Microsoft Confirms $1 Xbox Game Pass Trial Offer Has Been 'Stopped'

I think as the games start rolling and if the ABK deal goes through. Xbox will stop the whole "experimental" phase of GP and try to really settle into a rhythm with its content and pricing. Similar to other subscription services.

It had to come to an end. They ensured first with better marketing and now it's done they need to make more money out of this service. I've wondered when they were going to put a stop to this loopholes.

@uptownsoul agreed. And it will be interesting to see how many "fans" stick around for "unbelievable value" afterwards.

6yrs later and with over 25m Subscribers - its perhaps time to move on from these 'introductory' offers and perhaps find other offers. Friends/Family packs are likely to reduce 'costs' for consumers so they perhaps can't offer those 'cheap' introductional offers for 'newcomers' too.

In my opinion, maybe offering at least 1month free access with every 'new' console or even 1 month free with every Custom Controller from design lab could be just as effective as offering $1 deals.

I do expect that Game Pass itself will remain 'consistently' priced for the foreseeable future - part of that would be because they stated this A/B deal won't see pricing jump to regulators and the fact they are removing '$1' deals too does 'increase' their revenue.

Not surprised considering how many were abusing it. Seemed easy to gain years of Game Pass for peanuts money.

Very odd they would stop this. It gained Gamepass being in the conversation when they would be having a slow month. And was done so frequently that one would assume it either was helping grow subs…or helping with numbers to show shareholders.

Every popular streaming platform offers free trails (going from 1 week - 3 months) so it’s strange MS would remove charging £1 for it. Maybe they’ll move to ‘free 7 day trail’ instead.

Or, maybe like £70 games, this is also a casualty of Xbox finally having their own games coming out 🤷🏻

That's fair, obviously not sustainable going forwards... 😀

@Bleachedsmiles I think GP is stuck at 25 Million-ish subs until they add some big hitter games (cough...COD...cough) or something more radical that sells more Xboxes that subscribe to it.

@Kaloudz I’m not sure how regular the £1 for a month was used to convert gold to gamepass. These £1 offers were always account specific to my knowledge…targeting those that were either completely new or hadn’t renewed for months/years.

I mean you’d think they’d use something like this more, to get people off Gold and onto Gamepass. Gold has 10’s of millions more subs…these cheap/free trials always rely on the laziness of people not turning off ‘auto renew’ (it’s on by default for a reason)

@BrilliantBill Well games will definitely help. What would help more than anything would be a marketing campaign for it - crazy I know.

I think they may be closer to 30mill now…least that’s the number hunted at during the whole Redfall ‘scandal’ last week

As long as they don't keep messing around with MS Rewards it's fine 😄

they did the exact same thing with games. waited till they had some coming to raise prices. Think conversion will go shortly, and a rise to 12-15quid by year end. Potential to reduce rewards too.

only once stacking etc has ended will we see if people truly want a sub service. (casuals, not us posting here)

@Wheatly And that’s why it’s becoming more and more important for Xbox to stop seeing their games get delays. They need consistent content to ensure people sub from month to month…rather than drop in and out. And this is why they’ll keep buying devs and publishers after the ABK deal

@Bleachedsmiles Probably not very common or MS would’ve blocked it long time ago. I’ve spent a total of roughly $160-170 for 6 whole years of GPU. Second time I “renewed“ I couldn’t use the $1 conversion but a regular 1 month code for GPU did the trick.

@uptownsoul They said they weren't raising the price any time soon but some day they will I'm sure. In the shorter term closing the Gold to GPU loophole will see a larger return for them.

@Bleachedsmiles The marketing campaign will also need to market the games, they don't market Netflix or HBO max, they market the shows and movies on them. I think their biggest first-party drop so far is still Halo Infinite. They have to market the Redfall and Starfield for GP.

@Relygon Actually, thinking about it, I found this too… about 2 years back I had the £1 for a month offer offered to me. I was about to, or had just gotten, my series X…so thought, right I’ll do the Gold trick.
Soon as I put on the Gold the £1 offer went away and I had to buy a months GP Instead.
I must have mentally blocked this memory out due to how traumatic it was.

Maybe they already had something in place to recognise what wheeler dealers like ourselves were up to?

I suspect that this is just closing a particular loophole and it will be replaced with a similar value, less exploitable alternative offer in the future.

@Kaloudz Yeah they all do it. I used to think to myself who’s stupid enough to not turn auto renew off when signing for free trials…

Month charges of Paramount and Apple TV later…I’ve concluded I’m stupid enough!

@Wheatly well not me lol. My sub expires end of the year, previously got three years for about 70 which was outrageously cheap.
But even if I don't compare it paying 15 a month instead just seems way too much 🥲

@BrilliantBill Halo would have been the perfect opportunity to market both. Halo used to have the best ad campaigns. Shame.

With rewards I haven't payed for gamepass in over a year anyway.

