Ed Nightingale, deputy news editor of website Eurogamer, external, tells Newsbeat the popularity of gaming subscription services has increased in recent years.
According to stats from the UK’s Entertainment Retail Association, Game Pass and Sony’s similar PlayStation Plus offering saw growth in users last year.
“Games nowadays are just more expensive,” says Ed. “Everything is going up in price at the moment.
“It’s a lot cheaper for consumers to buy a subscription service than individual games.”
When Game Pass first launched, it was pitched as “the best deal in gaming”, though critics questioned if it would be able to keep prices down as costs of game development increased.
Ed wonders if players are starting to agree that it’s “too good to be true”, and worries game companies risk pricing customers out of the hobby.
“Over the course of a year it’s really expensive,” he says.
“It is a huge price increase.
“They want to be the favourites of gamers but this feels quite anti-consumer by putting the price up.
“Microsoft are shooting themselves in the foot here.”
The company has insisted Game Pass makes a profit, external, and said last year was its best ever in terms of revenue from subscriptions.
