I’m looking at what the three tiers are now on the Xbox site and my setup is basically cheaper and better.
For $10/month, you’re getting all the vaulted games and day one games get added a year after release. The amount of games would blow away the 50+ that they have now on the tier.
For $20/month, you’re basically getting all the vaulted games as well as all the games day one from Microsoft and third parties. For $5/month more, this tier is simply better because for an extra $60/year, you’re getting all the day one games from Microsoft and third parties.
For $30/month, you get the above along with EA Play, Ubisoft+ Classics, Fortnite perks and whatever other perks they have. And I would add in the dlc/expansions for Microsoft’s published games. You would also get the PC games stuff which I wouldn’t include in the two above tiers.
I would also do the same for PC. Three tiers. It’s not right that they get a cheaper price tag than Xbox console gamers. Like, WTF?
But then don’t the tiers become even more confusing to users?
Would they have Helix only GP tiers (meaning more complexity), or it’s all the same but if you’re on Helix the online multiplayer is already free, meaning you’re paying more for less (having already just paid a lot more for a new console?)
On the flip side (in addition to partners maybe not wanting annual), I’m not even sure we’ve had 12 months in recent years without pricing or tier changes…
For general customers I think they’ll fixate on the sticker price. People generally don’t do the math to justify price increases. I think the fact that all tiers include PC games now makes it clear that they’ll soon get rid of the distinction and ace PC game pass all together. The goal of subscriptions is to get people to engage more with the ecosystem not just sort of sit in their own little corner. The hold over is probably properly launching Helix and building out that windows and Xbox convergence. As is PC game pass still had less games (definitely less than Ultimate and I think less than Premium even) because the Xbox PC store gets less dev/publisher support than console.
Yeah it will be up to Microsoft. I’d actually be surprised if they kept the current prices and added stuff like all dlc. They clearly want (and I think have seen success from) Ultimate subscribers buying DLC & expansions. The pipeline seems to be for ultimate users who want the expansion and to play early to pay for that upgrade. If that’s working at all, then it’d be very unlikely for Xbox to package everything into the Ultimate tier and keep the price as low as $30.
At this point the hardware team is probably having an easier time prepping Helix than the marketing and financial teams are figuring out how to transition the business.
It’s best for them to think thoroughly on how they want to approach with this. I remember they officially removed live network, it became confusing for casuals. If she wants marketing to be more out there than ever before, then it’s wise to make it as approachable let alone appealing as it can get.
Messing with the tiers at this point is just confusing. The last round of changes was pretty well thought out in my opinion.
My guess on this rumor. IF the majority of essential subs are ONLY there for online multiplayer and rarely engage with the essential game catalog, why pay third parties for games on this tier. Just include xbox back catalog games so at least you aren’t writing a check for more games on this tier that might never get played. So thinking possible this change is just for essential.
I was thinking more on the engines they have like ID TECH, COD engine maybe Slip Space as well. I mention this because Phil at one time mentioned interest in ID TECH and how they could work on it. Sharma, saying they need to make deeper investment and unify everything just makes me hope they visit these engines. I don’t like the idea of UE being used for everything I don’t even know where an Xbox studio is pretty much the one helping to develop said engine, looking at how far 4A has taken their engine with Metro was a breath of fresh air.
I still can’t see them invest into the engines to compete with UE, but I can see XGTG take a look at the interface that MCC had that allowed people to work with it like it was Unreal Engine. Improve upon it to a point that new people or contractors won’t go through the same amount of time need to learn how to use propriety engines.
From a user perspective the tiers are in a pretty good place where they are but I think it’s clear they’re not positioned the way MS wants them to be.
It feels like they’re realizing they need to grow the console platform again (or at least not have the core of it collapse), but now they have fewer levers to pull since they’ve already put COD in and gone full multiplat.
Hindsight is 20/20 but they would’ve probably made more money with far less brand and platform damage if they had raised Game Pass Ultimate to only $25, excluded COD from Game Pass, and then said “Today, the biggest multiplayer games are on every platform. COD and some of our other multiplayer games with widest appeal will be full multiplat titles, the first two will be Forza Horizon and Sea of Thieves” but then kept everything else more or less exclusive.
Who knows how they thread the Game Pass needle now.
$25 would’ve been ideal, but COD on Game Pass was what the entire fight for ABK ended up being about. It’s how they rallied support from gamers for the aquistion and it’s a promise they made during the court case to make COD more accessible after purchasing ABK. The brand damage to have backtracked on that would’ve been immense. People are still made that the entire ABK backlog isn’t on GP.
Maybe, I actually don’t think it would’ve been that bad in the long run. People would get over it and continue buying COD, and now it’ll be worse if they pull it back after the fact. Just my opinion, who knows.
In my opinion they’ve been too afraid to let Game Pass shine and now the consequences are showing, Jez said Forza Horizon was sort of built into Game Pass and because of that it has thrived. I think that is what needs to happen if they expect COD to do well. Halo infinite hit 20 million players with game Pass when it came out, and Forza Horizon 5 hit 18 million and these numbers were within a week.
Microsoft doesn’t even market Game Pass and they kind of don’t even push COD in Game Pass or use COD to push Game pass, how can they expect it to grow then?
I think they have levers with this huge IPs to push Gamepass. Netflix did it and look at Disney Plus, it was pushed mainly by the MCU. Xbox can’t expect Game Pass to just grow on it’s own. We already saw Halo and Forza pass from a few millions into the tens of millions.
I know what you are saying and it makes perfect sense but only to the few of us discussing this here b/c we are knowledgeable enough to get it.
Even my knowledge of these subs only goes so far. All I really know is ultimate is awesome and has everything, no thinking required. Premium is something less than ultimate. That is really all I know. No idea what games are and aren’t in premium. Same for essential. All I know is it is something less than premium. No idea what is in there and what isn’t. I also know the monthly prices. $30-15-10 usd.
Playstation has 3 sub tiers. that is absolutely all I know about that. I have no idea what games are in it, how much they cost, or what my opinion on their value are.
That is my knowledge and I listen to like 10 hours of videogame podcasts a week and frequent this site. And that is all I know.
I say all of this b/c the more you slice and dice these subs up, the more confusing they become and the average person won’t take the time to understand it.
I think ultimate is why xbox is still around. Personally, it is a big reason I play on xbox. I went 360–>PS4–>xbox series and ultimate had a lot to do with me coming back to xbox. Essential is really just gold renamed for people who just need to jump the online paywall hurdle. And I think premium exists just b/c that is what companies do, they always want to offer something a little better in a product line to get the consumer to spend just a little more.
Ultimate IS every first party game. If you tamper with that it just isn’t the same anymore. The messaging of ultimate can’t go from ‘includes every first party game’ to ‘includes every first party game except for cod and potentially others depending how we feel about it next month’.
Sometimes I feel like we are all way to concerned with every xbox customer being on some form of gamepass. Its like, it is ok not to be on a sub and just buy the games we like.
It may be Asha and xbox and looking hard at this b/c one of their biggest challenges will be retaining the essential sub users if the online paywall goes away with helix.
I mean, you could say the same about the price increase. It’s been less than a year. In general back tracking is the bigger problem. Xbox needs to pick a strategy and stick to it.
Oh for sure. That’s part of why I’m saying I think they’ve made it a little harder on themselves than they needed to. They went full tilt on various decisions like everything being in Game Pass includes COD, everything has to be multiplat, we need to raise prices to make these across the board margins, etc. and I’m not sure that’s worked out for them.