Xbox Game Pass has been going through a bit of a rough patch as of late, and fans, myself included, are not terribly best pleased. Crucially, the price hikes in 2025 led to a momentary burst of outrage before everyone simply settled into the new established norm, and while the selection of games continues to be rather impressive, the bundled-in extras that artificially inflate the price only serve to frustrate those who wish for the service to return to normal. Sadly, it doesn’t feel as if that will happen any time soon, if at all.
However, while Xbox Game Pass is being dragged through the proverbial mud just a little, there is a potential fix on the horizon. New Xbox boss, Asha Sharma, reportedly has some exciting ideas that could bring Game Pass from the brink of prohibitively expensive mediocrity, and that’s reassuring to hear. Considering that Xbox Game Pass is allegedly getting more expensive in the near future, this fix couldn’t come any sooner. Yet, while it could be a great temporary solution, it may not be enough to fully save the platform, as a greater level of flexibility is required to truly endear consumers to it once more.
Xbox Boss Is Reportedly Thinking About Making Game Pass Cheaper
Courtesy of Microsoft
After the extremely controversial Xbox Game Pass price hikes in 2025, people have been hoping that Sharma will renege on the decision, especially after she recently proved there’s little love for the direction the previous leadership was pushing the brand in. Well, it seems like she may very well do so, as, according to a report from The Information, Sharma has been ruminating on how to make Xbox Game Pass more accessible. While this is understandably a decision one would expect any member of Xbox’s leadership to be taking, especially at this early stage, it is nevertheless reassuring to hear as it could lead to actionable steps, much like Sharma’s choice to take down the disastrous “This is an Xbox” marketing campaign.
The report states that, according to various people Sharma has spoken to, she has been trying to find ways to make Game Pass a more appealing prospect to consumers, specifically by “revamping pricing models to offer lower-priced tiers.” It isn’t really clear what this could look like and whether or not Sharma wants to introduce new tiers specifically designed to be the cheaper option, especially as Xbox Game Pass already offers the Essential tier. Frankly, while there is some value to be found in the Essential tier, I can’t imagine how one would make it cheaper without robbing it of the little it offers players already.
Regardless, this is obviously the fix that so many of us want to see. Game Pass was known as the best deal in gaming for quite some time, but that simply isn’t the case anymore. While it’ll technically always be cheaper than buying full-priced games, most triple-A games included on the service are frequently discounted by a substantial amount, and any day-one releases people are intrigued by will likely be discounted before long. There are, of course, exceptions, but even first-party Xbox titles end up having their prices slashed by a considerable amount eventually. It just doesn’t seem worth paying $360 a year when we’ve all likely got big enough backlogs to burn through while we await the sale of newer titles.
Naturally, fans want Game Pass to be a better deal again, but I suspect that it is just as important to Xbox, as it seems likely the service is suffering financially. Of course, as the studio is unlikely to brag about declining subscription numbers publicly, we’ll never get a true insight into how the price hikes impacted the service. However, we do know that shortly after it raised the cost of Game Pass, the page where one cancels the subscription crashed. There has also been a plethora of anecdotal evidence of a decline in numbers, with people discussing online how they’re cancelling their subscriptions. While not as conclusive as true evidence, it certainly paints a somewhat bleak picture.
Xbox Game Pass Needs A Lot More Flexibility
Image Courtesy of Xbox Game Studios
The biggest issue facing this potential change in pricing structure is that Xbox will struggle to simply reduce the cost of its currently available tiers. Right now, Xbox Game Pass is full of unnecessary bloat, with the addition of Fortnite Crew, EA Play, and Ubisoft Classics inflating the price. Xbox can’t really offset costs while keeping those in, which is why the prices went up, rather than down. The solution, of course, is to introduce a far greater level of flexibility, rather than sticking to the currently rigid and expensive pricing structure.
Instead of forcing consumers with no interest in Fortnite, EA, or Ubisoft games to pay inflated prices, make them optional add-ons that then bring the price up to $30 in total. Ostensibly, Xbox needs to dissect Game Pass into parts and give consumers the ability to piece them together if they so choose. That way, those who will never use Fortnite Crew can just opt not to include it and thus get Game Pass for a better deal. Indeed, this could even extend to certain games, as, at least in my opinion, Call of Duty has ruined Game Pass. Its inclusion has also facilitated the aforementioned price hike as Xbox aims to recoup the losses from its ridiculous Activision-Blizzard deal. By taking it out of the equation, consumers with no interest in the game can get Game Pass for cheaper.
It isn’t as if this model isn’t being used in other media. Amazon Prime gives consumers the choice of whether or not to add other subscriptions through its service. If you want Paramount+ here in the UK, you can pay for it and access it through Prime. It’s a simple solution, one that keeps all of your subscriptions in one place and makes managing them much easier. It isn’t really clear why Xbox Game Pass hasn’t added this level of flexibility, especially when it is so eager to work with third-party services like EA and Ubisoft.
This, to me, seems like an obvious solution, but, naturally, it means that people aren’t forced to pay Xbox’s premium prices. However, I’d argue that, eventually, by giving people no other option, many of them will eventually drop the service entirely as the value it once offered will be lost. It isn’t really like TV and film, where paying $20 to watch a new film at home is so arbitrarily expensive that you may as well pay for a subscription service to access it. Gaming is an expensive hobby, but there’s so much choice, and so much of it is available cheaply, either digitally or especially physically, that paying for Game Pass isn’t a necessity in order to have a good time. However, make it cheap enough, like Netflix was back in the day, and it will begin to feel necessary once again.
How would you fix Xbox Game Pass? Leave a comment below and join the conversation now in the ComicBook Forum!
