That’s according to a report that recently went live on Windows Central, claiming that Xbox Live Gold will be retired entirely in September and replaced with a new subscription tier for Xbox Game Pass. The report, which seemed to have been published prematurely, was promptly taken down, though not before Korean website cafe.naver managed to capture its content, as well as a screenshot that seemingly confirms the existence of the new Game Pass tier (you can view it below).

As per the report, starting on September 1, Xbox Live Gold will be discontinued, and replaced with Xbox Game Pass Core, a new tier for the subscription service that will also become its cheapest one at $9.99/month, which is the same as Xbox Live Gold’s current monthly subscription fee.

The Core tier will reportedly include access to online multiplayer for non-free-to-play titles, as well as member deals and discounts, which are also offered with other Game Pass tiers. All Xbox Live Gold subscriptions will allegedly be automatically converted to Xbox Game Pass Core subscriptions on September 1, while any and all games that you got for free via Games with Gold will remain in your account.

Speaking of which, the report claims that Games with Gold, with offers a new selection of free games to subscribers every month, is also being replaced. Apparently set to be discontinued on September 9, it will be replaced with Xbox Game Pass Core instead offering a library of over 25 free games to members, which will reportedly continued to expand following launch.

At launch, the last of games will allegedly include Among Us, Descenders, Dishonored 2, DOOM Eternal, Fable Anniversary, Fallout 4, Fallout 76, Forza Horizon 4, Gears 5, Grounded, Halo 5: Guardians, Halo Wars 2, Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice, Human Fall Flat, Inside, Ori and the Will of the Wisps, Psychonauts 2, State of Decay 2, and Elder Scrolls Online: Tamriel Unlimited.

Microsoft has yet to officially announce this, but it’s possible that concrete word on these upcoming changes will arrive sooner rather than later.

Last month, Microsoft announced that it was increasing the prices of Xbox Game Pass and Xbox Game Pass Ultimate subscriptions, as well as the price for Xbox Series X, in several markets except for US, Japan, Chile, Brazil and Columbia. Meanwhile, earlier this month, it was confirmed that Microsoft had reintroduced its $1 introductory deal for PC Game Pass and Xbox Game Pass Ultimate.

Killzone 2

You have to feel bad for Guerrilla Games. Its first game, Killzone, was touted as a “Halo killer” in 2004 and barely passed muster. While work was going on with Killzone 2, Sony debuted a trailer at E3 2005 that was claimed to be “real gameplay.” It wasn’t, of course, and caused a fair amount of controversy (with Guerrilla mortified that it was claimed to be real). As such, when Killzone 2 was re-revealed in 2007, there was even more pressure on whether the visuals were the real deal or not.

The initial $20 million budget shot up to $40 to 45 million and by February 2009, the sequel was released. Fortunately, its visuals were not only from the actual game but actually superior to the E3 2005 target render demo. Critics praised it as well and by April 2009, it sold one million copies. While not quite recouping its initial budget immediately, it established Guerrilla as a force to reckon with and one that could surpass excessive hype.

In reaction to a video of streamer Grenade Queen being harassed and abused online after losing a match of Halo Infinite solely on the grounds of her being a woman, Blackley talked about how this isn’t the future of Xbox Live that the team had envisioned originally. In addition to condemning such toxicity, Blackley went on to say that audiences, developers, and platform holders have to come together to combat this longstanding problem in gaming. In an additional tweet, Blackley acknowledged that this issue is not new by any means, but added that that only highlights how important it is to combat it.

Seamus Blackley also recently made headlines when a recent documentary revealed how Microsoft rejected Grand Theft Auto 3 as an exclusive for the original Xbox as they were skeptical about the transformation of the series from 2D to 3D. Unsurprisingly, he admits they were wrong about that- read more on that through here.

I know this isn’t new. I know you’re angry because nothing has been done for a long time. You’re right. It only motivates me more. It’s possible to clean these environments up. Let’s do it.

— Seamus Blackley (@SeamusBlackley) December 20, 2021

The biggest issue, according to a lot of people, has been the discontinuation of sales for a lot of this legacy software. This is a valid concern – there are quite literally almost ten thousand games spread across these three storefronts, spanning the PS1, PS3, PS3, PSP, and PS Vita. A lot of incredible classics were released digitally only (particularly for the Vita, the market failure of which made retail releases untenable very early on). Multiple PS1 and PS2 classics were sold for affordable and cheap prices on these stores, rather than the literally hundreds of dollars physical copies of them command on auction sites such as eBay. There are great PlayStation exclusives, and titles that were defining for the platform and its legacy, such as Metal Gear Solid 4, Suikoden, Xenogears, Ratchet and Clank: Up Your Arsenal, Resistance 3, inFamous 2, Persona 3, and many, many, more, that are now going to be lost in the ether. Your option is either to splurge obscene amounts of money on getting physical copies of these, or just never play these games. They will be lost.

