Xbox Live Gold not needed for Free-To-Play MP, No Price Changes [2021-01-22]

AzBat

Agent of the Bat
Legend
If you were hoping for Gold going away, bad news for you(& me)....

Since we launched Xbox Live (18 years ago!), we’ve been working to make it the most advanced multiplayer network available, for the greatest community of gamers — and there are a lot of you. Millions of people come together on Xbox to play with friends and discover great games. We invest in our community by strengthening the digital safety of our players, enabling new ways to share, communicate and play with your friends, and delivering industry leading reliability across our network.

Periodically, we assess the value and pricing of our services to reflect changes in regional marketplaces and to continue to invest in the Xbox community; we’ll be making price adjustments for Xbox Live Gold in select markets. In many markets, the price of Xbox Live Gold has not changed for years and in some markets, it hasn’t changed for over 10 years.

So, what does this mean for you?
  • If you’re an existing online 12-month or 6-month Xbox Live Gold member, there’s no price change.If you choose to renew your membership, it will renew at the current price.
  • The price of a 1-month Gold membership is increasing $1 USD and the price of a 3-month membership is increasing $5 USD or the equivalent amount in your local market.
  • If you’d like to upgrade your Gold membership to Xbox Game Pass Ultimate your remaining Gold time will also convert directly to Ultimate (up to 36 months). For example, 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.
Members have already been notified in some regions. If you’re in a region where prices are being adjusted, you will receive an email and a message center notification over the next month letting you know what the new pricing is for your membership. Going forward, new pricing will be 1-month for $10.99, 3-months for $29.99, and 6-months for $59.99, or your local market equivalent. You can always visit your account to manage your membership, and prices won’t adjust until at least 45 days after you receive the messages.

https://news.xbox.com/en-us/2021/01/22/update-on-xbox-live-gold-pricing/

At least the 1:1 Gold to Game Pass conversion still works. So buy as many of those 12-month codes as you can find & then let your Game Pass Ultimate expire a couple days before you redeem them.

Tommy McClain
 
That makes Game Pass Ultimate that much more of a deal at the adjusted Gold pricing levels for an entire year (12 months).

Game Pass Ultimate = $180 (4 * $45 3 months)
Gold = $120 (2 * $60 6 months)
 
If you were hoping for Gold going away, bad news for you(& me)....

Microsoft was never going to give away few billion a year when they want to increase service revenues

But pretty easy to find 12 months for few bucks a months still
 
I wouldn't say never. The whole reasoning for abandoning it was to get rid of a service that's wavered in the past few years as Game Pass has become the Golden Child. I still think they need to get rid of it to simplify all their subscription services. Too confusing for most people.

Tommy McClain
 
These sorts of tone deaf moves really just reinforce that Microsoft is terrible at building consumer brands. They have all this good will, even with a frankly bad launch, with the marque (and only) big first party game delayed for a year, the spotty performance of the series x in some games for whatever reason, and they just douse all that good will in gasoline and threaten to light a match.

There are so many ways they could have gotten the same outcome without pissing everyone off, they could have including a limited version of gamepass with only the old first party games for instance, something, anything to justify xbox live gold costing TWICE what PSN costs.

If I want to play fortnite, warzone, etc why would I get a series s now? If I were a parent getting a console for my kid why would I get a series s for them? when at minimum to play with their friends its going to be $120 per year.


They obviously spent tons of time, money and effort on the series s, increasing third party devs workload to support multiple skus, all in the name of increasing their total addressable market, then they just throw all that away? It just doesnt make sense.

at least make f2p multiplayer free geeze
 
I hope that XBLG changes as a service in 45 days. lol it's pretty offensive to 2x the price just to play online. They're going to have to come out and centre to address peoples concerns, this is wildly too expensive, GPU is still a good deal, but gold is atrocious value.

I don't see a win here for them unless they release multiplayer gate from Gold. But also pretty offensive to tell poeple to stock up on gold and then make MP free a month later. This whole debacle is a travesty. Of all the things goofed, this is Phil's real major goof up here. He'll own this one.
 
Last edited:
They're trying to migrate everyone from Gold to GamePass. That's what's going on. It'll work on me, as I think GP is worth $180 per year now, let alone after 40 studios are cranking out games.

