Another day, another Microsoft and Xbox story. After a decade of use for everything online and multiplayer with the Xbox, Microsoft has decided to kill Xbox Live Gold for good as they’re merging the service with Xbox Game Pass come this September.
Everything has an expiration date, yet merging the two services might not be as easy as it sounds.
Despite building up a decade’s worth of user experience and loyalty to the Xbox Live Gold online services, Microsoft has decided to completely ditch the subscription and force all Xbox users to purchase an Xbox Game Pass subscription as the two subscriptions are going to be merged. And, even though this may not seem too dramatic on the surface, it’s actually quite a significant change to Xbox’s online services.
Before I get into the major content changes, let me just say that this merger between Xbox Game Pass and Xbox Live Gold is not going to impact how much us users will spend as the price for Game Pass and Xbox Live Gold will be kept at $9.99/month (or $59.99/year). Moreover, there will still be a system of games being made free by Xbox for Xbox Game Pass Live, though the old system of getting two free games a month on the 1st and 15th or 16th of the month that Xbox Gold Live made famous has seemingly been abandoned.
What has it been abandoned for? Well, instead of having every single game on Xbox’s digital stores have a chance of being featured on the Xbox Live Gold “raffle” each month, Xbox Game Pass will now feature a distinct and concrete list of 25 titles, such as Among Us, Descenders, Dishonored 2, Doom Eternal, Fable Anniversary, Fallout 4, Fallout 76, Forza Horizon 4, Gears 5, Grounded, Halo 5: Guardians, Halo Wars 2, Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice, Human: Fall Flat, Inside, Ori and the Will of the Wisps, Psychonauts 2, State of Decay 2, The Elder Scrolls Online: Tamriel Unlimited, that users can freely play.
And, on a semi-annual basis, new games will be added to the list of 25 (though it’s not been stated what games will be added).
Now, maybe people will like this new system better as all games will be available to play freely at any time one wishes, but I really think losing the raffle-like atmosphere and the unpredictability of what games could be chosen was a neat idea. It was vastly different than what PlayStation or Nintendo was offering with their consoles, and it also enabled indie creators to get major recognition and advertisement of their potentially great games.
With this new system, the vast majority of free games on offer are older, established, and Triple A titles from Triple A developers/studios who don’t really need the platform of Xbox Game Pass’ “raffle” to promote their games and studios. But that’s not even the worse part of this change.
The worse part of the change is that it makes the use of Xbox Game Pass/Xbox Live Gold completely useless when you compare it to Xbox Game Pass Ultimate.
Not only does Xbox Game Pass Ultimate allow you to play hundreds of games on PC, consoles, and cloud gaming, pass-exclusive perks, and in-game content perks that you are unable to get on Xbox or PC Game Pass, but it is also now the only service that provides multiplayer and online game access.
I’m sure Microsoft will make this a little clearer when the merger is completed in September, but if they’re going to remove all multiplayer services (which are only included in Xbox Live Gold or Xbox Game Pass Ultimate as of me writing this), then we’re all essentially shoehorned into paying a full $7 more/month on Xbox Game Pass Ultimate.
Yes, that’s right, instead of paying $9.99/month for Xbox Live Gold and $60/year, we’re now going to have to pay $16.99/month and $203.88/year for Xbox Game Pass Ultimate as that’s the only service with online/multiplayer access.
Doesn’t sound very nice for us gaming patrons, right? Well, don’t fear as you can just play your favorite multiplayer and online games, such as Elder Scrolls Online, World of Warcraft, Diablo, Starcraft, etc., on a different platform-oh, wait. Microsoft bought Bethesda and Activision Blizzard and now will make the vast majority of their titles “Xbox Exclusives”, which forces us gaming patrons to buy this ridiculously overpriced Xbox Game Pass Ultimate subscription if you want to play your favorite MMOs and
Don’t you just love how monopiles work in subtle ways?
Images Source: Featured Image: (Microsoft/Activision Blizzard) (World of Warcraft: Shadowlands Cinematic Trailer – YouTube)