Contrast this approach, for a second, to the competition’s. Xbox’s legacy with games is not even a fraction of PlayStation’s, and yet Microsoft is more respectful of it by literally magnitudes upon magnitudes. Microsoft has made a concerted effort to not only maintain compatibility across now four generations of Xbox consoles, but to honor your purchases across all of them (so the user never has to rebuy their games), and most impressively, give these games enhancements and boosts when played on new systems – free of charge. Where Sony is unwilling to let you even play Persona 3 on your PS5, Microsoft will not just let you play Fallout 3 on your Series X, they will also give it enhanced performance, so that it looks and runs substantially better than it did originally – and this is done without charging the user a dime. Can you imagine Sony, the company that made you buy PS2 classics on PS4 again even after you had already purchased them on PS3, charging a premium for minor “enhancements” such as Trophy support, doing something like that? The contrast in the two approaches is severe and stark, and Sony’s efforts look particularly disdainful of their legacy, and of their users’ investment, in light of how Microsoft has been handling compatibility.

Sony has claimed it approaches video games as a medium for storytelling, a legitimate avenue for human creation and expression. Art like that is not meant to be ephemeral and disposable, it’s not something that is made obsolete because something newer came along, it’s something that is meant to be treated with respect and made accessible to as many people as possible. Can you imagine if Steven Spielberg had never allowed any distribution of Schindler’s List after 1994 because Jurassic Park was here, and it was newer and shinier? Can you imagine J.R.R. Tolkein and his publishers deciding to never give any reprint runs to The Hobbit because The Lord of the Rings was now out, and it was newer and better anyway? If games are actually art, then why are they not being treated as such?

The issue with Sony’s announcement goes even further than just the loss of these games (which is in and of itself an intangible profound loss) too. The PS3 and PSP are extremely old – they are 15 and 17 years old respectively, and honestly, their stores being shut down makes at least some sense. It still hurts, because Sony has made no attempts to ensure compatibility with or access for those games on newer platforms, which is what makes the situation spectacularly terrible – but you can at least understand that decision, even if you don’t like it. But then there’s the Vita.

The Vita is less than ten years old right now from its original release (less than nine for western territories). Shutting down the store for a platform not even ten years old is horrific, and sets an awful precedent for the rest of the industry. Yes, the Vita didn’t do too well in terms of hardware sales, but it has a dedicated community of owners and developers (we’ll get to this one in a bit), and software routinely overperformed on the platform. In spite of Sony’s best efforts to bury the Vita alive, the platform continued to chug along. It continues to get routine releases every month even into 2021 (which makes sense, given that the Vita is less than ten years old). Shutting down the store for a system that isn’t even that old is unacceptable. It’s unacceptable for a bunch of reasons.

One part of that is the notice given. The PS3, PSP, and Vita stores are not the first console online stores to be shut down – the DSi and Wii stores were. However, in spite of how legendarily bad Nintendo tends to be with online services, they had the foresight and the consideration to make the announcement quite literally years ahead of time, giving everyone involved plenty of time to get prepared for when it happened. Nintendo also made the process a phased one – they announced the stores would be shutting down a couple of years down the line, but that balance purchases for the stores would be suspended a year down the line. Again, this approach, while not ideal – those games are still lost to time, and they’re not compatible with Nintendo’s newest platform either – at least exhibited a level of consideration for those ecosystems, and the users and developers who may still be invested in them, however few they may be. Sony’s notice period is… four months for the PS3 and PSP, five months for the PS Vita. That’s all we get. And rather than do everything in properly laid out staggered phases, Sony has taken the webstore that users used to make purchases for these systems (because the stores on the consoles themselves are, let’s face it, terrible) down without any notice or warning at all. This reveals how little they care for not just the PS3, PSP, and PS Vita, and the legacy associated with those systems and the games they had, but also for the users who may still be invested in those platforms, and the developers who may still be invested in those platforms.

