It's been a bad year for the Xbox brand.
In addition to their layoffs and studio closures, one of which happened earlier this week, the company recently announced that their biggest selling point, Xbox Game Pass, was jacking up its subscription cost by 50%. Oh, and before you try to outsmart them on it, they also announced that you'll no longer be able to use reward points for a Game Pass subscription.
Microsoft, which announced record revenue for Xbox at the start of the year, calls this price increase a way of "evolving" Game Pass. The news also came shortly after Sarah Bond, the president of Xbox, said that Game Pass is both profitable and generated $5 billion in revenue last year. Industry analysts have echoed the sentiment that Game Pass is indeed profitable.
Truth be told, if you're looking strictly at the games, it's been a good year for day one Game Pass releases. Having said that, paying over $360 a year, which is more than the cost of an Xbox Series S at launch, for a Game Pass subscription feels unreasonable, especially since the best Game Pass games didn't release at full price.
We're not the only ones...
