced disposable income, stagnant hardware sales and ambitions, and then come with an argument.”
🗨️ Do you think Game Pass needs a price adjustment?
Larian Studios’ Michael “Cromwelp” Douse’s take on the price of Xbox Game Pass makes a good point that finding the right balance between “underpriced” and “overpriced” is critical, and it’s not always a good idea to lower the price of a service just because it’s struggling to grow.
Do you agree with him, or do you think Microsoft should look for cheaper ways to offer Game Pass access to customers? Would you subscribe to Game Pass if there were more affordable tiers that still offered good value?
I’d love to hear your thoughts, so share them in the comments and vote in our poll:
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