Xbox Game Pass isn’t worth it at $30 a month, but Microsoft could change my mind with one fix

Copyright XDA Developers

Microsoft has increased the price of Xbox Game Pass for PC and Game Pass Ultimate, bringing the service price to just over $16 a month for PC-only users and just under $30 per month to access Game Pass games from your Xbox console and PC. It's also no coincidence that the price hike hit the same time as the Asus ROG Xbox Ally and ROG Xbox Ally X handheld gaming PCs. This price hike has not been well received, and for good reason. Streaming subscriptions all across the board are getting more expensive, which requires people to be more selective about which subscriptions they keep and which they kick to the curb. As things stand for me, Game Pass Ultimate is on the chopping block. But Microsoft could win me back with one major change. Game Pass isn't worth the price tag $30 to access games from two platforms is too steep $20 a month to play games from the Xbox Game Pass library on my Series X console, as well as on various PCs and laptops I tested over the year, was a worthwhile investment. Not exactly cheap, but it was the equivalent of about four fancy lattes, so Game Pass Ultimate's $19.99 a month price tag was one I could forgive. Game Pass allowed me to experience the joy of Clair Obscur Expedition 33 and Persona 4 Golden, and re-play favorites like The Witcher III: Wild Hunt. Additionally, it let me put new gaming PCs through a few extra performance tests. I have no desire to play Forza Horizon 5 in my spare time, but it can be a great GPU test for high-end gaming rigs. Sure, I could just buy the games. After all, each game costs about as much as three months of the old Game Pass subscription. But some of the Game Pass games I play are short enough that I can beat them in a month, and thus, it isn't worth owning the games outright. Game Pass Ultimate was also a fantastic way to try out games that I might like, without having to worry about restrictive return windows for purchased digital games. But at $29.99 a month, Game Pass Ultimate is now just too expensive to justify. It was already a pricey game subscription, but that extra $120 a year just makes it untenable. At that point, buying the Game Pass games I use outright just makes more sense. At nearly $30 a month, Game Pass has lost what little value it had, since it's cheaper to buy a few $75 games a year than pay for a year of Game Pass Ultimate at $29.99 a month (about $360 in total). However, one small change could resolve that issue. Better Xbox first-party games The only way I'm not canceling my subscription is if Microsoft actually leverages all those new studios Microsoft now owns several major game development studios. And the only way to make that $30 a month (or $16.49 for the PC-only version) worthwhile is for Microsoft to leverage all those studios and give us a run of fantastic first-party games. Earlier this year, Microsoft did have some success with that. Game Pass was one of the better ways for gamers to experience Doom: The Dark Ages, Expedition 33, and Oblivion Remake back to back. But that was something of a fluke. Over the last several years, Microsoft has offered a Game Pass service, but Spring 2025 was an outlier in releasing so many beloved games back to back. However, that wasn't always the case. The game industry has been in something of a slump for the last several years. A significant portion of this is attributed to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, but it's also due to shifting priorities among publishers and developers. Dragon Age: The Veilguard is a prime example of this. During the game's development, BioWare lost much of the original Dragon Age creative team as the project transitioned from a direct sequel to Inquisition to a live-service game, similar to the poorly received Anthem, and thenback to a single-player experience. While Veilguard is hardly the best Dragon Age game in the series, a lot of its failures can be traced back to its dicey development cycle. Dev cycle issues have been behind the issues facing a lot of major game launches in the last five years. Due to Microsoft's acquisition of major game publishers Activision, Blizzard, Bethesda, and ZeniMax, as well as a number of smaller publishers such as Double Fine, Obsidian Entertainment, and inXile Entertainment, Microsoft now holds a significant monopoly in the gaming industry. If Microsoft could leverage all those studios to have a consistent rollout of top-performing titles month after month, it would make the Day 1 access benefit for the Game Pass Ultimate tier worth the $30 a month price tag. It might just be a pipe dream You can't guarantee success Of course, you can't guarantee the critical success of any game. And coordinating all of those studios to have back-to-back launches, while also ensuring access for games that aren't from first-party Microsoft studios, isn't the kind of thing a company can do easily or overnight. However, since Microsoft is unlikely to roll back the price hike, it's the one path I can see leading to success despite the increased price of Game Pass subscriptions.