Xbox Live Gold could raise 6 month price to $ 60, it is claimed

The USD price for an annual Xbox Live Gold subscription could be about to double from the 2020 price, it has been claimed.

That’s according to a pair of yet-to-verify images, which would show updated sales maps with a new $ 60 price tag for six months of Xbox Live Gold. Before Microsoft dropped it last year, a 12-month Gold subscription was sold for the same amount.

The images were posted on Thursday by two separate Reddit users, both of whom claimed they worked for a large retail chain.

One user wrote: “These cards arrived today for the new 6 month cards for Xbox Live Gold. Note the price. The other said, “I work at a certain video game retailer. It happened with an inbound shipment.”

Currently six months of Xbox Live Gold cost $ 40, three months cost $ 25, and a single month is $ 10. Last year, Microsoft stopped offering 12-month subscriptions, which sparked speculation that it might consider making changes to the service – although it insisted it didn’t. had no such plans.

VGC has contacted Microsoft for comment and will update this story when we receive a response.

To date, Xbox Live Gold has been required to play Xbox games online, including free titles like Warzone and Fortnite, which are available at no additional cost on competing platforms.

Gold also offers subscriber benefits such as purchase discounts and monthly free games that can be kept permanently.

In 2019, Microsoft started bundling Gold with its Xbox Game Pass subscription service in the form of Xbox Game Pass Ultimate, which costs $ 14.99 / £ 10.99 per month and features games on demand and access to EA Play.

It’s possible that the company is considering rolling out some of Ultimate’s features in Gold as part of a price hike, but Microsoft hasn’t suggested doing so.

In March 2020, Microsoft claimed that there were around 90 million active Xbox Live users and Game Pass subscribers had passed 10 million. In November, he claimed that 70% of people who bought the Xbox Series X and S at launch had a Game Pass membership.

While the platform owner no longer officially offers an Xbox Live Gold annual subscription option, one and three month subscriptions are still available.

“At that point, Xbox decided to remove the 12-month Xbox Live Gold SKU from Microsoft’s online store,” a company spokesperson told VGC last August when asked about the change. “Customers can still purchase a 1-month or 3-month Xbox Live Gold subscription online through the Microsoft Store.”