the unstoppable decline of subscription services

Microsoft has announced a price increase for Game Pass, which has taken the industry and fans by surprise. Along with this announcement, the company also unveiled some very unpopular decisions, such as limiting the first day of launch to the highest bidders. A knock on the table from Microsoft, which also reveals a number of industry-related circumstances that should be analyzed, as this will especially affect new customers.

What the new Game Pass includes and what it doesn’t. The truth is, the new terms are so confusing that Microsoft itself had to publish several FAQs to explain it. Basically, these are your key points.

• All plans are seeing price increases. For example, Xbox Game Pass Ultimate will go from €14.99 per month to $17.99 per month. This price change will begin for new subscribers on July 9 and will go into effect for existing members in September.
• Xbox Game Pass for console, a cheaper alternative to Game Pass Ultimate that doesn’t include PC games or EA Play games, is disappearing. For new users, that plan is being replaced by Game Pass Standard ($14.99 per month in the U.S.). Xbox Game Pass for console users can only remain at that price without changing prices if they have auto-renewal enabled.
• This new Game Pass standard does not include new games on Day 1, which will come months later. Day 1 becomes exclusive to the PC and Ultimate plans.
• Game Pass for PC will increase in price from 9.99 to 11.99 euros, and games will still be available on day one (this is information from Windows Central). There is also a Game Pass Core, with a very small library of games, no monthly fee (at least no option other than an annual one has been announced) and which is mainly aimed at those who are only interested in online games.

Eventually. These are the company’s plans.

Without a doubt, the most radical decision is the disappearance of day one releases, which will now only be available on Game Pass Ultimate and PC, creating a sort of “two-speed Game Pass.”

A blow to the appeal of Game Pass. At this point, it feels like Game Pass has always been there, to the point that it’s already shed a bit of the “Netflix of video games” label and become a bit more… well, Game Pass. That is, when Sony launched its own subscription service, it was branded as “Playstation Game Pass.” Game Pass is appealing.

But that will end unless a price increase from €14.99 to €17.99 is accepted. If you want to keep the old €14.99, there’s a new Game Pass Standard option that keeps the library running but removes Day 1 games. For all practical purposes, that’s an increase of three euros per month. The increase has led to more critical voices about the direction the service is heading, and it reveals the biggest sin of the entertainment industry today: panicking over risk.

“HPC” is approaching. Moreover, this decision comes at a difficult time: a few months after the launch of Call of Duty Black Ops 6, a best-selling title due out in October and which, if it had been on the platform from day one, would have driven up Game Pass subscriptions. This decision to reserve the big games for those who pay more undermines Phil Spencer’s insistence that players come first, which is why Game Pass has made it easier to play on screens other than Xbox and PC, such as Android devices.

It’s not just that some of the voices who argued that the Game Pass model was unsustainable from the start may be right (starting with voices who made their business calculations based on competitors like Playstation). In addition, Game Pass has become a great way to enter the world of video games with an unrivaled repertoire of hits and classics. It’s not that three euros now make an excessive difference, but Microsoft’s policy is still a concern.

PC question. Or maybe Microsoft still loves video games. You don’t like Xbox anymore: its decision to make Game Pass for PC a much cheaper option is significant, especially when it doesn’t require you to pay, as Core subscribers do on the console, just to play online. And it will premiere on day one… for about a hundred euros less per year. The console’s poor sales figures, which are now clearly behind not only Playstation but also the Xbox One itself, suggest that Microsoft is rethinking a large part of its strategy.

Rotten economy. Rod Zitron has written about the “gunk economy” in his newsletter to describe a trend in the tech industry in which products no longer have to be good, they just have to make companies more money. Or, as Riley MacLeod puts it in Aftermath: “They care about making their offerings functional enough that you’ll pay for them, or, if they fail, making the service simple enough that you feel like there’s nowhere else to turn.”

We can apply this thesis to a lot of the services we all have in mind, and Game Pass, which remains an important service if you care about games, is dangerously close to that line. Microsoft continues to close studios (most notably Tango Softworks, creator of perhaps the best game in its catalog in recent years, Hi-Fi Rush) and limit the benefits of Game Pass. A sign of the times, of the industry tightening its belt, and of the particular doubts that have gripped Microsoft.

Headline | Microsoft

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