Okay so the basic price increases makes sense to me, especially with Ultimate. I always assumed post ABK they'd justify raising to a smooth $20 a month. I mean just comparing value and ignoring subjectivity (because it does matter what type of entertainment you prefer), the amount of hours of content and entertainment you can get from a single game (and as such a game library subscription) is pretty crazy compared to something like Netflix. I also understand them moving day one releases to ultimate only. Because let's be honest they started day one releases back when they were an ity bitty baby of a publisher. Even before their studio purchases for Xbox Game Studios really took off and LONG before they owned freaking all of Bethesda and ABK. As a publisher they've become one of the most profilic. And again for the individual user subjectivity matters and Xbox certainly doesn't have the beloved history of other publishers and even COD may not be worth it to some, but those games still cost a lot of money to make. I think it was completely sustainable at $10 a month pre inflation when they had like one game a year if any. Now their first party studios are PUMPING them out and they're not exactly all smaller AA games and then there's all the games XGS partners with to publish.
What starts to scratch my head is going down from there. So like first off, PC gamepass has way too much value compared to core and the upcoming "standard" for what they offer. Especially with PC keeping day one games and EA play and no console tier other than Ultimate having either. This isn't me saying to make PC Game Pass worse, but there needs to be some leveling off here. Then there's the proposed mobile game store coming this month and I had expected they'd introduce a Mobile Game Pass to watch Google and Apple Arcade. Xbox Cloud Gaming also needs a standalone service if they ever want it to really take off. That all gets very muddy with how the console and core tiers are positioned functionality wise and priced.
It's just looking more and more like paying for online doesn't fit in the subscription future and holding onto it is holding things back. Ideally I'd just like to see a game pass tier for every platform priced at $11.99 (console, PC, cloud, mobile) with a $20 ultimate tier that comes with bonuses like the perks and priority cloud gaming access. If they really want to they could also include a $7.99 ad tier for each platform as well (don't ask me how that'd work for the non-cloud tiers) or instead of ads they could just make it more like EA play as in only games older than a year (probably more like 2 years with how much they own) . Then throw in a gosh darn family plan for ultimate at $35 a month. Online play on console should just join cloud saves and be standard free.
In a way it feels like Xbox is growing too big and is growing away from its users with moves like this. Like they're trying to exist across every platform imaginable AND are now like THE biggest gaming publisher by employee count alone (their studios as well and the number of games they're either developing or partner publishing are also nothing to scoff at). It doesn't matter that they're still third place in the console market. They just no longer are the "little guy underdog" and in some ways that's great, but honestly the underdog is the easiest one to pet.