Is Game Pass Ultimate going to survive?

Is Game Pass Ultimate going to survive?

  • Total voters
    293
At this point I couldn't care less if it survives. I'm fine with playing games on subscription services as I don't really care about ownership anymore, but $30 is a big ask. There aren't enough new game releases that I care about each month to justify the price increase for me. Microsoft could fund it regardless if they want it to survive, but I have other things I can fill my time with.
 
ReBurn said:
At this point I couldn't care less if it survives. I'm fine with playing games on subscription services as I don't really care about ownership anymore, but $30 is a big ask. There aren't enough new game releases that I care about each month to justify the price increase for me. Microsoft could fund it regardless if they want it to survive, but I have other things I can fill my time with.
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I can't get behind that. I like to buy games because sometimes I like to replay when i've forgotten the story. As I've done many times with TLOU, Red dead, and other story games.
 
Of course it will survive. Microsoft has unlimited "fuck you" money, they will push this shitshow until the end of time and keep claiming it's profitable and an amazing service to gamers every step of the way,
 
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Xbox 360 slim said:
I can't get behind that. I like to buy games because sometimes I like to replay when i've forgotten the story. As I've done many times with TLOU, Red dead, and other story games.
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That's fine. Most of my gaming isn't story-based games. I'm more into fighting, racing, or pick up and play action. I don't have the attention span for 40 hour stories. If there's a game I know I will play again I just buy it. Sub services didn't stop me buying good games, but they did stop me from buying a lot of junk.
 
Xbox is a toast
The brand is in a spiral. Microsoft has never been in it for the gaming. They are here for engagment and lying thru there teeth. Gaming isnt their priority to survive. Nor is it really the "best deal in gaming" as they want you to believe. Just like xbox live was the best thing to get us to pay for online. Just BS.

This rise in price is just trying to recoup losses on a sinking platform
 
I was surprised they hiked the price up that much all at once. I assumed they would space it out. But no, they just ripped the band-aid off.

I'm assuming this is what they need to charge to actually make a profit. I think that's what Satya is basically directing now: everything must be profitable. No more subsided hardware, no more subsidized GP Day 1 games via creative accounting.
 
No shot. Just look at the Xbox subreddit. It's on fire with the 50% price increase. Like many of them are saying, after 2 months you can OWN the game OR you can sub and keep paying over and over and over for that game and NEVER own it. It was a DEAL for $15/mo but for $30? That's like $360 per year. We all know the price increase won't stop there either. I think Game Pass is gonna crash and burn faster than most realize and Microsoft will try to pivot somehow but I have no idea what they will try to do. Removing day 1 access on the lesser tiers is really the death blow IMO.
 
bitbydeath said:
This price increase of $120 per year almost matches the entire yearly cost of PS+ extra, let that sink in.
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As we're discussing annual pricing for PS+, Gamepass Ultimate's "discounted annual" price (without really hunting deals or sales) would be achieved by buying Two 12 month Gamepass Core cards, which currently retail for $75/ea at Target. Post price hike, this now has a 40% conversion to Ultimate, which means $150 buys about 10 months of Ultimate, or somewhere around $15/month. And that may or may not even be the best conversion per dollar, and the Core cards are not at a meaningful sale price. To reiterate, Sony doesn't really offer discounts or sales on PS+ as they're the sole seller of PS+

Anyone with any amount of sense was once buying and stacking PS+ during the Black Friday an Anniversary sales, which again, most people were paying $30 (Essential), $60 (Extra), or $80 (Premium) a year for. Post price hikes Sony no longer offers sales to existing customers, meaning basically everyone is paying the full $80, $135, and $160, and that's at a discounted annual rate. Sony's monthly rates are actually $100, $150, and $180. So for those with a modicum of common monetary sense, Sony has jacked prices just as high (if not higher) as MS, while Ultimate can still presently be had for around the same price of PS Premium. And Ultimate obviously offers infinitely more value than PS+ Premium.

FWIW I'm not defending MS here, this price hike is stupid, but Sony has absolutely been just as bad in practice while also offering an objectively inferior service for their 100%+ price increase.
 
