Cliff Notes – Why are people cancelling Xbox Game Pass?
-
Significant Price Increase: The recent 50%+ hike in Game Pass Ultimate subscription fees has led long-time members to question the value of the service, prompting many to cancel their subscriptions.
-
Perceived Lack of Value: Users express dissatisfaction with the current game offerings, citing an abundance of low-quality titles and a lack of investment in the games, making the subscription feel less worthwhile.
-
Market Position Concerns: With Xbox projected to account for only 13% of console sales in the UK, critics argue that the price increase may alienate existing customers rather than attract new ones, jeopardising the platform’s future.
Games Inbox: Why are people cancelling Xbox Game Pass?
The Ultimate price rise (Microsoft)
The Thursday letters page thinks it’s game over for Xbox after the Game Pass Ultimate price increase, as one reader predicts that we’ll never get a new Mass Effect game.
End of the road
I’ve been an Xbox member, in its many guises, for close to 20 years now. And I’ve always paid the top tier, whether it was Gold or Ultimate. I’d say, more or less, it’s been good value for money, and I would recommend Game Pass to friends. But this insane 50%+ increase just announced, is honestly disgusting.
How can they justify such an increase? In what other business could you possibly think that it is OK, to give you an almost identical service/product for almost twice the price? And literally on the day the report has been published saying Xbox will only account for 13% of console sales in the UK this year. For the first time in nearly two decades, I will be cancelling my subscription. Not that the multi-billion dollar company cares.
Mr K
One step beyond
Well, there is my Game Pass Ultimate subscription cancelled! I struggled to justify paying for it at £14.99 a month but that price increase is just a step too far I’m afraid. You just don’t feel invested in the games enough to keep playing, and the amount of shovelware on there is incredible.
Microsoft certainly know how to push people away from their ecosystem rather than attract them. Can the last person to leave remember to turn the lights off!
Saints Stickman
Waiting for value
What did Game Pass originally cost? Something like £8 per month for the cheaper tier with day one games.
Expert, exclusive gaming analysis
£23 is a lot when you consider not many of those day one games actually cost more than £40. Some of them are even less than £23.
I’m a patient guy though, so if they’re saying Premium will get Xbox published games within a year then I guess I’m just going to wait a bit for the games. After all that’s what I used to do with the retail versions.
Tim
GC: Yes, it was £7.99 for over 100 games, when originally announced in 2017.
Four short years
So I think we can just wrap the whole idea of Xbox up now. It didn’t work out and, to be brutally honest, it only looked possible that it could for about a four year period with the Xbox 360, basically until Microsoft lost the plot with Kinect and everything started to go downhill.
24 years in the business and I don’t feel like they’ve learnt a thing. They talk like they’re the big deal in the industry but they’re not. They’re four times losers that regularly get dunked on by companies 100 times smaller than them. Nintendo and Sony are minnows compared to Microsoft, but Xbox has never really been a threat to them.
And now we come to what is surely the death cry of a failed idea: increasing the price of Game Pass Ultimate so much that it’s literally cheaper to buy the games for real. I don’t know what they’re thinking, but I assume it’s something along the lines of they’re not getting new customers so they might as well fleece the ones they have got for as much as they can.
Well, I doubt that’s going to work. Everyone already has too many subscriptions as it is, and Game Pass wasn’t cheap as it was. Now it’s so ridiculously expensive it’s a no-brainer just to cancel.
Gantry
No defence
I’m going to guess that nobody’s going to write in defending the Game Pass price rise but really, what did Microsoft expect? This is all madness. If their console sales get any lower they’d be a negative number and yet they’re changing that much for Game Pass?
Have they not learnt that people don’t want that many games at once? Game Pass has been around for almost 10 yeas now and they still think if they push it enough people will suddenly care. They didn’t even care when they added Call Of Duty, so why would anything else change that?
And streaming is never going to be mainstream until broadband is better, and that’s ignoring that the Xbox service isn’t even as good as GeForce Now. I’m sure most people reading this have decent broadband (unless they live in the country) but it’s so inconsistent depending on where you live that it’s just not a solution. Microsoft has lost the plot.
Tacle
No hope
I don’t see any scenario where either BioWare makes it into the next decade or Mass Effect 4 gets released. It still sounds like they’ve done barely any work on it, and they have a tiny team for the sort of game it should be. Even the developers themselves seem to realise that the game’s over, as it were.
It’s a shame but BioWare are not the developer they used to be. Although I liked Dragon Age The Veilguard quite a bit, their last success was Dragon Age: Inquisition and that’s over a decade ago now. They just haven’t got the mojo or the staff anymore and while that’s mostly EA’s fault I don’t feel there’s any going back now.
Although if they do get sold off to another company there is now a chance, they could outlast EA themselves.
Korbie
Inexplicable Galaxy
Really nice to see Super Mario Galaxy 1 + 2 getting great reviews again. They’re both still in the top five of the best reviewed games on Metacritic and well deserved to. I’ve got Super Mario 3D All-Stars, so I’ll just be getting Super Mario Galaxy 2, but really looking forward to that because I haven’t played since I had my Wii out (that ended up sounding a lot ruder than I meant!).
Like everyone else, I have no idea what Nintendo is planning for the next 3D Mario. You’d assume a Super Mario Galaxy 3 is likely but when you compare the sales of the current two with Odyssey that makes no sense at all. I realise it’s Nintendo I’m trying to predict here but I just don’t get it, especially as calling the movie Galaxy doesn’t seem to make much sense either.
If you were around eight when the original games came out, you’d now be in your mid-twenties but that doesn’t seem significant either. Film companies would usually be aiming for thirtysomething parents in terms of nostalgia that they want to get their kids to experience, so… nope, I don’t understand it at all.
Taylor Moon
Twin horrors
You know they often say a tale of two halves is less than a third of a quarter and that’s what can be translated to two pieces of news, that have resonated with a negative light. The first being the buyout of Electronic Arts. Which paints a hollow and unknown fate of a publisher and developer, that is a two-sided coin. On one hand, EA have published lauded works such as the Star Wars Jedi duology, the Mass Effect trilogy (we don’t discuss Andromeda), and the Dead Space trilogy (barring the third title, which resulted in the closure of Visceral Games).
A remake of the first game was reviewed well and with a new instalment of our favourite space faring franchise looming in the background, after the failure of Andromeda, will Jedi 3, or even Mass Effect 5, truly see the light of day? Spoken as an admirer of these franchises, I remain hopeful that these dual stories are at the very least granted the closure they deserve. In Mass Effect’s case, and in BioWare’s case, it’s redemption they sorely must look towards or closure will be their fate.
Xbox truly never learn, do they? Who requested a price rise for Game Pass Ultimate? Is The Outer Worlds 2 that much anticipated that it justifies a higher subscription cost to access? Judging by the boatload of cancellations occurring at this second I suspect not. In positive news, however, my copy of Ghost Of Yōtei has been dispatched and will be with me by tomorrow’s moon.
Shahzaib Sadiq
Inbox also-rans
I didn’t even think the average GTA 6 fan was that bothered about Trailer 3 yet. It’s clearly not going to come out until December until the very earliest and wouldn’t bet on anytime before spring.
Rupp
I’m just going to say it: Silent Hill f is my game of the year and Hinako is my favourite new character of the generation. Now to get the UFO ending!
Bootles
You can also submit your own 500 to 600-word Reader’s Feature at any time via email or our Submit Stuff page, which if used will be shown in the next available weekend slot.
You can also leave your comments below and don’t forget to follow us on Twitter.
Comment now
Comments
