Pro financial tip: Be a patient gamer. Get the games you are interested in during sales. Fuck FOMO, subscription models and pre-orders.

It's honestly cheaper to just buy games than pay this subscription per year.

Plus, you get to keep the games.

Honestly, I've kinda gone back to buying physical media.

I bought DK Bananza on cart, and guess what? After I finished it, I gave it to my brother. Imagine that! Sharing a game you own? Madness.

I'm eager to pick up Ghost of Yotei from the store this afternoon, as well.

Netflix Spotify Disney and Amazon proved that price hikes are effective at increasing profits even despite the loss of subscribers. Capitalism baby.

I think the only time collective cancellations actually hurt one of these companies was that time Jimmy Kimmel made fun of the president and it took an estimated 1.7M ex-Disney Plus subscribers.

I haven't subbed to gamepads for years because I knew this would eventually happen. Gamepass was designed to get people used to not purchasing games and instead letting them come to them. Subscribers now have to chose between paying even more each month or losing access to the library of games available to them.

You know, fundamentally, I don't hate Gamepass as a concept. "Netflix, but for videogames" is an idea I can get behind, as it widens the audience for something I love by lowering the bar of entry. There are plenty of people out there that benefit from being able to play a few games here and there without needing to commit hundreds of hours to $100 purchases.

But Netflix has overstepped with price hikes and ads, and I've cancelled my service with them. That Microsoft thinks it can charge some ~$40CAD a month is pure hubris. I hope they learn quickly that, at that price point, the enthusiast market will happily cancel and just buy their games outright, and the casual market will decide it's an expense they don't need.

Knowing Microsoft, I'd like to thing that it went down like this:

Pardon me, your department isn't achieving the expected 20% annual revenue increase.

But we're just selling subscriptions to games that cost us nearly nothing. It's free money.

And you need to make more money from it, increase your subscriber count or your costs, or we'll cut your staff.

I already canceled because of the atrocities Microsoft does / is / supports.

Between the cost of housing and the cost of food, and the fact wages aren't that much better than they were 15 years ago - you'd think they would realize they are asking for the scraps people have left.

I've always just bought games when they're on a good sale, I've never had a game pass type thing. But maybe they just want to squeeze a bit more out of their most loyal customers and they're accepting that it is a dying model.

I canceled. I don’t want the features they added. I don’t even use all the features they charge me for now. I just want to be able to try out so new games every so often. I’ll take the $30 I save and buy those same games, probably with some money leftover

Just canceled my 4 year old subscription. Can’t wait to hear the complaints from my kid but Netflix is likely next.

Buying isn't owning, but it has to be better than this...

Never would I ever subscribe to a game service. That's just me.

I really appreciate this, you just saved me at least $20.

Microsoft’s user experience is awful at every step in a browser. I wanted to like XBox but it’s clear why they’re losing.

I work in the IT software licensing industry, it's a fucking cancer I can't wait to fail so bad that when we have the first extended internet outage failure so bad that it shows the world that subscriptions are a liability that shouldn't exist

Just cancelled mine. I have barely been doing ~2 games per year, and the cost was low enough for me to not really care about the months I didn't play at all.

But a price increase is the straw.

I just bought 12 month of Ultimate on eBay. I always did this in the past, because it's cheaper than buying directly from Microsoft. So far, I made good experience with it.

The way it usually works is, that you get a few codes you need to redeem. I got three codes for 36 month of EA Play and then one code for Ultimate that is supposed to transform the EA Play subscription to 12 month Ultimate. But due to the the price hike, the subscription transformation changed as well and I did not get the 12 month.

I'm now in contact with the seller and he tries to find a solution. I want to have my 12 month Ultimate that he offered for the price. But it also sucks for the seller. Seems like we both didn't know. He basically sold it to cheap. I paid 150€ for 12 month Ultimate and he just now increased the price to 200€.

The new prices are insane! 150€ a year is already my upper limit. I'm not gonna pay 200€ or even more a year. I think, if my new subscription is over, I will not extend it. I like the idea of Game Pass, but that's to much money.

The thing is I really like Game Consoles. I want to play in front of my TV. I wish, Steam would make another Steam Machine with Steam OS. I do want an all in one solution. The last thing I want is a gaming PC. I hope, alternatives to Xbox Consoles and Playstation come up.

I know, I could also use the XBox without GamePass, but I do play online something and it would be nice to get away from subscriptions completly.

I'm usually fine with paying more for things I enjoy that are worth it. Like $70 games are just not a big deal to me.

I'm also too lazy to cancel most things. I've ignored Game Pass price hikes before and justified them by thinking of all the games I played without buying.

But this one is just ridiculous. There's no value here, no way for me to justify it. I was enjoying Silksong on Xbox because I didn't have to buy it, but now that I do have to buy it I guess I'll do that on my Switch instead. Replaying it is going to be rough, especially without my Elite controller.

I hope Microsoft gets their shit together, because Xbox has been my favorite game platform for years.

I’m doing my part!