Microsoft announced their changes to Xbox Game Pass today and I might be out. Their image with the new tiers and prices lays it all out.

I’m currently on Ultimate. I think I have been paying around $10/month by buying a year’s worth of discounted codes around Black Friday. Even if there are discounts, a great discount might bring the new Ultimate down to $20/month, which is too much for my liking. The new perks they are offering aren’t too exciting to me.

It will probably be around the same price to buy the games I want when they go on sale. What I’ve liked about Game Pass has been getting all the Microsoft published games Day 1 and the EA games after about a year. More generally, having access to a bunch of games to try out that I otherwise wouldn’t buy is a great feature.

What about Premium? This might be the way, and maybe only buying it on occasion instead of having it year round. The Microsoft Day 1 releases I usually didn’t get to until months after. Usually because I have other things I want to play first but recently it’s a good idea to wait for a few months of patches before jumping in.

What about PS Plus? I think this is another option to look at for the idea of having a collection of games to try. I’m curious about the Game Trial feature in the Premium offering.

Seems that subscriptions across the board are increasing beyond my comfort zone.