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Microsoft’s attempted Xbox Live Gold price spike may just be the beginning

By Christina Roberts

COLOGNE, GERMANY - AUGUST 20: Visitors visit the booth of XBOX during the press day at the 2019 Gamescom gaming trade fair on August 20, 2019 in Cologne, Germany. Gamescom 2019, the biggest video gaming trade fair in the world, will be open to the public from August 21-24. (Photo by Lukas Schulze/Getty Images)
COLOGNE, GERMANY - AUGUST 20: Visitors visit the booth of XBOX during the press day at the 2019 Gamescom gaming trade fair on August 20, 2019 in Cologne, Germany. Gamescom 2019, the biggest video gaming trade fair in the world, will be open to the public from August 21-24. (Photo by Lukas Schulze/Getty Images) /
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Xbox Live Gold has always felt like a bit of a hot mess, especially over the last 18 months. The monthly offerings aren’t always stellar, and even if they are, it’s only one or two of the offerings and not all four of the games.

Last week, Microsoft announced it would be changing the subscription price on Xbox Live Gold from $60 for an annual subscription up to $120. That would put it much closer in price to the Xbox Game Pass Ultimate.

Thankfully, the immediate outrage from gamers was enough for Microsoft to rescind their decision within a short amount of time, taking to Twitter to apologize for their mistake.

“We hear you, and we’re reversing our Xbox Live Gold pricing updates,” the company wrote. View the full thread below:

So was this Microsoft taking a shot at trying to drive Xbox Live Gold subscribers to Game Pass? It feels like a blatant attack, that’s for sure. And it’s not very surprising. The monthly offerings on Live Gold are usually pretty sub-par, with maybe one decent offering in the bunch. And that wasn’t always every month either.

One of the good things about Live Gold is the price. For $60 annually, you get four free games to play every single month and access to online multiplayer. That’s on par with PlayStation Plus and much cheaper than Game Pass Ultimate.

Don’t expect this to be the last attempt Microsoft takes at changing Live Gold. This could very well be the beginning of the end for the subscription service. Which might be okay.

Over the next few months, I can see Microsoft doing an overhaul of it, making it into something better than it is now. Microsoft already announced that the free-to-play games will not need a Gold subscription to access, which is an awesome change and something gamers have complained about for a while.

The current iteration of Live Gold made a lot more sense a decade ago when online subscriptions were less of a common thing and there was much more of a gap in price and performance between PC gaming and console gaming.

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Change isn’t always a bad thing either. Perhaps the backlash from gamers was the wake-up call Microsoft needed to make Xbox Live Gold into something better than what it currently is.

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