LectureMaster
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For the first time, I’m questioning if Game Pass is worth it after the $30 Ultimate hike
With a 50% increase, I'm questioning the value of my subscription for the first time.
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Here's where things get painful. Game Pass Ultimate, which previously cost $19.99 a month in the U.S, is bumping up to $29.99. Lest we forget, they already bumped the price from $16.99 to $19.99 back in September last year.
So that is a 50% increase. Xbox Game Pass Ultimate bundles everything: console, PC, day-one releases, Call of Duty, Ubisoft+, EA Play, Fortnite Crew, and cloud gaming with 1440p resolution and boosted bitrate. For those that care, and I do not. My colleague Samuel Tolbert made a good point that there are plenty of casual players that will appreciate it, but at the cost of the hardcore audience?
And while Microsoft frames it as paying for "flexibility" and "value," the reality is much simpler. This is the Call of Duty tax. Premium subscribers don't get COD. PC subscribers do. And Ultimate subscribers must, because Microsoft isn't leaving a cent of that audience on the table. They are telling us this comes with a guarantee of 75+ day one game launches per year, which on the face of it sounds great, but — who has time to play and enjoy all of those games? If I were unemployed, maybe, but then I wouldn't be able to afford the Ultimate tier. Who is asking for this?
Are tariffs and inflation solely to blame?
Sarah Bond had plenty to say recently about how profitable Game Pass is for Microsoft (Image credit: Microsoft)
The official story is that tariffs, inflation, and the costs of cloud servers are forcing Microsoft's hand. But let's not pretend this is about survival. Just a few months ago, Xbox President Sarah Bond was shouting from the rooftops about how Game Pass was not just sustainable but profitable, generating a staggering $5 billion in revenue last year.
So, forgive me if I don't buy the line that Microsoft is raising prices because they have no choice. $5 billion wasn't enough? Apparently not. Because Satya Nadella needs to feed the beast after greenlighting that $69 billion Activision Blizzard acquisition. You don't spend that much and then shrug when the bill comes due. Someone has to foot the tab. It's you, me, and anyone else who wants to squad up in Call of Duty without forking over $79.99 up front. Remember, game prices went up this year, too?
The value paradox
Xbox Game Pass is chock full of bangers like Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, but for $360 a year I may as well purchase those games. (Image credit: Windows Central)
So where does that leave us? On paper, Xbox Game Pass is still the best deal in gaming. You're drowning in value across all four tiers, with more bundled services than most players can realistically use. But the psychology here matters.
When a subscription crosses into "ouch" territory, people start doing the math. And for Ultimate at $29.99, that math gets uncomfortable fast; it certainly has for me, as I can't see the value in the increase for me personally. Here's where my personal experience with Game Pass starts to collide with Microsoft's pricing strategy.
Imagine going to buy a car for £10,000. That's your budget. You find the exact model you want. Then the dealer says: "We don't stock that one anymore, but we do have this £15,000 version, and it comes with heated seats!"
I don't want warm buttocks. I want the car I had, at the price I had. That's exactly how Ultimate feels to me now. Microsoft is charging $29.99 a month for perks that I frankly don't care about: Fortnite Crew, Ubisoft+ Classics, and "boosted cloud streaming." Sure, they're nice, but they're not the reasons I signed up for Game Pass. The "heated seats" are irrelevant if I didn't need them in the first place.
The games that truly defined my 2025 Game Pass experience weren't the AAA blockbusters. They were smaller, lower-priced gems. Clair Obscur and Blue Prince. Clair Obscur launched around $49.99 at retail, and Blue Prince at $30. These are the games I played obsessively, the ones I loved. Meanwhile, the AAA juggernauts like Call of Duty just didn't hold my attention.
So when Microsoft suddenly ups the price of Ultimate by 50% to subsidize all these extras I don't want, the math stops adding up for me. I'm paying for a buffet of content where I only eat one or two items. Game Pass is still objectively loaded with content, but the content I actually value isn't aligned with the new cost.
Phil Spencer notoriously said Game Pass isn't for everyone, and I'm not sure it will be for me anymore when my subscription ends (thankfully, I am paid up to September 2026).
Yes, Game Pass is still "worth it" compared to buying every major release outright. But it's no longer the "too good to be true" deal that made Xbox the scrappy underdog of the console wars. Now it feels corporate and very much like a trillion-dollar company squeezing its most loyal fans because it can.
