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I remember when GamePass was first announced and everybody lauded Microsoft for being “pro-consumer” and outright cheered when they started buying up independent studios.
I remember being downvoted to oblivion for pointing out the very obvious 5 year plan for GP and the fact that it would go… exactly the way it’s currently going.
Lol, but here's one anyway. - Microsoft
Especially for the companies who disappear because they were too greedy.
I'm trying to think of a single example and I'm struggling
McDonald's is the most clear cut example, although that's ongoing
There's been countless little companies that sent themselves into death spirals with a price hike, but when they're big their remains are pounced on, or they experience a slow decline before collapsing to a failed pivot
EA just had to sell to avoid continuing their downward spiral
Raising the price of hardware twice since May and now raising the price of game pass by 50% is not something a company does if they're interested in competing against Sony or Nintendo. Clearly Microsoft has thrown in the towel on XBOX. Only thing left for Microsoft to do is announce cancellation of next gen console altogether and do layoffs. I don't know when that will happen but it's inevitable at this point.
yup they'll go the route of Sega. The writing has been on the wall with the Xbox Division for awhile now that I'm honestly surprised they're still trying to "make it work".
Xbox was a weird one. I haven't used one since the 360 and honestly I couldn't even begin to tell you what the next console in the line was after the 360. was it the series x? was it the one? I dont' know. I mean after buying like 5 360s because of red ring or whatever why would I continue that idiocy?
Raising the price of hardware twice since May and now raising the price of game pass by 50% is not something a company does if they're interested in competing against Sony or Nintendo.
But when Sony and Nintendo are doing the same thing...?
got any source for that on the nintendo side? Idc about sony.
Nintendo raised the price of the Switch 1 and most of their accessory products in the US and Canada in May for Canada and August for the US.
This was following price increases for Nintendo Switch Online in Latin American countries which started in January. Nintendo has not raised prices of the subscription globally, but in their press releases about increased costs of hardware, they state that "price adjustments may be necessary in the future" for NSO, presumably after evaluating trends when the free trial period of GameChat ends for Switch 2 early adopters in March 2026.
And I know you said you don't care about Sony, but just to share sources, Sony has already increased the price of their hardware in Japan in August 2024; Europe, Australia, and New Zealand in March; and the US in August of this year.
This was following earlier price increases in 2022 for Canada, Japan, Europe, Australia, and Mexico.
Sony also increased the cost of PS+ in North America, Europe, and Japan back in 2023, more recently for Southeast Asia back in April, and there are rumors of another upcoming price increase to be announced at some point now that we've entered FY2026.
So all of this is just to illustrate that what Microsoft is doing isn't really anything new—it's just the latest development in a continuing industry-wide trend.
Nintendo have also bumped their flagship game price up to 80 USD. I recall Sony doing the same (and see articles to that effect) but it looks like their games are still mostly at the 70 USD point?
Similarly, it is well worth noting that the Switch 2 announcement/deep dive videos specifically did NOT list the price or had vague reference to prices being announced regionally. This was primarily attributed to Liberation Day Tariffs but limited analyses do argue that the "base" price of the Switch 2 is higher than the Switch 1 which is consistent with increased engineering and overhead costs.
To my knowledge, Microsoft is the only platform ones who is bumping up their subscription fee cost. In large part because that seems to be all they have (in the gaming space). But all projections and leaks are that platform hardware costs are going to be significantly higher next generation (so like 2026/2027) and game prices are similarly expected to re-stabilize with "full" games being 80 USD as a baseline and all discount prices shifting accordingly.
Like, fuck Microsoft and this reeks of trying to grab the bag before closing (the xbox) shop considering how precarious everything is. But realize this is more bad optics and timing than anything else.
In large part because development is getting more and more expensive and game prices mostly have stagnated for decades (until semi-recently bumping up to 70 and now 80 USD).
They tried to push w11-xbox compatibility to push all consoles aside, and I can't say if it works and if it means stonks, but I can see the current lead not being enthusiastic about R&Ding and producing new hardware, exclusive games. OEM software is a stable bird feeder, and AI integration is their next big king, so they just fixed their position in gaming market by buying several big companies and seemingly quit plans on console market. They are too big and to diverse to fall, but I think ditching a brand equal to sweaty Halo parties of the past and all these long-going console holywars wouldn't bring much in the perspective of years, not several quarter past today.
The merging of xbox and windows is actually a REALLY REALLY good idea.
But I think it is less about being enthusiastic about R&D and more about... consoles are increasingly just computers. And mostly the R&D boils down to asking AMD (because Jensen is too busy burning benjies to soften his latest jacket) what APU they have in the pipes. And I would be shocked if the PS7 generation isn't basically "here is a NUC with egpu support and a nice plastic case"... assuming we still have home computing then (that is a different and much darker conversation).
So it really does make perfect sense for MS to try and merge their Windows and XBOX OSes and, were they in a better position, I could see basically "just" selling Steam Machine style HTPCs as early as 2027.
Whereas Sony and Nintendo kind of ARE stuck still making actual consoles. Maybe Sony could bundle "Playstation" streaming and even light local gaming into a Bravia TV but... why would they?
But yeah. I will be amazed if the XBOX Brand/division exists (meaningfully) by as early as 2029.
I'd say I'm not a fan of their main monopoly getting bigger. Hardware lock or not, I want MS competing on par with PS, Nintendo, even though I cringe at buying a console for a game. This field got a bit leveled due to Sony giving up on some past exclusives (with a tasty price, nonetheless), but I just don't trust a personal PC monopolist to be the one to dismantle the current dumbness and taking the higher ground from the very start.