Yes, developers. As it turns out, Sony’s spectacularly bad communication and lack of transparency isn’t just for their users, it’s also for their developers. Multiple developers who were still working on Vita games that were due to release this year did not know that Sony would be pulling support for that platform’s store (because, I remind you, the Vita is less than a decade old). In fact, Sony was selling dev kits – presumably worth thousands of dollars, judging by how much dev kits are typically known to cost – to developers as recently as a few months ago with no warning associated. Meaning Sony was willing to take developers’ money for games that they were just going to be starting development on for the Vita, without letting them know that they would soon have no way whatsoever  of actually selling those Vita games, because the Store was about to close soon, and Sony had stopped manufacturing cartridges for the Vita years ago anyway (plus as mentioned already, physical Vita releases haven’t been tenable for a long time).

This basically throws these developers – and these developers are typically smaller indie outfits, not the big developers (whom, reportedly, Sony did give notice to) – under the bus. They are out of the money they used on the dev kits, and they have no way to recoup those games they spent time, money, and resources on unless they can get them out in the next five months and hope to recoup all costs in that truncated period. How will they get the games out by then? They may have to crunch, they may have to enlist help they can’t afford, or they’re just going to be losing a lot of money.

PlayStation became as huge as it did on the back of amazing developer relations. Before the PlayStation came along, the market was dominated by Nintendo and Sega, and both platform holders were known to be, to put it bluntly, bullies to third party developers for their consoles. Sony managed to make the PlayStation such a rousing success because developers of all kinds – the big blockbuster publishing houses, and western ones, yes, but also smaller ones with few credentials, and Japanese ones working on niche titles not guaranteed to be blockbusters – felt welcome in the fold. Sony took decades to build this reputation for developer relations, and it’s why, for so long, the PlayStation was almost a default platform for console developers. 

In the last few years, Sony has done its best to destroy this confidence and longstanding relationship with developers. Sony still rolls out the red carpet for you if you’re a western publisher, or if you’re a Japanese one who puts out huge blockbuster hits like Final Fantasy and Resident Evil – but otherwise, as we have seen, Japanese developers are increasingly being marginalized and alienated by PlayStation, and smaller indie developers from across the world have felt jilted by the console too – no wonder, by the way, if Sony will do things like take their money and then discontinue the store they could have sold their games on without warning or notice just weeks later.

This slow erosion of developer relations is not something they should expect to get away with forever. PlayStation is doing great right now, off the back of well earned and deserved goodwill from audiences and developers alike accrued over decades. But if Sony continues to be hostile to smaller pockets of developers it deems as being so small that they won’t have a choice but to support PlayStation, then it may soon start losing out on their support (among indie developers, PlayStation is already now taking a backseat to Steam and Switch, and several huge indie hits either come to PlayStation late (such as Hollow Knight), or don’t come to PlayStation at all (such as, as of right now, the award winning Hades). Among Japanese developers, we are already seeing multiple smaller developers and games going to the Switch exclusively (such as Shin Megami Tensei V), or coming to PlayStation later, or not at all.

And that kind of loss of support from smaller developers will matter. None of those games may sell millions of software copies or hardware units by themselves, but collectively, they add depth and dimension to the console’s library, which has helped PlayStation stand out and have a more exhaustive and comprehensive library than the competition for 20 years now. Losing those games, and only getting the big Japanese blockbusters and western multiplats, gives the PlayStation the kind of library that Xbox consoles were known to have until very recently – and that kind of library is sorely lacking in the character and texture that helps consoles appeal to all demographics.

This only exacerbates the broader problems that Sony’s discontinuation of these stores, and utter lack of compatibility and continuity efforts, will have. Yes, PS5 is selling great right now, and it’s well deserved – but customers who are burned repeatedly on their purchases by Sony will eventually learn not to trust the company. The fact that probably hundreds of dollars’ worth of digital purchases will now be lost to the ether will probably give a lot of pause to many before they spend money on Sony’s digital stores again (and this company has the audacity to sell a digital only console right now). This kind of loss of confidence is already something Nintendo struggled with with the Switch for years, and digital adoption for their consoles only started to pick up recently, after almost a decade of Nintendo trying. 

