-
Ever wanted an RSS feed of all your favorite gaming news sites? Go check out our new Gaming Headlines feed! Read more about it here.
I know, and I applaud that. But it also set the standad for "paying for online" in consoles :P. Over the years, many features came to PC as well, but it's still free. Imagine if one day Steam says "online over Steam is $5 US a month". I bet many people will defend it because they can't stand people critizicing their favorite platform.
Are
I thought Cloud saving was tied to Gold before (not just in the 360 era but also during the Xbox One). It's amazing that they no longer require Gold for cloud saves anymore. God bless.
I forget what the term is (price anchoring?) but Gold is pretty much just there to push people towards Game Pass Ultimate.
I thought Cloud saving was tied to Gold before (not just in the 360 era but also during the Xbox One). It's amazing that they no longer require Gold for cloud saves anymore. God bless.
I forget what the term is (price anchoring?) but Gold is pretty much just there to push people towards Game Pass Ultimate.
For the 360 it was, however the Xbox One it physically couldn't have been. While saves are technically stored locally it's only ever treated as a cache, they get punted off to cloud storage ASAP, and the local caches expire and get cleared off over time (to some capacity, though I'm unsure of the conditions).
I believe it's free now on Xbox360, however.
Always been free on Xbox One onwards since day one. Used to be tied to Gold on Xbox 360 but free there now too.
In this case you are wrong. Xbox Live was revolutionary and compared to everything on PC at the time along with the poorer free services offered by Sony and Nintendo it was worth it. The DRM policies initially planned for Xbox One is entirely irrelevant.
It was pretty wild at launch, the amount of hours I had put into Mech Assault and Wolfenstein was insane
I find it funny that Nintendo is so late to the party that by the time they got on the "charging for online" game, its already being phased out.So glad to see this shit happening. Always feeling like an old ass man yelling at clouds sniping at console manufacturers charging for online play for YEARS now.
Fucking finally. Our time is coming yet again
You will still need to pay for online multiplayer for 90% of the games on the platform.So glad to see this shit happening. Always feeling like an old ass man yelling at clouds sniping at console manufacturers charging for online play for YEARS now.
Fucking finally. Our time is coming yet again
I think Gold is definitely going, they don't have anywhere to go after the fiasco earlier, and they're keen to get rid of it. They'll probably dump it and absorb the loss in order to spur GP adoption, they're not scared to use that war chest. Imo of course.
Then why is PC free? That's my point. People got used to the concept that online in consoles must be paid. It shouldn't be. Many usually argue that "servers cost money" yeah sure. Soon, MS will finally allow people to play FTP games without Gold, so why should we pay for COD/FIFA servers, and not Fortnite/Apex servers? It doesn't make any sense.
Do that and I'll think about getting certain multiplayer games on console again to play with some friends.
OP
OP
Multiplayer/online service would be 100% free of charge on Xbox vs PlayStation and Switch, it would bring players to the platform that would subscribe to Game Pass. I guess that's the idea.
You've answered the 'bring Players to the platform' part. Not the Gamepass part.
As it stands today, Gamepass Ultimate is a $10 incremental cost for xbox gamers who like to play online. Scrap gold and GPU becomes a $15 incremental. It's a harder sell.
I don't think there's really any indication that it's definitely going. Live Gold is still an enormously profitable service compared to anything else on Xbox or on any other console for that matter. The monthly games offered are mediocre at best, but those are also very cheap for MS, and as long as folks are ready to pay for this it's hard to see it going away with how much they're spending to grow game pass.
There's absolutely no indication that those who sub to Live Gold would feel the need to sub for GP in big numbers if online went free, as online is still basically the only reason why folks sub to live gold. This kind of theory isn't based on anything.
You just move everyone over for a start so you instantly have millions of extra Game Pass subscribers.
They should do the current month to month of ultimate conversion and a pop up window offering an extra free month or two to turn on recurring billing at the new price of $15 a month but this is what you get. Recurring billing would need to be off be default though.
Games with gold quality has noticeably dropped off. They want you to sub to GP.
OP
OP
Xbox gamers who like to play online would be able to move to Game Pass at $10 ($5 incremental compared to what they payed with Live Gold) because online would be free of charge.
But I was talking about non-xbox gamers that like to play online and could favor Xbox instead of PlayStation/Switch : "If I buy an Xbox Series S, I don't have to pay a sub to play my call of duty games online." And then later "What's that, Xbox game pass ? With all those game inside ?"
I think Microsoft want to make Game Pass Ultimate a no brainer purchase for their Gold subscribers, but the way they are doing it is by weakening the value for money proposition of Gold (either by making it worse, or making it more expensive). I know we had all those rumours a while back that Gold was going to disappear, but I'm struggling to see how Microsoft do that without losing out on a massive amount of profit and devaluing Game Pass Ultimate significantly.
To be fair, GwG was always just a nice bonus they started doing pre GP. I wouldn't call putting worse games on there a stick compared to, say, doubling the cost.
I think they'll drop Gold it eventually based on a target subscription number for GP.
I don't think they'll have a problem of forgoing profit from Gold if it brings more people into their ecosystem and then eventually onto GP, because there's lots of games to play online with friends, and savings made available can be spent on GP, lessen the sting of another sub. One huge library of new games to play online. Anything that puts focus on GP is what MS seem to be spending money on, I can see gold hindering GP so im assuming theres discussions going on about its future.