Btw, I now recall some future Rouge Alley handheld version on Windows got announced as xbox-branded, with a probable verification status. It's not a bad decision at their part, but I feel like that's not only sneaking into another niche-move, but also a move to bite Valve, still-irrelevant on general console market, before they take some ground with their, ugh, Leenix or something.
We obviously can only infer based on PR and past actions, but I don't consider the ASUS whatever the fucks to be a threat to Valve.
Valve are not XBOX. They are Windows. They have their own branded hardware that sets a baseline but it is very much not in their interests to be the only source for that hardware. We have already see the Steam Deck take a very niche market (that was basically just Win GPD and Aya Neo) and turn it into one where you have a wide range of specs and very standardized interfaces and capabilities.
And, much like how Microsoft gets money from running Windows on a Surface or a Thinkpad, so too does Valve get money from buying Steam games on a Steam Deck or an Aya Neo or a MSI Claw or whatever.
But yes. As consumers, I am deeply worried about what happens when Sony has no actual competition other than "you can build your own PC but that is so very very hard so just give us money instead". Especially since people can never stop glazing Nintendo and insisting they "aren't competing with anyone" even as the exact same games run at significantly lower resolution and frame rate (and even their first party games run like trash).
To be clear. I am also increasingly queasy as more and more "normies" think "SteamOS is Linux" and am afraid we might have an Android or Mac level fork in a decade. But, at least short term, I love that I can actually be "a gamer" and still spend 100% of my personal PC time in Linux.
but we're trying to reinforce by adding more value to these plans as well."
Fortnite Crew and Ubisoft+ Classics
So if you don't play Fortnite and aren't interested in 15 different Assassin's Creed titles, fuck you I guess
Imagine, if you will, the possibility of NOT increasing prices 50% to give us the "additional value" of shit we don't want.
I was happy paying for games, but suddenly I'm extremely willing to get back into piracy. Fucking weird, right?
Apparently those titles are as or more valuable than half of the entire catalog, how can you not be excited‽
Never fun for anybody
Meanwhile, at Microsoft:
No, but, but, think of the shareholders! Nobody ever thinks about the shareholders! :(((
MSFT has been lagging behind the S&P this week. I doubt they're super thrilled.
Microsoft was never going to make gaming affordable. The entire goal of GP is like any subscription service, to get you hooked so they can increase the prices. Microsoft is not and never was a pro consumer company. And GamePass is Microsoft’s attempt at making a hardwareless console. It’s a BYOD walled garden. It’s bad for consumers and bad for developers and publishers. Consumers will own nothing and studios are beholden to MS gatekeepers. Some account manager basically decides how much the devs will be financially compensated before the game is even released, instead of letting the market decide. Remember those court documents which showed how much they under valued Baldur’s Gate 3. If you think the standard 30% store cut is outrageous GamePass is on another level of bad. Sure they are currently showering devs in cash, but once MS has a significant chunk of the market they are going to turn off that tap. We’ve seen it with Netflix and Spotify. Like even the most popular artists earn fractions of cents per user.
I would never give Microsoft money for their shitty subscription, so it is kind of fun for me.
They're also upping the sub price for some home user office plans. Apparently it's milk the customer time at microsoft.
Part of the problem is that most of the people making these decisions have been seeing their incomes and net worth increase steadily over the past decade. They don't truly understand their subscriber base.
But they do understand "charge what the market will bear". It's all about short term profit.
Thanks for letting me know, I've been paying just for some spare OneDrive space but I think I'll cut it if they're raising the price
My boss showed me the article yesterday, but apparently it's the old news from earlier this year. It went from 70 to 100 back in Feb.
That's still a giant increase from whatever you would have paid last year.
Sacrifice the future for a temporary revenue/profit go up
No, it will work out for them. They just made a 50% profit increase. I doubt if even 10% of subscribers cancel.
It worked for Netflix, Disney+, Hulu... People just need to stop buying shit, but they won't.
Even though I personally never used it I was astonished at how quickly so many people blindly trusted it. What I'm more astonished with is how quickly Microsoft has managed to destroy that brand trust.
They've made very clear that they're reducing functionality, dropping products including their gaming companies, and raising prices across the board to somehow come up with billions for AI. They no longer care about their customers or employees, only this holy grail quest for money that will evaporate. Dump Microsoft.
Canceled.
You're selling an underpowered console that spies on the home for 800usd. Stfu about the price being tough on the company
Where is Xbox $800?
There's a special edition for $730+tax so maybe they mean that.
But starts at $380, less for return.
So, if there had been no cancellations and their customers had just paid their bills without comment or criticism, they'd still have been telling us how terrible they felt about the whole thing?
Bovine Excrement.
So a dumb question: last email stated, if there be any changes in costs, they will notify me 60 days prior but I still haven't got anything from M$... Aren't they running head first into an giant lawsuit in Europe? Still going to cancel the subscription though
Yeah, £15 was pushing it, I don't play as much as I'd like, big benefit was cloud gaming facilitating couch co-op, but at the minute it's mostly my kids playing Minecraft, cheaper just to buy that.
It's something we don't take lightly, and we're listening to the feedback of players and the community to try to provide them with more of what they’re asking for.
God they will never understand that we see right through their bullshit corpo-speak answers will they. Everything they just said is nothing. They don't take it lightly. They are listening. They will try. There is nothing concrete in that wet paper towel of an answer.
How do they think that shit still works?
Except your CEO the boardroom and the shareholders
Look at that added value, tho