Yes, one might make the argument that the broader public doesn’t care – which in and of itself is a stupid and unfalsifiable statement, since there is no way to actually prove that – but the enthusiasts and engaged fans of PlayStation do, and they’re the ones who will be most jilted by this move, and will be the loudest in expressing their displeasure. And as we have seen previously, the enthusiasts making noise about something does leak into the broader public and color perception, affecting sales. The enthusiasts were the ones most opposed to the Xbox One when it was revealed – and that ended up influencing that console’s fortunes for the rest of its life cycle, as well as the brand’s up to now. If Sony continues to burn bridges with its development partners, and its most engaged fans, then the goodwill and success PlayStation enjoys right now could find itself be punctured severely – and they would do well to remember that. It feels like they take their success for granted right now.

Note: The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of, and should not be attributed to, GamingBolt as an organization.

Earlier today there were murmurs that Microsoft was on the verge of rebranding one of its most iconic services, Xbox Live. The name has always been the name of Microsoft’s online features going all the way back to the original Xbox when the service launched way back in 2002. But everything changes, and now it’s due for a name change, but it does not seem as if anything functionally is changing with it, at least as of now.

As reported by The Verge, Microsoft has confirmed that Xbox Live will be officially dropped as a naming convention for their online network. Now, it may be somewhat confusing, but this does not mean the end of the Xbox Live paywall. This is simply a renaming of the online infrastructure. The subscription service of Xbox Live Gold will still continue, though it’s unclear if that too will get a name change of some kind in the future. As a Microsoft spokesperson said to the Verge, “Xbox network’ refers to the underlying Xbox online service, which was updated in the Microsoft Services Agreement. The update from ‘Xbox Live’ to ‘Xbox network’ is intended to distinguish the underlying service from Xbox Live Gold memberships.”

Xbox Live introduced paid online to console play back in 2002 and since then both Sony and Nintendo have followed suite. There have been rumors that paid online will be going away in the Xbox ecosystem, but that has not materialized. Whether this is a first step in that is anyone’s guess, though as of right now, it seems nothing fundamental will actually change.

Microsoft have been making changes here and there to Xbox Live of late, including major ones like free-to-play games finally no longer requiring Xbox Live Gold subscriptions to be played offline, and it seems that more changes – though related to the Xbox Live branding this time – might be coming as well.

It seems the Xbox dashboard no longer has any mention of Xbox Live, and instead only refers to it in the UI as “Xbox network”, suggesting that Microsoft might be preparing to drop the long-standing “Live” branding entirely in favour of something more general and wide-ranging. Given their platform-agnostic and services-driven approach, that would definitely fit with their strategy.

Of course, this is yet to be acknowledged by Microsoft in an official statement, so it’s probably best to wait for word from the horse’s mouth for now. Meanwhile, some reports have suggested that Xbox Live Gold might still be done away with in the near future (despite Microsoft saying that it isn’t going away any time soon). Read more on that through here.

https://twitter.com/tomwarren/status/1373458474898706433?s=19

The legalities of the situation aside, however, it now becomes clear that Bethesda, and all the incredible studios, games, and IPs they hold, will become a part of Xbox Game Studios. Which is an incredible win for Microsoft in their attempts to bolster their first party (and probably makes their first party more appealing than Sony’s, at least to me) – but which does beg the question, are these incredible, industry defining, mammoth franchises and games going to be Xbox-exclusive from now on?

Now to be clear, this isn’t a discussion about what I think will happen, this is a discussion entirely independent of that. This analysis is trying to approach the problem from the perspective of whether or not Microsoft should continue to put Bethesda games on PlayStation and Nintendo platforms (after all, one of the reasons those games have sold the numbers they have is because of their ubiquitous availability). From Microsoft’s perspective, is it more sensible to continue putting these games on rival consoles? Or are they better served by keeping them within the Xbox ecosystem?

How Microsoft Measures Success

Before we get to that answer, however, let’s take a moment to, once again, reiterate what Microsoft’s core business strategy in the gaming market is with Xbox. With the history of platform holders such as PlayStation and Nintendo who prioritize hardware unit sales to facilitate software unit sales and revenues via licensing models, it can become easy to get stuck in a mode where the only mode of success one considers is the traditional ones – i.e., if you are not selling 100 million units like PlayStation or Nintendo, then you’re not really doing well.

To be fair, that is true if you are in the market to primarily sell consoles. Microsoft did use to try to go for that – the Xbox, Xbox 360, and early Xbox One all attempted to approach the market with that end goal in mind, of selling the most hardware and software units. However, to their credit, Microsoft apparently seem to have realized that there’s no point repeatedly bashing your head against the wall (which is basically what going up against players as entrenched as PlayStation and Nintendo would amount to), and they made a smart pivot around the middle of the Xbox One gen.