If you think about it, if you're not on GamePass why does MS even want you as a customer? The truth is that if you're not on GamePass MS probably doesn't care if you're in their ecosystem anymore. Hardware (Console, PC, xCloud devices) are just a delivery mechanism for GP now.

MS lost the traditional console war to Sony and Nintendo. If they can't create their own space with GP they probably won't stay in the game IMO. Why lose billions on hardware? GP is it for MS IMO.

PS: I agree with this strategy. I would have waited until GP was more irresistible though.
 
GPU and GP are already good deals. Anyone on gold would migrate over anyway.

All MS has done here is basically cut away their lower income market. The series S cannot possibly service that market because it's on-going costs are much too high.
 
They would have migrated. This just tries to get them migrated sooner.

Like it or not, the entire success of MS' gaming division rests with GamePass now.

GamePass IS Xbox.
 
Then they should have removed gold entirely and made MP free. Game pass is only the future when it becomes the future. It's still far in it's infancy for this type of move.

I really don't know how else to say this; Gaming is the few bastions left in which the rich and poor play together and share in something together. it doesn't matter if you are disabled, what gender you identify with, what your social status is etc; all these gamers play together.

By putting a gate on MP you've basically made it inaccessible to lower income people, by increasing the price, even more so.
 
Last edited:
All MS has done here is basically cut away their lower income market. The series S cannot possibly service that market because it's on-going costs are much too high.
Agreed.
If someone wanted a cheap console just to play a few F2P games this rules out Xbox.

Why this is bad for Xbox is now they will have no chance of selling those people GP at all as they will have a PS.

I would expect that a fair few people who only wanted to play fortnight would pick up GP simply due to value and curiosity of games available etc.
 
Then they should have removed gold entirely and made MP free. Game pass is only the future when it becomes the future. It's still far in it's infancy for this type of move.

I really don't know how else to say this; Gaming is the few bastions left in which the rich and poor play together and share in something together. it doesn't matter if you are disabled, what gender you identify with, what your social status is etc; all these gamers play together.

By putting a gate on MP you've basically made it inaccessible to lower income people, by increasing the price, even more so.

It's fine for you not to like it, but Netflix etc... (any subscription based service) puts you in the same boat. MS is essentially saying: "If you want a non-subscription gaming system, then go buy a PS5 and pay Sony $70 per game."

I agree that this move seems too early in the life of GP.

Once again, it's all going to boil down the games. If GP is irresistible (which it isn't yet), then people will pay. If it's not, then MS failed in the gaming space and we'll all be playing on PC, PS6 or Switch 2 down the road.
 
I am on GPU, so I don't care. Guess, that is the way to phase out Gold?

I can kinda guess their reasoning and I wonder how it's gonna work out. Will make transition faster for some for sure. Some will probably leave and some will keep the existing Live Gold.

What tiers GP has now? I presume in the end there tiers remaining will be GamePass (that does not require Gold for online anymore), GPU and some future GP Platinum or something (I will subscribe of course).

Then they should have removed gold entirely and made MP free. Game pass is only the future when it becomes the future. It's still far in it's infancy for this type of move.
They won't get rid of paid MP until GP will reach certain maturity which I expected around 30-50 mil. subscribers. Then then can leave basic GP with multiplayer without gold, GP ultimate and some others.
 
Game Pass = consoles
Game Pass PC = pc
Game Pass Ultinate = consoles + pc

EA Access is on console. It may be on PC too.
 
I hope their plan is the following:
  • Remove Gold requirement for all MultiPlayer games
  • Transform existing Gold into Game Pass Console
Possible tweak is put Games with Gold into Game Pass for a year but tweak it down to 2 new a month instead of 4 or 5.

I think they could tweak xCloud but then it gets more layered as follows:
  • Provide xCloud for PC Clients with Game Pass PC
  • Provide xCloud for Consoles with Game Pass Console
  • Provide xCloud for tablets and mobile for Game Pass Ultimate
 
Official Story Updated @ https://news.xbox.com/en-us/2021/01/22/update-on-xbox-live-gold-pricing/

[UPDATED on 1/22/2021 at 8:52 PM PT]

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.
 
Back
Top