I used to love Xbox man, what happened to the game I used to love? What it has become is just embarrassing. Every step of the way, they're finding new lows to hit. Today, Xbox has announced a Game Pass change and it's a doozy. Try a 50% price increase to the Game Pass Ultimate tier.
Yeah! percent price increase to the Game Pass Ultimate tier. Yeah.
And it is revolting. It's going about as well as me in a dunk competition. They have increased the price to $30 a month for the Ultimate tier and the two previous tiers for Essential and Premium are just not worth it. The Ultimate tier is the only one that lets you get the games day one. And for a large number of people that was one of the main draws of the service here. And even though the Xbox catalog has been like
a fucking Magikarp over the last few years, just extremely weak, the value you got out of Game Pass at the previous price point made up for it. Like it was worth it and it's something that I glazed quite a bit. But now this price point, the fuck is the point in keeping it anymore? It's just not worth it, and a lot of people are now cancelling their subscription to Game Pass in response to these price increases. It's just L after L for Xbox. Like, even just recently they farted out a new price increase for the consoles
in a time period where Xboxes are like fucking fossils. Like, you can't give those bitches away. Sometimes It's a console that doesn't have a whole lot of reasons to buy it unless your friends are already on it But chances are your friends have already moved past it because being an Xbox fan in 2025 is like being a fidget spinner Enthusiast it's just not cool It's lame like it is So far past its prime now and it brings me no joy saying that by the
way. As I've always proudly stated, Xbox and Xbox 360 have been my favorite gaming experiences. Those two consoles I think are the most important pieces of gaming hardware ever made. But once the Xbox One came out, that's when it all went tits up and it is not recovered. You hate to see what Xbox has become. And anytime I talk about Xbox or like criticize a lot of the decisions they've made over the years, somehow there is still like this last holdout of warriors willing to fight Xbox's PR battles for them, even though the General, Phil Spencer himself, constantly throws himself pity parties on every podcast that will have him
about how they've lost the console wars. Like, he himself recognizes how far behind Xbox has fallen and how brutal it's been for them. And it just somehow keeps getting worse, even though they have this, like, come-to- Jesus moment of, man, we really put our own dick in our ass here,
they don't do anything to course correct. Like, they did a good decision a little while back that I praised a lot, where they dropped exclusivity. I think that is the brightest path forward for the industry, where every title hits every platform, so consumers have their pick of playing it on their preferred
platform. And Xbox was kind of pushing that, and I appreciated it. But for every one step forward they've taken, they've taken 20 steps back and today it has been a catastrophic disaster for them because now they're fucking their golden goose. They even posted a delusional video celebrating these game pass changes as if it's something that the community was asking for. It's so out of touch and
tone deaf, just take a peek at this. Hey everyone, Xbox Game Pass is getting an upgrade. We've listened to your feedback and now you have even more freedom to choose how you play the games you want. We've expanded all Xbox Game Pass plans to give you more games and more ways to play and more rewards than ever. Previously, Core was primarily for console, but Essential now lets you play games
on Xbox console, PC, and cloud. That means you have the freedom to stream and play on any supported device. And with cloud gaming, that includes a lot of devices.
So she goes through each tier with the upgrades that have been introduced, the improvements that they've augmented all of this with. And I'm just not fucking seeing it. Like it really just seems like you get the same deal but with more money needed to be forked over to achieve it.
Like the big thing that stands out to me is that they're putting more of a focus on, you know, PC gaming, so instead of it being all about console, now you get more freedom to play on PC and like the cloud stuff. But for people that are like Xbox heads,
they don't give a fuck about that. Like they're not getting a much better deal, they're just having to pay more money for the deal. Like it just doesn't seem worth it and judging from the response from the community Almost nobody is defending it I don't think there's anyone out there that actually thinks this is them listening to community feedback
Because you need to pay $30 a month in order to like play Call of Duty black ops 7 on launch They're like who why would you do that? Why would you be paying $30 a month to then get access to a game day one? It's just it's so fucking expensive, at that point you might as well just buy the game that you're interested in as opposed to having this like ongoing expensive subscription to Game Pass Ultimate for it. It's just not worth it. The value is not there. It does
seem like it is now just a price increase without offering any real reason or justification to fork over those doubloons for it. What the fuck is the point? I don't know where the spin is coming that they're trying to put on it, like this is what you guys been asking for, everyone's been begging to give us more money, all of you are asking to pay more for game pass and we said fine, guess our hands are tied, we're reluctant to do this but we're going to increase the price by 50% per your feedback, it's what you guys were demanding, so we're just serving you the meal
you ordered from the menu. Like who's asking for that? I don't know where it's coming from. And again, the things that they're talking about in the tier, like the tiers that they're introducing, it feels like it's mainly just PC cloud related stuff that I don't think the console players were really begging for in a big way, especially if it leads to a price increase.
The best thing about Ultimate is that you can play new games on day one. That includes games like Call of Duty Black Ops 7, The Outer Worlds 2, and High on Life 2. But now the best is getting even better. Ultimate subscribers will get access
to over 75 day one games per year. We're also adding two new partner subscriptions. With Ultimate, you'll now have access to Ubisoft Plus Classics in addition to EA Play.
Wait, maybe I was a little hasty. Hold the fucking phone here. You get access to Ubisoft Classics? Oh my god, that's what I've always wanted. Access to Ubisoft classics! Ubisoft! Yes! Oh I can't wait to be paying $30 a month! Whee! And of
course EA Play. Who could understate the value of EA Play there? This is so silly and I was really curious if they were going to mention the price increases in this video here because it's so pivotal. Like this is a really big deal. It's not like some trivial increase of like 50 cents. It's 50%.
They have raised it from 20 to $30. And they don't make a peep. They don't mention it in this video at all. They tried to save that cold water outside of the hype of this announcement,
which I think
is a little scummy. I don't really like that. You should you should talk about the price changes too. You talked about everything else, like the name changes which feel totally unnecessary, but that's just like corporate America where names change all the time for the most minuscule of reasons. But I'm, come on, you're not gonna mention the price here? There's just nothing nothing there's nothing in this that screams value that screams that this is worth it now previously at the old price points of
game pass I thought it was a good deal I really did think that they had a good service that they were offering at that price point at this I don't see who the fuck would ever be able to like rationalize spending that kind of money for what you get out of it it doesn doesn't make sense to me. And what also doesn't make sense to me is how Microsoft thought that this was a good idea. Like I recognize that they're not you know doing amazing, but I mean come on like
just look at 2025 for Microsoft. It has been rough and they've already increased prices on like console and everything and now this like they had to know this was going to be a big fucking miss here I just like I did I don't I don't get it yeah it's crazy to me anyway though I just wanted to yap about this a bit I really and I don't mean this exaggeratory I really don't know how much longer Xbox is even going to be around before they just pull the plug on it
It like it just seems like it's in such a disastrous state. They have so many things under their umbrella But yet have so little to show for it and their one like really good saving grace here with game pass is Just getting ruined it is going straight in the dumpster It's already there like this is a dagger in Game Pass for a large, large number of people. Like it's not blown out of proportion with the amount of people cancelling their subscription.
It really does seem to be that bad. Anyway though I won't yap about it any longer. Anyway though I won't yap about it any longer. That's really about it.
Get ultra fast and accurate AI transcription with Cockatoo
Get started free →
