The price of Xbox Game Pass Ultimate just rose by over $10 in Canada

Xbox Game Pass just got a major overhaul.

Starting today, the subscription service is available in three “new” tiers. Two of these are reworked versions of older membership options, while the third, the pre-existing Ultimate, is also getting some changes, including a significant price increase.

First, Xbox Game Pass Core, the lowest-cost membership that Microsoft introduced in 2023 with a limited games catalogue, has been rebranded to Xbox Game Pass “Essential.” On top of that, Xbox Game Pass Standard, which rolled out last year with access to hundreds of games (excluding Xbox Game Studios titles) has been renamed to “Premium.”

And finally, Ultimate is keeping its name but going up from $22.99/month to $33.99/month. The service’s last price increase was in summer 2024 in which it went up from $18.99/month to $22.99/month.

In exchange for this latest hike, Ultimate subscribers will now get the over 75 day one Xbox Game Studios releases, subscriptions to Fortnite Crew (offers V-Bucks and other perks for $15.99/month on its own) and Ubisoft+ Classics (a selection of older Ubisoft games for $19.99/month on its own), an enhanced 1440p Xbox Cloud Gaming streaming quality and Rewards with Xbox.

With respect to that last point, Xbox says Ultimate subscribers can earn up to $100 per year (100,000 points globally) through its Rewards program by playing games (up to 30 per cent value), with 4x points on the purchases of games and add-ons, 10 per cent back in points on select Game Pass library titles and add-ons and up to 30 per cent off select Game Pass games.

Here’s a quick breakdown of the new tiers:

• Essential ($13.99/month, up from Core’s $11.99/month) — access to 50-plus games across Xbox, PC and supported devices, online multiplayer, the ability to stream select games you own and more
• Premium ($17.99/month, up from Standard’s $16.99/month) — access to 200-plus games on Xbox, PC and supported devices, new Xbox-published games within 12 months of launch (except for Call of Duty), online multiplayer and more
• Ultimate ($33.99/month, up from $22.99/month) — access to 400-plus games across Xbox, PC and supported devices, new day one Xbox-published games (including Call of Duty), EA Play and Ubisoft+ Classics, improved streaming, online multiplayer and more

Interestingly, perhaps the biggest change across the board besides the price increases is that Xbox Cloud Gaming has officially exited beta, a term that Microsoft has used to describe the service for years now. As part of that, “unlimited cloud gaming” is now available for the first time through Essential and Premium in addition to Ultimate.

Here’s a chart outlining every perk per Game Pass tier:

Separately, Xbox also confirmed that PC Game Pass has gone up from $14.99/month to $19.99/month. While Xbox notes that they won’t be getting Ubisoft+ Classics with this increase, “about 50 additional Ubisoft titles” will be added to the catalogue on top of continuing access to day one titles.

And finally, the company has added dozens of games across the three tiers starting today, including many Assassin’s Creed games and Hogwarts Legacy with Ultimate, various Age of Empires, Diablo and Fallout titles for Premium and Hades plus Gameloft Montreal’s Disney Dreamlight Valley for Essential. The full list is available on its website.

All in all, Game Pass is pricier all around now, and it remains to be seen how many people will stick with it. The last official update we got from Microsoft was confirmation of 34 million subscribers in February 2024, up less than 10 million in two years. This signified fairly slow growth for a service that Microsoft had once hoped would reach 100 million members by 2030.

The new Game Pass tiers come just two weeks before the launch of Microsoft’s first dedicated Xbox-branded handheld gaming PC, the ROG Xbox Ally and Ally X, in partnership with Asus. Canadian pricing was also just confirmed for the devices.

Image credit: Xbox

Source: Xbox