Once upon a time when we were all younger and more naive, Microsoft pitched Game Pass as “the best deal in gaming.” And it was! But now, that subscription is starting to feel less like access and more like regret. Microsoft just announced a massive price hike on Game Pass, and gamers are responding with the kind of fury that’s usually reserved for a controller that goes dead at the beginning of a surprise boss battle.
So here are the numbers behind Microsoft’s big change, and it’s not hard to see why it’s such an ouch. Prior to October 1, 2025, the Game Pass Ultimate was $19.99/month in the United States. And now? The Game Pass Ultimate is $29.99! That’s a full ⅓ more expensive, and with the cost of groceries currently being somewhat high, that’s going to push several users out of being able to pay for the same access they’d previously enjoyed. That’s not just a price hike — that’s some final boss-level noise.
Social media has been flooded with angry posts, with many users informing the digital world that they’ve cancelled their subscriptions. And given that the cancellation page crashed due to high demand, it’s looking like those status updates weren’t just talk. Microsoft hasn’t yet confirmed that the outage was due to traffic, but c’mon. You don’t tick off a large swath of your consumer base and then have the cancellation page crash because it’s being widely ignored.
Microsoft is claiming that its new system “offers more flexibility, choice, and value,” and is really making an effort to sweeten the deal. They’ve added titles like Hogwarts Legacy and the Assassin’s Creed games to the Game Pass library, and are also offering day-one access to new Microsoft studio-owned releases (like Call of Duty, etc.) that usually retail for much more than the cost of a month of Game Pass Ultimate. However, claiming that you’re offering “more flexibility” while demanding that consumers pay significantly more to continue enjoying services they’d already been paying for is the opposite of flexible.
So here’s the bigger picture behind the price hike. Subscription prices have been going up because, much like everything else we buy, games are also getting more expensive to develop and purchase. A subscription can still be cheaper than buying each title individually, but as prices climb, the math is going to sting. Ed Nightingale of Eurogamer says, “They want to be the favourites of gamers, but this feels quite anti-consumer… Microsoft are shooting themselves in the foot.” According to Microsoft, Game Pass is profitable, and last year was their best yet for subscription renewals. Will that trend continue with the new prices? Currently, it’s not looking super likely.
As with many industries, there’s a domino effect at play here (dominoes! A cheaper alternative to many Microsoft games). Xbox consoles, accessories, and games have all seen price hikes. Some analysts are linking the increase to tariffs, though Microsoft is blaming “market conditions” and developer costs. However, Microsoft also laid off 9,000 employees earlier this year, in part because it wanted to fund a massive investment in AI. Sony and Nintendo have also raised their rates, but without the headline-making layoffs.
I just… do you remember when gaming didn’t come with a monthly bill? You just turned on the Nintendo that your dad got you for your birthday, popped in your favorite cartridge, and cursed that stupid sun in the desert world as God intended. There were no subscription fees — unless you count that one week I promised my brother a chunk of my Halloween candy if he’d beat the World 7 castle for me. There was no “day-one” access, because you’d get the game whenever you’d saved up enough of your allowance money to go forth and buy said game. Every day we drift farther from our cartridge-blowing, memory card-swapping days of glory. At some point, you have to ask whether or not the future of gaming is worth paying monthly for.