Last edited:
Clarify, please. You mean give everyone with Gold free Gamepass?
So Microsoft drops Gold, losing a ton of revenue, then also drops the price of Gamepass Ultimate? That would be a weird business decision.
you don't drop guaranteed revenue stream for something as tenuous as 'some gamers could move to Xbox'.
OP
OP
I never said they would drop the price of Game Pass Ultimate.
If live gold is gone, you just wouldn't need to pay Game Pass Ultimate. You're forgetting there is a regular Game Pass tier at $9.99
It's great that this is happening but ultimately this probably should've already existed. Free to play games should be free to play, and it shouldn't have taken the backlash to herd them into this position. Microsoft do have a serious case of subscription bloat at this point so I understand why they want to phase Gold out over time.
Well XGPU already includes Gold, so that's not the problem.
The problem, to me, is that eliminating Gold would make the transition from XGP to XGPU much less appealing to console-only players. Including EA Play was a huge step to make XGPU more appealing, but for me personally it doesn't justify the extra money every month, so I'd probably downgrade.
Honestly, right now there's not much reason to subscribe to just Gold or just XGP, as XGPU is a great deal, but those cheaper and worse subs need to exist to highlight how good Ultimate is.
Plus I don't mind the random drops of OG/360 games in my library every month.
Yep, still pure guesses.
Everyone here knows the benefits of Game Pass and how good it is for folks who play a lot of games. Still, reciting these things above as the reason why Live Gold subscribers would immediately feel the need to sub to GP if Live Gold wasn't a thing are really just reasons which could be applied to anyone. There's no correlation whatsoever.
9/10 who sub to Gold do it because of the online play. They could sub to Game Pass right now but aren't. How is Gold hindering GP? It's a completely different service. It basically makes the GP Ultimate possible in the first place, as Ultimate's existence would be way harder to justify without Live Gold.
OP
OP
So the idea is exactly this. Microsoft is adding lot and lot of perks to Game Pass Ultimate, to the point where Live Gold wouldn't be needed for players to find Ultimate appealing. However, in comparaison with PlayStation, removing live gold entirely would position Xbox as the best value platform for multiplayer games, especially Series S. Creating a virtuous cycle for Xbox and allow same to get more subscriber.
To be an Xbox game Pass subscriber right now, you primarily need a PC or an Xbox console, even tho xCloud is in beta. So giving people a reason to get either a PC or an Xbox is always good. Free multiplayer would be a good one.
However the main reason why I would like live gold gone is because it doens't make any sense in Xbox strategy right now : it's free to play on Xbox network from PC, mobile, Switch and PlayStation. You only pay when you're an Xbox console player, which is already pretty stupid. More than that, Xbox live gold games are each month a bad pr moment for Microsoft compared to PS+.
I get that they are not removing right now, because live gold is giving them a lot of money, but they will need to rip that bandaid sooner rather than later.
100% agree, if they treat console, PC and cloud as platforms their shouldn't be gold required for consoles as a standout.
I can imagine those who play mostly f2p games jumping on the XsS.
Gold will be gone when Gamepass subs in general are up and Ultimate can be attractive without it also.
Sure you have xCloud now in it already. But its pretty standard now. Ones Series X blades go in it will be better. Also giving dlc with ultimate like Gears 5 will be make it more intresting also.
Sure you have xCloud now in it already. But its pretty standard now. Ones Series X blades go in it will be better. Also giving dlc with ultimate like Gears 5 will be make it more intresting also.
If the rumoured discord goes through I think Nitro will be added to Ultimate first for PC then features will be added to console and gold would be dropped.
Benefits are twofold. New online focused games on GP would be the incentive, ( cost saved from game purchase) and removal of gold to spend on GP. Of course many gamers may not sub and stick to purchases, but if we zoom out a little, free online play makes Xbox system attractive for console gamers outside the system, so there's greater potential for GP to grow. Which is MS MO atm, that is the pattern we're seeing.
Gold is being treated like the ugly stepbrother. The Games With Gold have become an afterthought, the price doubling fiasco was obviously designed to stop new subscribers. They're taking the Xbox Live branding out of the OS, which is a strange thing to do if you're still trying to push it as a premium service. Xbox Live - the brand they've spent 15-20 years building as one of their most recognisable identifiers.
Whether it's a slow burn that'll take a generation or a build to a mic drop E3 announcement, they're killing off the service.
And that doesn't necessarily mean online games will be free. It might be folded into Game Pass, which I guess would solve the "why would Gold subscribers move to Game Pass?". That'd be a safe move, but not necessarily the right one.
Whether it's a slow burn that'll take a generation or a build to a mic drop E3 announcement, they're killing off the service.
And that doesn't necessarily mean online games will be free. It might be folded into Game Pass, which I guess would solve the "why would Gold subscribers move to Game Pass?". That'd be a safe move, but not necessarily the right one.
Hmm. That could work. Then greet them with a 'welcome to Gamepass' splash screen detailing the service and the key games there.
you'd have to do this unannounced, and make it a one time thing. But it could work. Only downside for MS is then everyone gets Gamepass ultimate and not just regular Gamepass.
I guess but that means it would be ultimate they would be most likely to stay. That's where they want everyone.
The weird thing is the fact that it wasn't behind a paywall if you used the app on your phone or pc, it was literally just a console only charge. My friends would use that to chat instead of buying gold as they didn't play online games. It's good it's finally moving out of the paywall and f2p games too.