Xbox Live Gold Price Increase Xbox

[David76]

A brand new post on Xbox Wire has unveiled plans to increase the cost of Xbox Live Gold, the online gaming service Microsoft has been using on Xbox platforms for over 18 years.

According to Microsoft, this is taking place in order to evaluate the current "value and pricing" of the services provided. As a result, Live Gold is going to jump up in price. However, if you're an existing Live Gold 6-month or 12-month member, the price isn't changing and will renew at the value before the update.

Once renewed, or started, the price of one-month Gold membership is increasing $1 and the price of a three-month membership is increasing $5, or your regional equivalent.

For those who want to upgrade to their Gold membership to Xbox Game Pass Ultimate, the remaining Gold time will also convert directly to Ultimate – up to 36 months.

As explained by Microsoft, if you have 11 months of Xbox Live Gold now, and you upgrade to Xbox Game Pass Ultimate, those 11 months convert to 11 months of Ultimate at no additional cost.

If you are an XBL Gold member and live in one of the regions where the price has increased, you will receive an email and a message centre notification over the next month what the new price will be.

Going forward, the new pricing will be one-month for $10.99, three-months for $29.99, and six-months for $59.99, or the regional equivalent. Prices won't adjust until at least 45 days after you receive the messages.

 

[Gromit]

Trying to push people to Game Pass Ultimate, I can't say it's a surprise.

The UK Xbox Live Gold price hike will be:

One month goes up from £6.99 to £7.99.

Three months goes up from £17.99 to £21.99.

And six months goes up from £29.99 to £42.99.

This means 12 months of Xbox Live Gold now costs £86. You can currently get 12 months for £49.99.

 

[Gemma]

Well now it looks like they have reversed the decision.

Reception to the report was met with criticism. Not to mention free to play games still required Xbox Live Gold to play them. Free games are still free for PlayStation and Nintendo users.

Due to the negative feedback, Microsoft did what it did back in 2013 and reversed the decision. They have also made the new decision to make free to play games actually free.

Microsoft made the new announcement on Xbox.com. You can read the new statement posted down below.

"We messed up today and you were right to let us know. Connecting and playing with friends is a vital part of gaming and we failed to meet the expectations of players who count on it every day. As a result, we have decided not to change Xbox Live Gold pricing.

We're turning this moment into an opportunity to bring Xbox Live more in line with how we see the player at the center of their experience. For free-to-play games, you will no longer need an Xbox Live Gold membership to play those games on Xbox. We are working hard to deliver this change as soon as possible in the coming months.

If you are an Xbox Live Gold member already, you stay at your current price for renewal. New and existing members can continue to enjoy Xbox Live Gold for the same prices they pay today. In the US, $9.99 for 1-month, $24.99 for 3-months, $39.99 for 6-months and $59.99 for retail 12-months.

Thank you."

 

[Deleted member 26]

Well it's good that they listened and reversed the decision, but it makes you question the original thought process if they can afford to reverse it (again).. ?

 

[David76]

It's promising that they listened to feedback around this, but still disappointing they thought it was something to do anyway. It's caused them a huge negative backlash.

It's inevitable that Game Pass will increase in price at some point. There's no way they can feasibly charge £8 a month forever after acquiring studios like Bethesda for however many billion and massive new games like Halo, Fable etc. going straight on Game Pass for no fee. I wouldn't mind paying a tenner, for example, if the stream of games is consistently really, really good. A 100% price increase on Gold was just lunacy though.