New code strings attached to Xbox Game Pass suggests a price increase may be imminent

Microsoft recently raised the price of Xbox game consoles. Then it raised the price of games to $80. Next on the list might be Xbox Game Pass.

Over the past year, Microsoft and other companies have been gradually increasing the price of their products and services, blaming things like Trump's tarriff war, sticky inflation, and consumer confidence. Whatever the reason, shareholders don't seem to be too bothered, with megacorps like JP Morgan, Blackrock, and Vanguard set to earn millions via Microsoft's dividend pay outs this quarter. But hey, hedge funds could always use some more, right?

After raising the price of Xbox consoles and, now, controversially, Xbox games to $80, Microsoft may also be on the cusp of raising the price of Xbox Game Pass too.

@RedPhx who who builds the rather amazing Better xCloud Xbox Cloud Gaming enhancement project noticed that Xbox Cloud Gaming recently added a new notification type, dubbed "SubscriptionPriceIncrease" over the past few days. Fun.

The strings pertain to pop-ups that Xbox Cloud Gaming serves to players who enable notifications on the Xbox.com/play web app. Most of them are innocuous enough, like reporting on rewards earned, achievement unlocks, friends coming online, and so on. But this latest one specific to subscription price increases is new.

It's not a stretch to think that an Xbox Game Pass price increase is imminent, given the fact Microsoft decided now would be a good time to necessitate such a notification type.

Either way, I don't think anyone is expecting Game Pass to stick to its current price. Netflix, Disney+, and other subscriptions are constantly increasing, or gunning for enshittification tactics like Amazon Prime, which now seemingly has more ads than simply watching TV.

Xbox Cloud Gaming currently costs $19.99 per month as part of the Xbox Game Pass Ultimate bundle, and provides access to hundreds of games playable via Microsoft's servers. It's still the best subscription deal in gaming overall, and Xbox Cloud Gaming is a decent service on top. However, its latency and resolution is sub par compared to NVIDIA GeForce Now, whose purpose-built PC gaming cloud servers are simply better at delivering gaming streams than Microsoft's. At least for now.

The next generation of Xbox Cloud Gaming

Still, it has improved a lot over the years, but not to the point where Microsoft is confident enough to remove its (Beta) tag, which has been bundled with its title since its formal public launch years ago.

Our sources have indicated to us that Microsoft is working on the next generation of Xbox cloud servers, which are in testing at Redmond HQ as we speak. These new servers will be part of Microsoft's next-gen hardware offering, alongside devices like the Xbox Ally and Xbox Series X successor. The new Xbox Cloud Gaming servers should deliver lower lag, improved bitrates, and higher resolution options.

We've also heard that Microsoft is exploring a cloud-only subscription, which would free it up from Xbox Game Pass Ultimate. An increasing number of users in certain markets are becoming cloud-only. If Microsoft was interested in building Xbox Cloud subscriptions on a tiered basis like NVIDIA GeForce Now, it stands to reason that you might have to pay a bit more to get access to higher resolution feeds.

Either way, it probably won't be long until we find out if Xbox Game Pass is indeed going up in price, following on from last year's price increase.

You can stack Xbox Game Pass subscription cards for up to two years to combat price increases, if you intend to stay subscribed.

Xbox Game Pass Ultimate | $19.99

Xbox Game Pass provides access to hundreds of games, natively on Xbox consoles and PC, but also via Xbox Cloud Gaming on the web. All of Microsoft's upcoming games including Call of Duty Black Ops 7 and The Outer Worlds 2 go live day and date into the service.

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