Microsoft

Microsoft reverses Xbox Live Gold price hike after public outcry

Microsoft announced a price hike for Xbox Live Gold on Friday, raising the rates to $10.99 for one month, $29.99 for three months, and $59.99 for six months. Following a wave of public outcry, Microsoft reversed its decision less than 24 hours later, confirming that the price of Xbox Live Gold would not be changing…

Published 4 years ago in
Microsoft reverses Xbox Live Gold price hike after public outcry

Microsoft announced a price hike for Xbox Live Gold on Friday, raising the rates to $10.99 for one month, $29.99 for three months, and $59.99 for six months.
Following a wave of public outcry, Microsoft reversed its decision less than 24 hours later, confirming that the price of Xbox Live Gold would not be changing after all.
In addition to keeping Xbox Live Gold at the same price, Microsoft is also removing the Xbox Live Gold requirement for free-to-play games like Fortnite on Xbox consoles.

Microsoft made waves on Friday by announcing that it would be raising the price of Xbox Live Gold for the first time in a decade. Going forward, the paid membership required to play any Xbox One and Xbox Series X game online would cost $10.99 for one month, $29.99 for three months, and $59.99 for six months. In effect, the price of Xbox Live Gold was going to double overnight, as 12-month subscriptions were previously priced at $59.99.

Unsurprisingly, this didn’t go over well with Xbox owners, and the topic trended on social media throughout the day as word began to spread. Even a surprisingly robust selection of freebies as part of Games with Gold in February wasn’t enough to calm the furor, and by the end of the day, the company had heard enough. The blog post announcing the change was updated late at night to reveal that Microsoft had reversed its decision.

“We messed up today and you were right to let us know,” the Xbox Live Gold team wrote in an update. “Connecting and playing with friends is a vital part of gaming and we failed to meet the expectations of players who count on it every day. As a result, we have decided not to change Xbox Live Gold pricing.”

In addition to leaving the prices at $9.99 for 1-month, $24.99 for 3-months, $39.99 for 6-months, and $59.99 for 12-months, the team also announced that it will no longer require Xbox owners to subscribe to Xbox Live Gold in order to play free-to-play games online. Today, you’ll need to have an Xbox Live Gold membership if you want to play Fortnite, Call of Duty: Warzone, or Neverwinter, which is not the case on PlayStation, Switch, or PC. Microsoft never offered a sensible explanation for why this was the case, but “in the coming months,” you should be able to play free-to-play games on any Xbox console without having to pay for an additional online membership.

Considering that Microsoft spent an entire console generation playing catch up with Sony and Nintendo, it is honestly hard to fathom how such a wildly and inevitably unpopular move made it this far.

And to make the announcement in the middle of a viral pandemic — one which has taken an unfathomable physical, emotional, and financial toll on all but the richest of us — was truly stunning. Thankfully, the price hike did not actually come to pass. But Microsoft needs to get rid of Xbox Live Gold as soon as possible. An entire strategic decision was reversed after half a day of mean tweets. You can’t put this genie back in its bottle.
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Microsoft

Arkane Founder: ‘I Think Game Pass is Unsustainable’

The founder and former president of Arkane Studios Raphaël Colantonio, who left in 2019, took to social media weighing on the huge Microsoft and Xbox layoffs. “Why is no-one talking about the elephant in the room? Cough cough (Gamepass),” said Colantonio (spotted by VideoGamesChronicle). He added…

Published 2 weeks ago in
Arkane Founder: ‘I Think Game Pass is Unsustainable’

The founder and former president of Arkane Studios Raphaël Colantonio, who left in 2019, took to social media weighing on the huge Microsoft and Xbox layoffs.
“Why is no-one talking about the elephant in the room? Cough cough (Gamepass),” said Colantonio (spotted by VideoGamesChronicle).
He added…
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Microsoft

In the Wake of Xbox Layoffs, Founder of Dishonored and Prey Dev Arkane Slams Game Pass: ‘Why Is No-One Talking About the Elephant in the Room?’

