Oof: Xbox’s Game Pass just got dramatically more expensive to offer better “value”

Want to hear some good news? Well, you’re in the wrong story, because Microsoft has announced significant price increases to its most popular tiers of Xbox Game Pass, the subscription-based game library service.

The new pricing structure looks like this: Essential (£10 per month), Premium (£14.99) and Ultimate (£22.99). That’s a 50 per cent increase on the monthly cost of the latter, which is the most popular tier currently.

What you get in the game library has changed, but not much - a new suite of Ubisoft classics will join the roster. You know, old games you bought in a Steam sale seven years ago for a quid.

The price jump comes despite Microsoft reporting that Game Pass subscription fees generated over $5bn in revenue last year.

The most expensive Ultimate tier is the one that allows day one access to Microsoft-published titles like Forza Horizon 5 when they’re released. Meanwhile the cheapest tier, Essential, is required for online play in all titles like Forza Motorsport on Xbox.

PC players are affected too. The monthly cost of Game Pass PC tier, which allows access to the library of games on PC only, has also increased by 40 per cent.

The best bit about this announcement is that, apparently, Microsoft’s increased those prices massively in order to offer us better value.

“We’re evolving Game Pass to offer more flexibility, choice, and value to all players,” reads the official announcement over at Microsoft’s blog. Thank goodness for that, eh?

The company made 9,000 layoffs earlier in 2025, despite an 18 per cent increase in annual revenue. Xbox boss Phil Spencer said at the time that Microsoft’s gaming division had “never looked stronger”.

It appears gamers are hesitant to reach out and thank Microsoft for offering them all this extra value, though. There have been numerous reports that the membership site has gone down in the wake of this announcement as members swarmed to cancel their subscriptions.