Microsoft is raising the price of its subscription service Xbox Game Pass with its most expensive tier “Xbox Game Pass Ultimate", increasing from $19.9 to $29.99 per month.
The Xbox founder explains that the increase comes as it expands its offering with Fortnite Crew valued at $11.99/month) and Ubisoft+ Classics (valued at $7.99/month) added to its Ultimate library, as well as enhanced Xbox Cloud Gaming streaming quality and access to over 75 day one releases a year, including Call of Duty: Black Ops 7
The company states, "Our goal with Game Pass has been clear: deliver unmatched value, benefits, and a deep library of games for our players.”
"Since launching in 2017, we’ve steadily grown our subscriber and creator satisfaction “
Microsoft further adds, "We know not everyone wants the same thing in their Xbox experience, so we’re evolving Game Pass to offer more flexibility, choice, and value to all players, whether you love day one releases, discovering hidden gems, or playing across multiple devices and screens and across Xbox consoles, Xbox on PC, and Xbox Cloud."
Price update follows as Xbox Game Pass Standard is now rebadged as Xbox Game Pass Premium and has increased from $11.99/£9.99 to $14.99/£10.99 a month.
While its most affordable tier, formerly known as Core but now renamed Xbox Game Pass Essential, costs $9.99/£6.99.
Moreover, the cost for PC Game Pass has similarly been increased from $11.99/£9.99 to $16.49/£13.49 per month.
The news of the new price hike sparked outage and the fans started reacting online.
Xbox fans have reacted angrily, after the founding company Microsoft price increases to its Xbox Game Pass subscription service.
As the gaming software company announced that the most popular tier of its Netflix-style video games system available for window and Xbox players would rise by more than 50% from £14.99 to £22.99 per month.
While reacting on social media, loads of fans said they had cancelled their Game Pass subscriptions, with some reporting the service's cancellation page had crashed due to demand.
Microsoft’s blog post on Xbox’s official site stated, that the company would offer three tiers: Essential (£10 per month), Premium (£14.99) and Ultimate (£22.99).
Among them, Ultimate - the most expensive tier - allows players to access new games from Microsoft-owned studios on the day of their release.