Microsoft’s strategy now is to sell subscriptions. Their definition of the Xbox platform is now hardware agnostic, and Xbox comprises of a range of hardware platforms, services, subscriptions, and games. Microsoft wants to be your primary mode of interacting with a game – but they don’t really care how you get there. If you want to play purely on PC, they’re fine with that. Mobile? Same thing. If you want to use Xbox consoles for the convenience of console platforms, they’re there too. Across this whole spectrum, their attempt is to cater to you via Xbox Live and Game Pass services – essentially, if you are playing on your phone or your PC, Microsoft would love for you to be going through Game Pass using your Xbox Live account. Hell, even on PlayStation or especially Switch, Microsoft has games (such as Minecraft or Ori and the Blind Forest) with Xbox Live hooks in them.

This is a dramatically different way of approaching the market, because in this case, Microsoft can sell a very low number of units (lower than even the Xbox One managed), and still be extremely successful thanks to an engaged, large subscriber base, and the recurring revenue that brings in. Basically, Microsoft have decided if they can’t sell 20 million copies of Halo to 100 million Xbox owners, they would rather have 100 million Game Pass users – across Xbox and non-Xbox hardware alike – all playing Halo instead, and make money off of them that way.

So Microsoft’s primary motive is no longer to sell consoles. But this does not mean they don’t care about selling consoles at all. Of course, they would be happy if they did – on average, consoles still bring in more revenue per user than a PC or mobile player would. With a console player, you get money from the purchase of the system (if it’s being sold at profit), accessories such as controllers, subscriptions such as Xbox Live Gold (which is necessary to play online on Xbox consoles, but not PC or mobile), and money from every single game they purchase on the system. None of this holds true for their users on PC or mobile. On PC, Microsoft only gets money for purchases of their own games, and money only for Game Pass subscriptions (but not Xbox Live Gold). On PC, Microsoft does not get money for third party game purchases unless they are purchased via Microsoft’s store (and let’s be honest, how many people do you know who play on PC and only use Microsoft’s store, or even use it at all?). On PC, players can use any controller they like, including PlayStation, Nintendo, and Steam ones. Ditto for mobile too.

So it comes down to a balancing act – Microsoft obviously wants to increase Game Pass subscriptions as the primary and overriding business motive, but not do so in such a way that people are entirely disincentivized from wanting to buy an Xbox console. And I think this fact, over all else, is what will inform Microsoft’s strategy with Bethesda and their games.

What Microsoft Should Do With Bethesda Games

Keeping in mind all of the above, Microsoft will probably be best served keeping Bethesda games Xbox ecosystem exclusive – at least for a fairly large launch window. There are multiple reasons for this, but they all come down to traditional business benefits of exclusivity, combined with also getting perks from their current subscription focused strategy.

First: since the Xbox ecosystem is currently spanning PC, mobile, and Xbox consoles, the addressable install base for Bethesda games is still huge. The traditional loss of audience one may have considered in a situation where a third party publisher was bought up by a platform holder doesn’t apply here. Bethesda isn’t just selling to Xbox console owners, it’s selling to Xbox console owners, as well as players on PC (and remember, PC and Xbox are the two biggest markets for Bethesda games, in that order), and potentially, a universe of hundreds of millions of players on smartphones and tablets. 

Secondly – keeping the game exclusive to the Xbox ecosystem compels people to engage with it if they want to play Bethesda games. Your choices if you want to play The Elder Scrolls 6 are either to buy an Xbox console and a copy of the game; buy an Xbox console and subscribe to Game Pass; subscribe to Game Pass on PC; subscribe to Game Pass on mobile; buy a copy of the game on PC. In literally all of these situations, Microsoft gets your money, while making you a revenue-generating part of the Xbox ecosystem.

Thirdly – you increase the potential for console sales. Look, while there are at least some PC owners who only purchase consoles for the games they can’t play on PCs but can on those systems, the bulk of console owners buy consoles for the convenience of those platforms. They aren’t really interested in either PC gaming or mobile gaming or streaming, which is why console gaming has been able to weather the rise and success (okay, not so much for streaming, but still) of all three of those and been able to thrive even alongside them.

What this means is that the presence of The Elder Scrolls 6 on PC or mobile is rather meaningless to the average PlayStation or Nintendo player. For them, then, the only option to play the game is to buy an Xbox. Which means Microsoft still gets to potentially sell some consoles, as well as some games and/or subscriptions, to people by dangling Bethesda games as bait.

