The Golden Goose Is Dead: Xbox's Game Pass Price Hike and Sony's Greedy Surge . By: Jerry Bonner

Oh, I’ve been around the block a few times, my friends in gaming.

I’ve witnessed every console generation, from pong consoles to the Atari 2600 through the C64, the Genesis and SNES console wars, PlayStation, Xbox, Switch, and now this strange cloud/subscription landscape. I’ve seen industry crashes, price cuts, hardware revisions, bundled deals, limited editions... you name it. But I’m pretty sure I’ve never seen a console maker, mid-generation, raise prices in the

bold, sweeping way both Sony and Microsoft just did. And Microsoft’s move to hike Game Pass? That’s akin to taking your golden goose out back behind the ramshackle shed then blowing its head off.

Yeah, I get that is an indelicate analogy to make... but it is in no way incorrect.

First though, let’s talk Sony. In August 2025, Sony announced what feels like a betrayal: their five-year-old PS5 line is getting a $50 price bump across the board in the U.S., while in Europe the hikes hit earlier. Normally, by year five of a console’s cycle, you'd expect price cuts or sweet bundles, not sticker shocks.

The justification is “economic pressures,” tariffs, etc. Fair enough, input costs go up, but there’s also a point where passing it to the consumer becomes more than “cost inflation,” and becomes tone-deaf. When companies raise prices on hardware people might still be saving for (or trading up to), they're essentially taxing loyalty.

This sets the stage for Microsoft’s far more egregious move: raising Game Pass pricing, restructuring tiers, and removing features. This article covering the price hike puts the situation in sharp relief, particularly its inclusion of comments from former FTC chair Lina Khan, who said regulators had warned that Microsoft’s $69 billion Activision Blizzard acquisition could “harm gamers” by giving the company

too much leverage over digital distribution and pricing. That prediction, it seems, didn’t take long to materialize. Microsoft’s latest increases feel like a textbook example of what the FTC feared: consolidation leading to higher costs and fewer consumer-friendly options. The irony here is thick... Game Pass was once the industry’s most pro-consumer innovation, but now the very success that made

it irresistible has given Microsoft the power to squeeze. And as that piece notes, the service that once symbolized accessibility and abundance now risks becoming an emblem of corporate hubris. And the idea that Microsoft would use its consolidation to weaken consumer bargaining power isn’t just theory... it’s playing out in real time.

Game Pass was supposed to be the golden goose. The promise: pay a monthly fee, and you get access to hundreds of games, many of which drop day one. That was the differentiator. But when Microsoft announces a 50% hike for the top tier (Ultimate), you realize how precarious that model is. When you jack up the price that high, you’re asking fans to pay more not just per game, but per month... without necessarily improving the experience enough to justify it. And when they strip features from lower tiers, or create a “Standard” tier that excludes day-one access, that’s not tweaking the model, that’s diluting the promise. In FTC filings and public commentary, regulators called that product degradation: removing the best content from cheaper tiers so that only the highest tier remains “premium.” That’s essentially forcing people to pay more, or settle for less. It’s

cynical at best and downright shitty at worst.

It’s not just the price increase... it’s how Microsoft frames it. They argue that the new cheapest tier now includes online multiplayer (something the old console Game Pass did not) and that “value” is being added. But bundling multiplayer into what they claim is “basic” isn’t inherently a value-add if the base content (day-one games, cloud streaming, full libraries) is being hollowed out. Gamers see through that: “You’re charging more for less and calling it an upgrade.”

I remember console generations past where price hikes were justified by added hardware. Say, a model with more RAM or HDD, or a Pro version, but pricing up a subscription platform this deeply, this late in the lifecycle, feels unprecedented. It’s almost as if Microsoft is saying, “We’ve got your dumb ass now.

Your ecosystem is locked. Let’s squeeze more.” That’s the foul stench of monopolistic leverage right there.

What we’re watching now is a turning point. The golden goose, Game Pass, was the crown jewel of Microsoft’s pitch. Now, by raising its cost aggressively, they risk alienating the very base they needed to scale. Cancelations have flooded in; reports say the membership cancellation page even crashed under

the load.

David Echeverria, CEO of Villeage Esports echoes these sentiments, “Time and time again, the everyday gamer ends up paying for the industry’s mistakes. Instead of transparency and respect, we’re met with rising prices and a lack of accountability. As someone who’s owned every Xbox since the original, it’s

hard not to see these hikes as a betrayal of the very community that built Microsoft’s gaming empire. Communities like ours deserve better.”

Of course, Microsoft defends itself against these slings and arrows, saying that it’s common for digital services to evolve. They claim the new tiers are more flexible. They assert that Ultimate offers “more first-day games.” But when a service starts deprecating features at lower tiers to push you upward, that’s the reddest of red flags. As noted a bit earlier, the FTC called it “product degradation combined

with price increases”... exactly what it warned could happen after Microsoft acquired Activision.

And don’t forget: Microsoft’s own accounting of Game Pass profitability reportedly excludes first-party development costs. So the claim “we need to raise price because it’s unsustainable at current levels” has weaker legs than drunkard after a week-long bender.

Look, I’m not being willfully obtuse here. I entirely understand how these things work: hardware costs, logistics, development budgets all go up. But there is (or at least should be) a consumer trust line. And you don’t cross that lightly. And personally, having lived through every console generation, I can say this:

we’ve seen hardware price hikes, we’ve seen “lite” versions, we’ve even seen publishers increase game prices. But we’ve not seen the core subscription service, a pillar Microsoft touted as the future, get gutted in this manner.

Let me say this plainly: Microsoft just cooked their golden goose. Game Pass was the thing people rallied around when PlayStation and Nintendo pitched exclusives. But if it becomes too expensive or too watered-down, gamers will take notice... and that loyalty they’ve spent years cultivating will go bye-bye.

Real quick. Sony raising console prices stings, but gamers often accept hardware costs as inevitable (though resentfully). Price hikes on the service layer strike at the very core of consumer trust.

If Microsoft wanted to change the model, they should have done it gradually, transparent to the community, offering legacy grandfathering, or better value exchanges. But 50% overnight? Bundling out content? That’s not iteration. That’s straight up betrayal.

So where does that leave us? For now, many will just take it or whine about. But a good many will cancel, shop alternatives, or retreat to PC or other ecosystems. In the long run, Microsoft clearly risks undermining the good faith it has built over the last twenty-five years or so, and the subscription model everyone assumed was its strongest strategic asset.

Time and again, it’s been proven that gamers have a looooong memory. We notice these moments... keep them our collective back pockets. And we will, without a doubt, recall when Microsoft thoroughly roasted its own golden goose.