Microsoft has announced a price hike for Xbox Game Pass Ultimate, raising the price by 50% from $20 to $30 per month. You do not have to pay that much everywhere, however. GameStop, for example, has announced that it will not raise the price of Game Pass Ultimate for in-store and online shoppers, at least not yet.
The retailer continues to sell one-month Game Pass Ultimate memberships for $20 or three-month memberships for $60. This appears to be a promotion, so it’s not likely to last forever, meaning you may want to snap it up now before it’s too late. The price comes down to $19 for one month or $57 for a three-month subscription if you’re a GameStop Pro member ($25/year).
Beyond GameStop, mega-retailer Amazon is also continuing to sell Game Pass Ultimate for $20/month or $60 for three months, as are Walmart, Target, and Best Buy.
A variety of other online retailers are selling Game Pass Ultimate for $20 or less right now for a one-month membership, so be sure to shop around before signing up for the new, higher rate.
Microsoft’s announcement of yet another price hike for Game Pass Ultimate was met with a negative response online. The price hike for Game Pass followed a price increase of consoles, too.
Price increases were always expected, though, as subscription services are known to debut at a low price to drive adoption and then go up in price as the company behind them looks to monetize the base of subscribers. Still, the 50% price hike was more than many expected for Game Pass Ultimate, even with the newly added perks like Fortnite Crew and Ubisoft+ Classics.
PC Game Pass is also going up in price, from $12/month to $16.50/month. Just like with Ultimate, PC Game Pass prepaid codes are still available for the lower price at Amazon. Game Pass Core and Game Pass Standard are changing names to Game Pass Essential ($10/month) and Game Pass Premium ($15/month), and there are no price hikes for those tiers.
Looking ahead, one industry analyst believes Microsoft could offer a lower-priced ad-based Game Pass tier to help draw in more subscribers. Game Pass brings in lots of money already for Microsoft, as the company recently disclosed it reached nearly $5 billion in annual revenue for the first time.
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