Hot on the heels of the layoffs that have swept through Xbox, the founder of Microsoft-owned Arkane Studios has hit out at Game Pass, whose subscription model he called “unsustainable.” Raphael Colantonio, who founded the Dishonored and Prey developer and served as its president before leaving in 2017 to start Weird West maker WolfEye Studios

Published 2 weeks ago in
In the Wake of Xbox Layoffs, Founder of Dishonored and Prey Dev Arkane Slams Game Pass: ‘Why Is No-One Talking About the Elephant in the Room?’

Hot on the heels of the layoffs that have swept through Xbox, the founder of Microsoft-owned Arkane Studios has hit out at Game Pass, whose subscription model he called “unsustainable.”

Raphael Colantonio, who founded the Dishonored and Prey developer and served as its president before leaving in 2017 to start Weird West maker WolfEye Studios, took to social media to ask: “Why is no-one talking about the elephant in the room? Cough cough (Gamepass).”

When asked to expand on his thoughts on Game Pass, which Weird West launched straight into as a day one title in March 2022, Colantonio said: “I think Gamepass is an unsustainable model that has been increasingly damaging the industry for a decade, subsidized by MS’s ‘infinite money,’ but at some point reality has to hit. I don’t think GP can co-exist with other models, they’ll either kill everyone else, or give up.”

Colantonio’s comment sparked a vociferous debate about the pros and cons of Game Pass in industry terms as well as for the customer. Microsoft’s subscription service has been called many things over the years: the death of the video game industry; the savior of smaller developers who benefit greatly from payments made by Microsoft to secure their games; and everything in between. During the great Xbox FTC trial to decide the fate of Microsoft’s $69 billion aquisition of Call of Duty maker Activision Blizzard, then PlayStation boss Jim Ryan claimed that he had talked to “all the publishers” and that, unanimously, they all hated Game Pass “because it is value destructive.” He also said Microsoft “appears to be losing a lot of money on it.”

Back in 2021, Xbox boss Phil Spencer countered Game Pass doomsayers, saying: “I know there’s a lot of people that like to write [that] we’re burning cash right now for some future pot of gold at the end. No. Game Pass is very, very sustainable right now as it sits. And it continues to grow.”

That was four years ago. What about now, in the wake of cuts that have seen Rare’s Everwild, the Perfect Dark reboot, and an unannounced MMO in the works at developer behind The Elder Scrolls Online all canceled?

Colantonio’s comments were backed by a number of industry peers, including the former VP of biz dev at Epic Games. Michael Douse, publishing director at Baldur’s Gate 3 developer Larian, said that the biggest concern right now revolves around what happens when all that money runs out. This, Douse added, is “one of the main economic reasons people I know haven’t shifted to its business model. The infinite money thing never made any sense.”

(It’s worth noting that Baldur’s Gate 3 has so far not launched in Game Pass or PlayStation Plus.)

Colantonio then ridiculed Microsoft’s insistence that launching games into Game Pass did not impact sales, only to later admit the contrary.

Douse responded to to say he prefers the Sony way of doing things. Sony’s PlayStation Plus policy is to keep first-party games off the subscription service at launch, only adding them some time later. That’s why you won’t see this year’s Sony’s Ghost of Yotei launch straight into PS Plus, but you will see Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 as a day one Game Pass launch.

“The economics never made sense, but at the same

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Microsoft

Microsoft denies shutting down operations in China

Microsoft China denied it would cease operations in the country, after a screenshot of an internal email from Wicresoft, a Microsoft outsourcing partner, fueled speculation about a potential exit. On Monday, several employees of Wicresoft shared screenshots of layoff emails on social media. The email cites geopolitical tensions and shifts in the global business landscape

Published 2 months ago in
Microsoft denies shutting down operations in China

Microsoft China denied it would cease operations in the country, after a screenshot of an internal email from Wicresoft, a Microsoft outsourcing partner, fueled speculation about a potential exit. On Monday, several employees of Wicresoft shared screenshots of layoff emails on social media. The email cites geopolitical tensions and shifts in the global business landscape [……
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Microsoft

Fake Microsoft Office add-in tools push malware via SourceForge

Threat actors are abusing SourceForge to distribute fake Microsoft add-ins that install malware on victims’ computers to both mine and steal cryptocurrency. …

Published 2 months ago in
Fake Microsoft Office add-in tools push malware via SourceForge

Threat actors are abusing SourceForge to distribute fake Microsoft add-ins that install malware on victims’ computers to both mine and steal cryptocurrency. …
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