What do you want to know
- A purported survey posted on ResetEra suggests that Microsoft may be exploring an ad-supported Xbox Game Pass tier that also grants Xbox Live Gold.
- The cheapest tier would include Xbox’s entire library of exclusive games, including major first-party titles six months after launch. These games, however, would run ads at launch to help fund the level.
- Microsoft also recently patented personalized ads to appear in games, which seems oddly timely given this investigation.
- It may also be nothing.
A recent confluence of events has led some (including me) to speculate that Microsoft may be exploring a cheaper, ad-supported tier of Xbox Game Pass.
A pole buried in a ResetEra The thread appears to show a recent survey that was sent out to some Xbox users asking what they would think of an extra tier of Xbox Game Pass.
If real, the alleged tier would cost $3 per month and provide access to a variety of Xbox Game Pass content with fairly generous limitations. It would include an EA Access-like vault of old first-party Xbox games, with a similar 6-month delay for new Xbox games to hit the service. Those who accessed these download-only Xbox games through this tier would be prompted to view an ad before the game started rolling.
Assuming the table above is real, this tier also includes online multiplayer access, which is currently $9.99 per month and offers no games beyond the heavily discounted Xbox Live Games with Gold program. Games with Gold now typically only includes two Xbox One indie titles per month and has been the subject of criticism and derision for some time.
This supposedly ad-supported tier would aggressively reduce the monthly Xbox Live Gold tier, potentially becoming a headache in that equation. Would Microsoft really be willing to sacrifice the $10 per month Xbox Live Gold subscription for this much cheaper version that Also includes large amounts of best xbox games? Could ad revenue make up for the potential shortfall here? For my part, I am skeptical. Microsoft also offers Xbox Live Gold for $60 per year, or $5 per month, but even at that price there’s still a shortfall to consider for millions of users.
Whether or not the economy works in this scenario is up for debate, but it certainly looks like Microsoft is exploring a level of Xbox Game Pass in a certain format. A recent patent Filed by the company covers technology that predicts when in-game interaction has dropped, perhaps due to a loading screen for example. Then Xbox would serve an ad based on the user’s privacy settings and interests. Online ads have been a growing segment of Microsoft’s Bing business for some time, and with other subscription services like Netflix exploring ad-supported tiers, it makes sense to see Microsoft exploring the same path.
Could this really happen?
As we often say at Windows Central, Patents do not mean products. Microsoft files mountains of patents every week based on the research it does and often says the research doesn’t work. Similarly, investigations do not always lead to products either. It could be that users overwhelmingly vote against the idea of an ad-supported Xbox Game Pass tier, killing the idea in the making.
Either way, I suspect Microsoft is exploring ways to further lower the barriers to entry for its subscription services. Xbox Live Gold feels like a relic of the past, almost completely pushed aside in marketing in favor of Xbox Game Pass. However, it’s an undeniably important part of the console’s business model. You sell the hardware at cost (or even below) and make a profit on the software and services after the fact. For Microsoft, scrapping the monthly Xbox Live Gold fee without a proper replacement could create a vast shortfall in its cash flow, which doesn’t exactly seem like a smart move in the current economic climate.
On the other hand, removing Xbox Live Gold or folding it into Xbox Game Pass tiers would give Microsoft a strong differentiation from its competitors, given the amount of Xbox Game Pass offerings in general. I suspect we’ll eventually see Xbox Live Gold disappear, but only when it makes economic sense to Microsoft.
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