There has been a lot of chatter in and around Xbox about Xbox Game Pass and how sustainable its model is. In a vacuum, it’s very profitable, but it doesn’t exist in a vacuum. Of course, Microsoft loves having 30 million monthly subscribers for guaranteed revenue every month, but the knock-on effect of this is fewer Xbox games being bought and a consumer base being conditioned not to buy games. Meanwhile, there has been extensive reporting that Xbox developers themselves don’t like the subscription service for various reasons that are neither here nor there. The short end of it is that there has been a complete reexamination of the XGP business model by Sharma and her team. To this end, one of the first things Asha did was tweak the model to facilitate a price drop. And it looks like that may just have been the beginning of the changes.
Back at the end of June, we relayed word of a report that Sharma had completely frozen new third-party deals for Xbox Game Pass in order to essentially audit the whole sector of Xbox. Meanwhile, there has been some chatter that day-one games are also being looked at. Day-one games are the cornerstone of the Xbox Game Pass business model and what separates it from PlayStation Plus. However, the subscription service’s key feature is also its most problematic.
Fast forward to today, and in select regions Xbox Game Pass Ultimate got a rare discount. More specifically, it’s been dropped from €20.99 a month to €14.69. This could just be a random discount, especially since it is dynamic pricing. However, given everything going on, some subscribers think this is communicating a permanent drop to €15. Whether this would translate to $20 USD or $15 USD or somewhere in between, we do not know. Right now it’s $22.99 in the United States. Whatever the case, it’s not dropping in price again — in this economy where everything only gets constantly more expensive — without watering down the offer of the subscription service. It could do this with smaller adjustments, like ending the inclusion of EA Play, but these are unlikely to move the price needle. The only way to do that is a rebuild of the day-one model.
“If they take it down again, I smell the end of day ones,” says one fan in response to the new sale above. “As the strategy intensifies once more by the exclusives. Another fan adds: “Either that, or bye-bye to the games, big AAA/AAAA games. Day one.”
Unfortunately, right now, all we have is speculation, but it does feel like the storm clouds are gathering, and substantial changes to Xbox Game Pass are on the horizon.
All of that said, and as always, feel free to leave a comment or two letting us know what you think, or join the video game conversations over on the ComicBook Forum.
