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Microsoft is hiking the price of Xbox Series X and Xbox Game Pass
(www.theverge.com)
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this post was submitted on 21 Jun 2023
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Gaming
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This is why I can't bring myself to buy into Gamepass. It may be a good deal now, but we see this happen with every steaming service. Lowball the price to bring people in, then keep bumping it up until it's not such a great deal anymore but people depend on it for their content. I'd much rather 'own' my games. At least as much as is possible nowadays.
The amount they bumped it up by is still, relative to the price of a new game, cheaper to have for four months. I too don't have a need for it, but if they bump the price up to the point where it's not a good deal anymore, they lose their customers.
Yeah very true. Microsoft is essentially trying to turn games into a subscription service, and that seems to work well for some people. Whether the current price is what will be the long term price is up in the air, I guess it cruedly comes down to which method gets the most money per user.
Those subscription services have proven to be very popular in the movie/television/music spaces, so all of that makes sense for the type of consumer who expects to only experience the thing once, but as long as those games are still available for purchase, it's all fine by me. To my knowledge, Microsoft hasn't done that yet, but Nintendo has with their online pass and their refusal to continue to sell their old games (or even to carry forward your digital purchases from previous consoles).
There is certainly a degree of popularity to streaming, with the convenience and less upfront cost. Part of it is also the fact that we increasingly don't have other options if we want to own media. Like you mentioned, Nintendo is the perfect example with their subscription service being the only way to play those games on modern hardware. If Microsoft does indeed keep this as a separate option, then that's totally fair game. I'm just unfortunately not optimistic about what the service will become in the future.
Honestly, if you play only a few games a year on release through game pass, your subscription is worth it. Even with the price hike, it's a great deal. You can also refill your account with cheap 3-months Xbox Live Gold cards for like 10$ for 50 days of Ultimate. That's usually what I do and I'm good until 2025 so far and will keep doing it until I reach 3 years, which is the furthest you can go IIRC.
Take advantage while you can. Then if you ever want to drop it you can buy the games you want to keep for cheap.
Yep. Even as someone who frequently subscribed to Game Pass, I mostly used it as a "Try before you buy" demo service more than anything else. I calculated the cost of subscribing every month vs. just buying a game outright and taking the time to finish it (however many weeks or months that would take) and just buying the game during a sale turned out to be cheaper.
It's great for discovery, but not a great deal if you pay every month just to play 1 or 2 games. Particularly if those games take a long time to finish, like Persona 5 Royal. The less time you have, the worse of a deal Game Pass is. That said, I still think it's good to sub for a month just to try a bunch of games if you're thinking of buying a new one.