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Haint said:
As we're discussing annual pricing for PS+, Gamepass Ultimate's "discounted annual" price (without really hunting deals or sales) would be achieved by buying Two 12 month Gamepass Core cards, which currently retail for $75/ea at Target. Post price hike, this now has a 40% conversion to Ultimate, which means $150 buys 10 months of Ultimate, or somewhere around $15/month. And that may or may not even be the best conversion per dollar, and the Core cards are not at a meaningful sale price. To reiterate, Sony doesn't really offer discounts or sales on PS+ as they're the sole seller of PS+

Anyone with any amount of sense was once buying and stacking PS+ during the Black Friday an Anniversary sales, which again, most people were paying $30 (Essential), $60 (Extra), or $80 (Premium) a year for. Post price hikes Sony no longer offers sales to existing customers, meaning basically everyone is paying the full $80, $135, and $160, and that's at a discounted annual rate. Sony's monthly rates are actually $100, $150, and $180. So for those with a modicum of common monetary sense, Sony has jacked prices just as high (if not higher) as MS, while Ultimate can still presently be had for around the same price of PS Premium. And Ultimate obviously offers infinitely more value than PS+ Premium.
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PlayStation lets you buy yearly so you can get it for cheap on Black Friday and be set til the next years Black Friday.

Easy.
 
bitbydeath said:
PlayStation lets you buy yearly so you can get it for cheap on Black Friday and be set til the next years Black Friday.

Easy.
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They do not, every sale the past 2 years have only offered discounts to New/Lapsed subscribers or tier upgrades, current active subscriptions trying to re-up a year in the same tier are disqualified. And the discounts have only been 20-30% off.
 
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Haint said:
They do not, every sale the past 2 years have only offered discounts to New/Lapsed subscribers or tier upgraders, current active subscriptions trying to re-up a year in the same tier are disqualified. And the discounts have only been 20-30% off.
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The trick is to cancel your subscription, then re-subscribe and it stacks.
 
Its going to survive as long as there are enough whales out there to support it.

I'm not going to be one. I'll stick to using Steam and going old school PS2/OG Xbox/Wii.
 
bitbydeath said:
The trick is to cancel your subscription, then re-subscribe and it stacks.
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You can cancel a prepaid annual subscription which is still active with prepaid time left and qualify as a new subscriber? Seems nonsensical to even have the stipulation in the first place if it's that simple to bypass. Or is this something that depends on whether Black Friday falls on the 23rd or the 26th or the 29th of the year. i.e. it was on the 23rd last year, but is on the 28th this year so you'd technically be 5 days lapsed and qualify, but next year it's on the 26th so you won't qualify cause you've still got 3 days left on your sub. That's not really a reliable or repeatable solution.
 
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It's clear that Satya Nadella wants to run Xbox into the ground. People will blame Phil and Sarah (in many ways rightfully so), but don't forget about the giant asshole at the top of the company who laid off tens of thousands of employees. If he could create AI customers to buy his shit, he would.
 
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Haint said:
You can cancel a prepaid annual subscription which is still active with prepaid time left and qualify as a new subscriber? Seems nonsensical to even have the stipulation in the first place if it's that simple to bypass. Or is this something that depends on whether Black Friday falls on the 23rd or the 26th or the 29th of the year. i.e. it was on the 23rd last year, but is on the 28th this year so you'd technically be 5 days lapsed and qualify, but next year it's on the 26th so you won't qualify cause you've still got 3 days left on your sub. That's not really a reliable or repeatable solution.
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Just cancel after you sub is the easiest way. That's effectively the non-auto renew method.
 
Every SAAS does this so not surprising, I mean replace Gamepass with Netflix, Adobe, hell even Uber. They all seem to still be around despite price increasing and value decreasing.

That being said, I won't be using it once my stacks end next year. It's the last subscription I have so will be good to be completely free of the monthly grift.
 
