It was been a turbulent time for Xbox fans for the past 24 hours. Yesterday, Microsoft announced that they would be doubling the price of Xbox Live Gold and later that same day, they rolled back the announcement and are improving the value of the service.
On Friday morning, Microsoft stated that Xbox Live Gold would go from $60 a year, to $120. The price jump made a lot of fans angry, rightfully so, and everyone looked at this as a way to force Xbox customers into Game Pass Ultimate.
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After a significant uproar across the web because of the change, Microsoft has announced that they are rolling back this change and are going to make other, positive, changes to the Xbox Live structure.
Today was not great. We always try to do our best for you and today we missed the mark.
We hear you, and we’re reversing our Xbox Live Gold pricing updates.
— Xbox (@Xbox) January 23, 2021
While the old prices are sticking, going forward, Microsoft is going to make Free to Play (F2P) titles, free…to play. What I mean is that you will no longer need Xbox Live Gold to play games like Fortnite, Destiny, COD Warzone, or Apex Legends; this is actually a sensible move.
Because of this change, this makes the Xbox Series S an even better value for those looking for a cheap way to play the game at 1080P and 60 FPS – $299 with no Gold required is a good value.
It’s still a bit shocking that this change got pushed through the Xbox org without anyone calling out that “hey it’s a pandemic and maybe doubling the price isn’t a good idea” but here we are. Thankfully, Microsoft has made the right move and in the end, gamers come out ahead.
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<blockquote><em><a href="#609338">In reply to Vladimir:</a></em></blockquote><p>I have never understood the deal about the Spider Man game. Sure if your a Spider Man fan, but too me Spider man is a second class super hero and a whole game about him….I would get bored pretty quick.</p><p><br></p><p>Yes Sony has had better exclusives but personally only MLB the Show has ever been the one I wanted. God of War….meh. Ratchet and Clank…again meh. It seems all of their exclusives are third person games, wrapped with a different mod. Not that I think Xbox has great exclusives either. I played Halo…yeah ok and Gears has always been boring to me. I do think Forza Horizon is the best racing game but I am not super into racing games, but Forza is really good. 99% of my gaming is on multi-plat's.</p><p><br></p><p>Now with Microsoft picking up Bethesda, that to me is a game changer. I have played lots of their games/ID as well and if they are exclusives to Xbox/PC that is going to be huge.</p>