I’ve gotten game pass quite a few times but never properly paid for it. Free month trial with my one x then another with my elite controller etc. I’ll not be the only one that’s never paid for it.

Eventually most loopholes will likely come to a close, but even at £10.99 or there about, it will still offer me incredible value for money.
With the retail price of two brand new releases at £60-70 per game I can enjoy fantastic indie gems and that's before we even consider the AA, AAA game added. I don't think I'll cancel my sub any time soon 😁.

Damn! I've got 12m+3m+3m of gold ready for my GPU expiring next month. Was planning to do the gold-> GPU conversion trick.

It was nice while it lasted. Last time I did it, it cost a month worth of GP after having the quid deal twice. Will try again when I run out and see what the conversion rate is. Hopefully just another month. If not, can't really complain. But I won't be paying the full sub price, just the odd month here and there when something I wanna play gets added. Cheers for the years MS.

@Captain_Chao5 you still can.

you just pay 1month gpu price instead of 1$

I’d always used this to stack GPU on my one and only account. Stack for 3 years cheap gold and pay a quid and it upgraded the lot for about £3.40 a month.

Loads and loads of people do it.

No way I’ve ever got enough value to pay a £10 a month.

I play too many niche games and same games for too long to pay that sort of money. I knew it would come to an end. It’s been a good run.

I’ll buy Forza and then buy and play the games I want. Not upset it’s over. Makes business sense. I’d expect a dip in numbers as many people using the loop hole will not wanna pay three times the price.

It wasn’t a one time deal you could do three years. It run out and do it again. All for a £1. Just had to stack three years of gold first.

No skin off my back. Once my conversion runs out, I'm letting my Ultimate lapse any way. I'll buy a month of PC Game Pass here and there when it seems beneficial, but I otherwise spend most of my free time playing Genshin Impact, and I'll probably be adding Honkai: Star Rail to the rotation as well. PS+ Extra is absolutely leaving my life when that expires, and Game Pass won't be far behind it. The only subscription I need is Crunchyroll.

@Wheatly oh I get that, and I suppose most people do that.
I rarely buy games day one and the ones that I do (Cyberpunk, Elden Ring, Hogwarts Legacy) will probably take forever to drop on the pass. The last few months have been great though compared to the previous two years so it depends for me.
But having said that if I get the option to upgrade to 3 years for like a hundred I'll go for it.

Good. I'm tired off hearing all the internet arguments that "most people don't even pay for GP they just use the $1 deal, it's all over reddit so most of their customers are doing that."

@SplooshDmg You've been through how many platforms and a monster PC, and in the end you only play mobile games?

@NEStalgia You misunderstand, I need the monster PC to play Genshin in 4K without dropping tons of frames when the absurd elemental bursts start popping off. Plus, Starfield. I bought that PC to play Starfield specifically, and Todd decided to keep delaying it, that's not my fault. If there's anything I don't use it's the PS5. I got GT7 from the library and I hate it, I tried Forbidden West on PS+ and I hate that too. Hopefully FFXVI and Rebirth are actually IMO good.

But I don't only play Genshin, I just mostly play Genshin. I'm being a whole lot more particular with single player games than I have been in the past, because life has changed, and I simply don't have as much disposable time now that I did before. I finally finished Metroid Dread and I'm about to wrap up Pokemon Violet, and I've already got Prime Remastered ready to go. I just have no time for a gaming sub anymore. The type of single player games I like typically just demand more time than I have now, so Genshin is easy because I can play in small bursts at home, or I can play it portably on iPad. The Switch also works well for that. So, that's just what we do these days.

@Kaloudz

making throwaway accounts and riding off the £1 sub via sharing. I suspect next we will see family GP released.

Does not that require the subscribed account to be set as the primary console account? Thought that has a 3 or 5 swap limit a year per console... or is it per account... 🤔

If it's per account I can see that working.

@PsBoxSwitchOwner

Think conversion will go shortly, and a rise to 12-15quid by year end. Potential to reduce rewards too.

I doubt they will increase the cost, but I do expect them to eventually shut down the console-specific tier and only offer Ultimate.

Although they might not need to, they keep adding multiplayer games to the program and those require GPU anyways. Anyone that wants to play CoD on Game Pass beyond the campaign will have to pay for the $15 tier.

Reading the comments, really, I am certain the percentage of people taking advantage of this $1 loophole was minimal. A lot of people in these circles love to over-exaggerate their experience relative to the community size. Gaming is huge, and the masses don't even look at news sites like this ones, much less gaming sub-reddits.

As for me, I am lazy. I first converted 3 years of Live to GPU, but don't care enough to go through any loophole and it just auto-renewed for $15 a month.

Makes sense, though I feel awful for anyone who just bought a bunch of Gold and was horrified to see this was quietly canceled.

I do think this is a precursor to the inevitable GPU price increase (especially after the Activision deal clears) which is going to make some people lose their minds.

