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Microsoft is reportedly still planning to shut down Xbox Live Gold and make online multiplayer free.
That’s according to journalist Jeff Grubb, who made the same claim last year when Xbox Live Gold was still required for free games.
Grubb’s initial argument was that since Halo Infinite’s multiplayer was going to be free, it would only make sense if Xbox Live Gold was removed.
However, Microsoft then announced in April that Xbox Live Gold was no longer required to play free multiplayer games, leading some to believe gold would remain a requirement for other games.
Yesterday on his premium GrubbSnax show on Giant Bomb, Grubb touched on the story again and said he believes plans to drop the gold are still on the table on Xbox.
“In the past I said Xbox Live Gold was going to be gone, and when I started saying it was around the time that Xbox Live Gold was still required for free games,” he said Explain.
“And I knew for a fact that they were going to make a change before Halo Infinite, and I thought at least that it would be ditched for free games because they weren’t going to charge people to play Halo on Xbox when they did. didn’t charge you to play it on PC or whatever.
“Then they decided to raise the price and that sounded weird, didn’t it?” Why would they do this if they wanted to get rid of Xbox Live Gold?
“I just wanted to reiterate that Xbox Live Gold is still on a board somewhere saying ‘this is going to go away at some point.’ Whether or not they’re actively talking about it right now, I don’t know, but they still have it on a roadmap saying “Xbox Live Gold will be discontinued at some point in the future”.
Grubb says the reason Xbox Live Gold hasn’t been discontinued yet is because Xbox is still waiting to reach a target number of Game Pass subscribers first.
“[Dropping Gold] It could take years, as the current goal is still to put Game Pass in a very healthy position.
“It’s okay now, but […] before E3 things were starting to slow down and I think maybe there were some people at Microsoft who were a little worried because they were like “we need this thing to grow”, the problem is that they were expecting big games to come to the service.
“It looks like E3 has really helped Game Pass hit its stride where people can now look to the future and say, ‘If I get it now, I’m going to have all these games, but then there will have this and this and that in the immediate future, and then these big things on the horizon.
“So Microsoft is just sort of [keeping their] is heading towards user acquisition, and that means “Xbox Live is going to go away, but we have to hit a certain threshold with Game Pass before we can make that choice and unplug that revenue stream because we’ve had enough coming from there.” ‘something else “.
As to what that threshold might be, Grubb suggests he’s likely to be in the region of 40 to 50 million Game Pass subscribers, something he says is “not close yet.”
“I heard [it was] between 19 and 23 million before E3, but they’re approaching at least 23 million, “he said,” and as we get closer to Halo, I bet they’ll easily hit 23-25. million by the end of this year, and is at 30 million, they’re probably going to re-evaluate what they’re doing with Xbox Live Gold.
“[It] probably won’t go away until it’s probably closer to something like 40-50 million active users for Game Pass, but it all seems within their grasp right now as long as they keep the marketing side of it and the promotional side with all these games being advertised.
“We’ll see how it goes with Halo. If Halo is a big lightning rod to adopt for Game Pass, they’ll know, “Oh, and when Starfield comes along, that’s going to be our next major lightning rod, and everything else will be kind of connective tissue.”
“And as we get these big games at a faster rate – and by 2023 they should hit a pretty fast rate in terms of game release – Game Pass should really hit its pace at this point and they should be on.” the right path. to get rid of Xbox Live Gold.
“But the point is, for now, Xbox Live Gold is still around, but it’s still on the roadmap to be gone for good.”
In January, Microsoft canceled plans to increase the price of a six-month Xbox Live Gold subscription by 50% to $ 60.
“We messed up today and you were right to let us know,” he said. “Connecting and playing with friends is a vital part of the game and we have failed to meet the expectations of the players who rely on it every day. Therefore, we have decided not to change the Xbox Live Gold pricing.
“We are turning this moment into an opportunity to further align Xbox Live with how we see the gamer at the center of their experience,” added Microsoft. “For free games, you will no longer need an Xbox Live Gold membership to play these games on Xbox.”
In addition to online gaming access, Xbox Live Gold provides subscribers with purchase discounts and monthly free games that can be kept permanently on Xbox 360 or while a subscription remains active on Xbox Series X / S and Xbox One.
In 2019, Microsoft started bundling Xbox Live 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 offers games on demand and access to EA Play.
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