Microsoft officially brought the Xbox PC Game Pass to Malaysia back in 2022, giving local PC gamers the whole Netflix for video games deal. Since its introduction, the monthly subscription price for the service has been RM15. But it looks like starting today, and especially for new signups, it will be changed to RM20, with existing subscribers feeling the hit two months later.
In countries with an official Xbox presence that get access to the Xbox part of the service in addition to PC Game Pass, Microsoft is also introducing a new tier of subscription, called Xbox Game Pass Standard. This is priced at US$14.99 (~RM71), where the Xbox Game Pass Ultimate was introduced with a US$16.99 (~RM80) price tag.
It’s probably worth mentioning that it won’t be immediately available, but will be “in the coming months” instead. And while the support page says that this is a near worldwide price hike, considering all we get access to is the PC Game Pass, and not the Xbox half of the service, this is not really a meaningful change for us besides a price hike.
One catch to the Xbox Game Pass Standard as a tradeoff for its lower commitment fee is the fact that subscribers will not get day-one access to all new releases by the publisher umbrella. And a pretty obvious reason as to why this change is being implemented to the Xbox Game Pass is the inclusion of the upcoming Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 into the service.
Being in the Top 10 list of highest-grossing media franchises ever, allowing fans to sidestep the annual US$70 (~RM329) Call of Duty ticket price would be a huge financial blow to Microsoft, which now owns Activision Blizzard. The price hike for the existing Game Pass options, including PC Game Pass, as well as the introduction of a new Standard tier for Xbox-having countries, would probably soften the blow somewhat.
(Source: Xbox [1], [2, PDF], [3])
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