@Tharsman imo it will rise. GPU pricing was set before abk merger. all the extra costs associated with it, let alone buying price will need to be recouped. Assuming GP gets the entire back catalogue and day1 thats alot of games to justify an Increase.

obviously we dont know the numbers, but would the margins currently be enough to keep as is? for me i cant see it.

@Cikajovazmaj Depends. If people enjoy Nintendo Game Boy side scrolling, jumping over lava pits quality games, then game pass is for them. If looking to play games created in this decade, game pass is incredibly hard, solid pass. Not worth the price.

I'm wondering if rewards gets tweaked next. I haven't paid a subscription fee for game pass in months. Everything has been covered by rewards every month.

@PsBoxSwitchOwner

, let alone buying price will need to be recouped.

I can understand the doubts on price increasing simply due to the value being too good, but this is not how finance works. The acquisition of the entity itself gives them an asset they valued at that price point, and adds growth to the acquiring entity. Expecting MS to want to get that money back, is like expecting yourself to be forced into renting your car out so you can make back the money you spent when buying it.

MS does not need to make the money back, they need to get growth out of the acquisition.

One thing to keep in mind: publicly traded companies detest having money in the bank. They want every penny to be invested in growth, be it acquisitions, R&D, outside investments, etc. MS has a problem right now, well the last few years, because they were generating more money than they knew what to do with it. They almost spent $40 billion on acquiring Discord!!! You think they expected to make that money back out of nitro subscriptions? No, it would had been all about social media market growth.

I've asked constantly for bulk pricing deal.

As in buy one full year game pass ultimate and it averages out to say $10 a month. They need that to get my business. I would buy full year EVERY year for that price.

I have an Series S, and I was certainly swayed to buy one instead of a Switch on the back of A £1 trial of GPU where I used my phone and a controller. So, for me, they got a decent return on the £1 trial offer, although I stacked via CD Keys via Turkey, so only paid about £70 for three years.

@BAMozzy
https://grammar.yourdictionary.com/punctuation/rules-for-using-single-quotation-marks.html

@themightyant Sounds you are right given their public valuation ended up being $15b. I wonder where I got that $40b number, I recall back then thinking it was a ridiculous amount.

Though one thing to add is that companies like Zenimax and Activision Blizzard King are worth what they are worth in part due to how much they can bring in from sales. Taking games off other platforms would make them worth far less, at least initially, but Microsoft will be hoping for a return in other ways e.g. Growth in Game Pass subscriptions and more market share.

There are some lines where they can take the loss with the expectation that some sale potential simply shift to the platforms as the exclusivities are no longer timed, or as you say, boost Game Pass subscriptions, but there are some volumes that are too hard to just ignore, like CoD.

I expect absolutely everything ABK publishes other than CoD going forward going exclusive to XBox, PC and GamePass, including a hypothetical Diablo 5. Nothing but CoD is big enough to retain everywhere.

A hypothetical Overwatch 3, if it ever happens, would most likely just be a patch to Overwatch 2 so I would expect to see that everywhere.

@themightyant

with the exception of some franchises that will be better served with a larger player base

Honestly, I would not expect much there either. The same could be said about Halo, Gears and Sea of Thieves, but they remain bound to XBox and PC.

Yea, they might have legacy, but this repeated with Redfall, a brand new IP with a heavy focus on Coop and online.

The more time goes on, the less I expect MS to release any MP experiences on PlayStation unless forced by some licensing agreement.

@themightyant Thank-you - that is the way I was 'taught' so - being British myself and over '50', I use them exactly in that way, for emphasis on those words and explained 'many' times before.

I don't 'criticise' anyone's grammar, way they 'choose' to type, how little or how 'much' they type, I respect that they are 'individuals' and have the 'freedom' to contribute to the 'Community' - hopefully in a 'MORE' positive way than @Thumper - thank-fully ignore works well when people don't respect my 'freedom' to hopefully Contribute positively in my 'OWN' unique way as an individual as I try to extend to EVERYONE here...

@themightyant "Depends if you are using American English or British English".

Oh, maybe a little off topic, but thank you for this note!

I didn't know about this (not being a native english speaker myself, but inferred by how @BAMozzy writes). One can learn something new every day, indeed!

BTW, always glad to read the posts from both of you (@themightyant and @BAMozzy)

@uptownsoul I only need 3 more months to extend my membership into 2026. 😄

@themightyant @BAMozzy 'The British do everything wrong' - 'George Washington'

@Tharsman Same. I started in on GP with a discount on buying pre-paid 3 month cards on Amazon in 2018, stacked up 2 years, and then when it expired just upgraded to Ultimate at full price because I wanted cloud streaming.

All good things its time i think we have had a good run.

@grumpypotato wait isn't it what everybody is doing ;P?

Farethewell xbox. Back to storage with you