Xbox Just Keeps Getting Better (Premium)

And no, I’m not just talking about Activision Blizzard: with the shift from Xbox Live Gold to Xbox Game Pass Core, Microsoft has once again made its video gaming ecosystem better for everyone.

As Laurent noted in his coverage of this shift, Xbox Live Gold debuted in 2002, one year after the original Xbox console, and its key benefit, then as now, is online multiplayer gaming. Xbox Live Gold was, at the start, one of the two tiers for the Xbox Live online service, the other being Xbox Live Silver. But things changed, as they will. And over time, Xbox Live became Xbox Network. Xbox Live Silver became Xbox Live Free. And Xbox Live Gold improved. For example, in 2013, Microsoft added a perk called Games with Gold. This changed over time, but it provided 2 to 4 free OG Xbox, Xbox 360, and Xbox One/Xbox Series X|S titles each month to subscribers, games that would remain in their libraries while that subscription was active.

But things changed, again. In 2017, Microsoft introduced Xbox Game Pass, its second paid Xbox subscription. The original version of the service was just for Xbox consoles, and it provided subscribers with a limited number of game titles they could download and install to their devices and play while subscribed (and barring any storage issues), plus all the perks of Xbox Live Gold. And Game Pass expanded over time, first with many more games. But then with additional subscriptions, including PC Game Pass, a similar service for PC gamers, and Game Pass Ultimate, which combines all the features and perks of Xbox Game Pass (console) and PC Game Pass, and adds Xbox Cloud Gaming, Microsoft’s game streaming service.

Game Pass is often described as the “Netflix of gaming,” though that is technically incorrect since you stream Netflix movies and TV shows; perhaps Xbox Cloud Gaming is the better comparison. But no matter, the point is there: as a subscriber, you gain access to a large library of game titles for a low monthly price. That much, at least, is like Netflix, and like music subscription services such as Spotify.

But Game Pass also triggered some obvious questions about the future of Xbox as a platform. Among those questions was, where does this leave Xbox Live Gold? I and many others believed that Xbox Live Gold’s days were numbered. And there have certainly been hints in the intervening years that Microsoft thought so too.

And yeah, that’s finally happening. But this week’s announcement adds an interesting new twist. Because Xbox Live Gold isn’t just going away as brand, it’s changing and, I think, improving as it shifts to a new offering called Xbox Game Pass Core. So it’s perhaps useful to examine how Game Pass Core differs from its predecessor. And from the rest of the Game Pass offerings.

The most obvious change to Xbox Live Gold is the name: it is being renamed to Xbox Game Pass Core, which makes sense to me, as it positions the offering more obviously next to its subscription siblings, all of which bear a take on the Game Pass name. (Related to this, Xbox Game Pass is being renamed to Game Pass Console.)

The price is changing too. Xbox Live Gold had been $59.99 per year for a while now, but the per-month price eased up to $9.99 in recent years. This matched the (monthly) cost of the cheapest Game Pass subscriptions, for console and PC respectively, as they were also $9.99 per month until recently. This is an interesting price point, as most of the similar non-gaming subscriptions—like the Netflix and Spotify examples I used above—were the same price at the time. But there have been price increases throughout the technology sector, and these subscriptions have all become more expensive in recent months.

Including, as it turns out, with Xbox Game Pass. Game Pass Console, which was previously $9.99 per month, is now $10.99 per month. PC Game Pass, interestingly, remains at $9.99, and I’m going to guess that this is because there are few game titles available in this subscription. And Game Pass Ultimate, previously $14.99 per month, is jumping to $16.99.

Microsoft telegraphed the two price hikes at the end of June, but it didn’t mention Xbox Live Gold at the time, and I guess this shift explains why. But instead of raising prices, Microsoft is holding the line here: Xbox Game Pass Core will also cost $9.99 per month and $59.99 per year. Nice.

The perks are changing. And here, Microsoft giveth and Microsoft taketh away. Fortunately, it’s mostly giveth: Games with Gold is going away after a solid 10-year run, and while many will see this as a negative, the reality is that the company simply ran out of titles it could give away. It long ago exhausted the compatible and available OG Xbox and Xbox 360 titles it could offer, forcing it to drop the perk from 4 games per month to 2. And anyone following this will agree that the available offerings for a long time now have just been lackluster. Again, this isn’t Microsoft’s fault, it’s about availability, and that requires game publishers to sign on. This was clearly getting tougher.

Beyond that, the perks from Xbox Live Gold—like online multiplayer access and discounts when you pay for games outright—carry forward. And Xbox Game Pass Core has its own unique perks that I feel make this a much more valuable service. Instead of Games with Gold, Core comes with “more than” 25 titles from Xbox Game Studios, Bethesda (which is owned by Microsoft), and some unnamed third-party game publishers. These games are an interesting amalgamation of Games with Gold, in that the titles are yours for the duration of the subscription, and the other Game Pass subscriptions, in that there’s a library of titles you can browse, download, and play … on console. To be clear, Core is for Xbox Series X|S and, curiously, Xbox One users, not PC gamers.

I put “more than” in quotes there because Microsoft says more titles are coming, though they don’t address whether existing titles will leave, which is an issue with other Game Pass subscriptions. My guess here is that the emphasis on Microsoft-owned games means this will be less of a problem on Core. By comparison, there are hundreds of games in the PC Game Pass library and many hundreds in Xbox Game Console. (It’s hard to find exact numbers, sorry.) But the partial list of launch titles we know about now on Core looks solid, with no filler.

Regarding the broader Game Pass family of offerings, the differences between each subscription are interesting.

For example, Game Pass Console, Game Pass PC, and Game Pass Ultimate get most (all?) Microsoft studio game titles on day one, meaning on the same day they are made available for sale. With Core, you’re getting catalog titles. High quality catalog titles, for sure, but not the biggest new games when they first come out.

And of course, Game Pass Ultimate continues forward unchanged, except for that price. So you still Xbox Cloud Gaming and an EA Play membership with your subscription, and all the other perks.

Looked at another way, the Game Pass lineup now offers a more logical progression as you move up through the various offerings than was the case with Xbox Live Gold. Microsoft hasn’t updated its Game Pass plan comparison page to account for Core yet, but barring any unforeseen weirdness in the details when it goes, and with the obvious regrets about the price increases on Console and Ultimate, it’s looks like Xbox has only gotten better.

Speaking of which. Imagine how good it’s going to get with Activision Blizzard. I’ll be looking at how this incredible addition will impact Microsoft and Xbox more broadly soon. There is so much there.