In other words, keeping Bethesda games exclusive to the Xbox ecosystem allows Microsoft to perpetuate their platform without, somehow, the traditional cons of exclusivity. They are very literally getting to have their cake and eat it too in this scenario.

But there is the case of Minecraft

The most meaningful counter-evidence to a future with potentially Xbox-exclusive Bethesda games that I have seen is the case of Minecraft. Microsoft purchased what is now the biggest game in history at the beginning of the last decade – and it was a pretty damn big game then too. However, rather than proceeding to lock Minecraft down to Xbox consoles, and use it to push Xbox that way, Microsoft chose to… do the exact opposite. Minecraft was spread to more platforms than ever before. It continued to come to PlayStation consoles, PlayStation handhelds, Nintendo consoles, Nintendo handhelds, mobiles, tablets, VR, AR, in addition to PC and Xbox platforms, of course. If Microsoft chose to keep a wildly successful multiplatform franchise multiplatform even after acquisition then, why would they not do that with Bethesda?

Well, for starters, the context is extremely different. Minecraft was a phenomenon because of its availability everywhere, which was what caused it to catch on with its primary demographic of younger players. Kids across the world could boot the game up and play it without needing to pester mom and dad to spend hundreds of dollars on a shiny new toy for them. Even an old phone would be able to play Minecraft just fine. Microsoft probably smartly realized the value in Minecraft was the brand itself, rather than its potential for the Xbox ecosystem. In other words, rather than hamstringing Minecraft to push Xbox, they chose to hamstring Xbox to push Minecraft, and history has proven that to be the right decision.

The nature of the Bethesda purchase is different. Given the fact that the primary demographic for Bethesda games is not kids (a notoriously fickle and fad-driven audience), but rather more engaged enthusiast fans, Microsoft knows it can bank on Bethesda fans actually spending money on Xbox to play Bethesda games. The very nature of the two purchases is different, because where making Minecraft exclusive would just have caused little Timmy to turn to playing some other game he could get on his mom’s iPad, making The Elder Scrolls 6 exclusive is not going to have that same effect, because if you’re an Elder Scrolls fan, you’re playing The Elder Scrolls 6.

In other words, trying to compare Minecraft to the Bethesda purchase makes very little sense, because the very context around the two purchases is different. Minecraft was purchased because of the potential of the brand; Bethesda was purchased because of the potential expansion of the Xbox ecosystem it can cause. One is not the same as the other, and to compare the two is fallacious. And in any case, the addressable audience for Bethesda games is still massive because they’re not just limited to selling to owners of some proprietary hardware.

In conclusion

Look, I’m not a fan of industry consolidation, and I don’t like the fact that third party developers and publishers are being acquired and purchased all around the place. But that’s what’s happening, so this is where we are. In my ideal world, Bethesda’s acquisition wouldn’t change their games coming to other platforms, but again, this isn’t about what I want. The numbers make too much sense, and based on an objective assessment of the situation, it is undeniable that it is to Microsoft’s benefit to make Bethesda titles exclusive to the Xbox ecosystem. Maybe we can see some ports of older and/or smaller Bethesda games come to Nintendo (or even PlayStation), but it makes the most sense to keep them exclusive to Xbox platforms for as long as possible.

Of course, this is just my take on the situation – Microsoft may, for example, decide that keeping the games multiplatform doesn’t hurt them, because they still bolster the Game Pass library, and having them available on the service day and date is enough incentive to get people to want to subscribe (and in the case of console-only players, to get an Xbox console to be able to subscribe). I don’t know, they are the ones running the numbers, and they are the ones who will ultimately make the decision they feel it is best to make. Based on the way I see things? It will be the smartest thing for them to do to limit the availability of Bethesda titles to the Xbox ecosystem and platform – one way or the other.

Note: The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of, and should not be attributed to, GamingBolt as an organization.

Microsoft recently made the announcement that they would be increasing the prices of Xbox Live Gold subscriptions, the online service that’s required to play games online on Xbox consoles. By and large, the price increases announced were pretty steep. Though the monthly subscription price only went up $1 (which would still have added up to a healthy amount in the long run), the three month subscription saw a $5 increase, while the six month subscription saw a 50% increase, climbing to $60.

