Xbox appears to have quietly removed its famous $1 introductory offer on Game Pass Ultimate. The popular offer got first-time subscribers onto the platform by charging just a $1 for their first month of the platform’s most expensive tier, a low barrier to entry that brought an awful lot of people to the platform.
However, times change, and so must $1 introductory offers, it seems. As spotted by DualShockers, Microsoft appears to have removed the $1 offer from the Game Pass website, the Australian version of which now displays the standard pricing of $15.95 per month. It’s not so surprising that this offer would go away. The $1 Game Pass offer was introduced when the platform was in its infancy, a way to drive rapid interest and get bums in proverbial seats. Now, several years on and with Game Pass going from strength to strength (even as Xbox admits it hurts individual sales), clearly, Xbox no longer finds the offer useful. Microsoft is a data-driven company like any other — if the offer were still a major subscription driver, it would still be around. It may be that Game Pass has simply reached the point where Xbox has to work harder or change up its strategy if it wants to bring in new subscriptions.
The $1 Game Pass offer was part of the platform’s appeal. It was a big part of why people came to think of Game Pass as one of the best deals in games, full stop. As a value proposition, it was bloody hard to beat.
There’s also a chance that Xbox closed the offer down to stop people from exploiting a subscription loophole related to Xbox Live Gold, where people were stacking Gold subs and then converting them to Game Pass Ultimate.
As I say, losing the $1 Game Pass offer is not exactly the end of the world. I already have a Game Pass sub, and I would imagine that a solid number of you reading this piece do too. There was already no going back for us no way to get another $1 per month rate. No way, unless, of course, we were doggedly committed to starting a new email and Xbox account every month with a different credit card and, frankly, who could be arsed?
If you, like me, already have a Game Pass sub, you check out all the new games coming to platform in our regular monthly column right here.
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