I dont even MS want Ultimate to perform. That tier is there to maybe catch some whales. They want to remove the day one 1st party games and didnt want to look like a failure the option, so they raised the price. I belive they actally want most people to be o premium and buy1st party games AAA. Ultimate tier is just there to be there.
 
bitbydeath said:
Just cancel after you sub is the easiest way. That's effectively the non-auto renew method.
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This sounds like something that only works once and will then only work randomly/sporadically depending on what date Black Friday falls this or next calendar year. Cause if you're buying a year every Black Friday, I'm not really following how you're canceling early if for example it was on the 28th last year, but the 23rd this year, you'd still technically be an active subscriber for another 5 days or so.
 
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It'll survive, but it's going to have to become something different. Microsoft wanted to be the Netflix of gaming, envisioning a world of 200 million monthly subscribers dropping them USD$3 billion a month. That never materialised, which is a problem because Spencer bet the farm. So, now they're attempting to recover.

In my eyes, the most obvious path is price Game Pass out of the reach of the masses and force Xbox customers to buy their games again, recouping some of their dwindling profits and trying to save their brand. However, just doing that alone that would mean competing with Sony, who've kicked their teeth in so many times that Microsoft doesn't have any teeth left to kick in. So, I suspect they'll go a different route: PC hybrid. If Xbox becomes a cheap gaming PC - and the market is slanting away from console towards PC, so there's logic there - Microsoft can try and capitalise on the shift, offering Xbox gamers a way to transition and wanna-be PC gamers a cheap entry point. More expensive hardware, sure, but bringing your Steam library is a heck of an enticement. And Game Pass Ultimate is still there if you've got the bankroll to afford it - which most won't be able to.

Does it work? Probably not.
 
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Haint said:
This sounds like something that only works once and will then only word randomly/sporadically depending on what date Black Friday falls this or next calendar year. Cause if you're buying a year every Black Friday, I'm not really following how you're canceling early if for example it was on the 28th last year, but the 23rd this year, you'd still technically be an active subscriber for another 5 days or so.
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The sub just needs to be set to cancelled for it to work, it doesn't matter how much time you still have left on it.
 
This is insane. A while back I predicted on here Gamepass would be $50 bucks a month within a decade. Less than 2 years later were at $30. Time to up my prediction to $100 a month within the decade.
 
bitbydeath said:
You need to cancel with time in advance.
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I understood that, just wanted to clarify that you must have no current active sub at the time of renewal. So no way to stack further years at a discount until you run out your current stack.

edit: thats news to me. WIll try this black friday. Also I'm in Australia, which comes under the EU from Sony's point of view (PAL territory going way back). So perhaps the US is different.
 
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bitbydeath said:
The sub just needs to be set to cancelled for it to work, it doesn't matter how much time you still have left on it.
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So wait, they let you go in an actually full fat "cancel" an active subscription, literally forfeiting prepaid time, i.e. you actually lose access to PS+ the moment you click cancel, even if you still had 6 months left? LOLWAT?

Surely we're not just talking about turning off auto-renewal, like why would they even bother pretending to have a stipulation in the first place if turning off auto renewal qualifies you as a new customer? I always turn off auto-renewal on everything the minute I buy a year of anything. That hasn't qualified me as a new or returning customer in literally any other service. That's actively slimey and deceptive if they're operating like that, straight up lying to customers to trick them into paying more. Potential class action lawsuit levels of misleading and deception.
 
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Haint said:
So wait, they let you go in an actually full fat "cancel" an active subscription, literally forfeiting prepaid time, i.e. you actually lose access to PS+ the moment you click cancel, even if you still had 6 months left? LOLWAT? Surely we're not just talking about turning off auto-renewal, like why would they bother pretending to have a stipulation in the first place if turning off auto renewal qualifies you as a new customer? I always turn off auto-renewal on everything the minute I buy a year of anything. That hasn't qualified me as a new or returning customer in literally any other service.
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No, it basically just stops the auto-renew, your sub keeps running.
 
It's not the best deal in gaming anymore. Maybe now the discussion of "too good to be true" can finally die.
 
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