The changes have been met with widespread backlash and criticism, and Microsoft have now responded to that backlash the way you’d want them to. In an update on Xbox Wire, they have confirmed that they are reversing the price increases, and that you can still expect to purchase Xbox Live Gold subscriptions at their previous prices- $9.99 for 1-month, $24.99 for 3-months, and $39.99 for 6-months.

“We messed up today and you were right to let us know,” the update reads. “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 fact, it seems Microsoft are almost going in the opposite direction in what’s a rather sudden about-turn. Having to pay Xbox Live Gold subscriptions even to play free-to-play games has always been something that Microsoft have received plenty of criticism for, but that will no longer be the case going forward. If you want to play a free-to-play game online, you will no longer need a Gold subscription.

“We’re turning this moment into an opportunity to bring Xbox Live more in line with how we see the player at the center of their experience,” Microsoft writes. “For free-to-play games, you will no longer need an Xbox Live Gold membership to play those games on Xbox. We are working hard to deliver this change as soon as possible in the coming months.”

Halfway through last year, reports emerged that suggested Microsoft were considering discontinuing Xbox Live Gold altogether and making console online gaming free. Soon afterward, Microsoft responded to those reports, saying no such changes were planned.

Usually, when the time of the month comes around to roll over the clock month to month it means a refresh of your subscription service with the new games being given out and discounts that come with. Well, it seems February is going to be quite different. Instead of the usual three titles that you traditionally get with Games with Gold, you’ll be getting a whooping five. However, alongside that comes a rather steep hike in overall price for the service.

First off, getting to the games for the month, the headline title is almost certainly Gears 5. The most recent entry in the long running series will be free to claim through the entire month. Also available for the entire month is Resident Evil, the acclaimed remastered remake of the very first title in the franchise. From February 1st-15th, we’re going to get Indiana Jones and the Emperor’s Tomb, an original Xbox title based on the franchise, no doubt perfectly timed to the recent announcement of a new game in the series. From the 16th to the 28th will see Lost Planet 2 on the Xbox 360, a Capcom series from the era focused on shooting aliens on a foreign planet with fun co-op. To round it all off, there’s Dandara: Trials of Fear Edition, a metroidvania title that will be available from the 16th and running into March.

While all these games are exciting, and there are some great gems here, there is some big news that you may be less excited about. On a post from the official Xbox news site, they have confirmed that Xbox Live Gold will see a hike in price. It’s actually quite steep, with the new pricing scheme being 1-month for $10.99, 3-months for $29.99 and 6-months for $59.99. Existing members will get a choice to renew at the current price, however, and they are allowing options for converting Gold into Game Pass Ultimate.

“If you’re an existing online 12-month or 6-month Xbox Live Gold member, there’s no price change. If you choose to renew your membership, it will renew at your current price.

“The price of a 1-month Gold membership is increasing $1 USD and the price of a 3-month membership is increasing $5 USD or the equivalent amount in your local market.

“If you’d like to upgrade your Gold membership to Xbox Game Pass Ultimate your remaining Gold time will also convert directly to Ultimate (up to 36 months). For example, if you have 11 months of Xbox Live Gold now, and you upgrade to Xbox Game Pass Ultimate, those 11 months convert to 11 months of Ultimate at no additional cost.”

The games outlined for Games with Gold will become available starting February 1st with Gears 5, Resident Evil and Indiana Jones and the Emperor’s Tomb. Microsoft has not put a time frame on the rollout of the price increase, but says to check emails as it happens in your region.

October is pretty much here, and as always, it’s the spookiest month of the year due to Halloween. Who knows what Halloween will actually look like this year due to everything going on, but at the very least, Microsoft is putting on their most Halloween line up together for their Games with Gold for Xbox Live users.

For the entire month, Slayaway Camp: Butcher’s Cut will be available for Xbox One users. The game is a bloody puzzle title where you control a masked killer out for revenge and to kill everyone in his path. From the 1st to the 15th, it’s a blast from the past with the original Xbox’s Sphinx and the Cursed Mummy, an action game inspired by Egyptian myth. From the 16th to the 31st, you can get Double Fine’s cute send up to the Halloween holiday with the RPG Costume Quest, and for a bit of legit shock and horror, in that same time frame you can also get Maid of Sker, the most recent release of the line up that sees you try to sneak through various settings against murderous foes.

These games will begin going live starting tomorrow, October 1st. All titles will, of course, be redeemable and playable on all Xbox One systems for those with a Xbox Live Gold or Game Pass Ultimate account.