Xbox 'Game Pass Core' Reportedly Replacing Xbox Live Gold This September

What about gamers that buy there games and just want to pay $60 a year to play online? I have like 10 months remaining on Gold as I cancelled GP when Diablo 4 came out cause thats all i will play for the long haul. Unless the RDR1 remake is true and coming soon. Which I doubt soon.

@Tasuki I’m still lost people complaining about FREE games

Give me FREE games

@Deshalu They're not free, though. They're free with a sub. And they disappear without a sub. At least a Game Pass core model would give you access to a rotating list of quality titles instead of a list of indie titles nobody would pay attention to otherwise.

@Deshalu

Free garbage games are still in the end garbage. I applaud the move if true.

All of your previous GwG games will still be in your library. I don't know if it will be permanent or as long as you're subbed but I would assume the latter.

@Thaliard they are free though. Yeah you still have the sub you have to pay for (online). anyway even when you get GamePass if you still read, it’s not free you’re still paying for it at the end of the day though those games are free.

There is a lot of games that came through gold that I wouldn’t have paid for, but I’ve actually been pretty good.

@Arcnail not all the games have been garbage.

Bit of a mouthful of a name, but this was inevitable.

So presumably that means Gamepass Ultimate subscribers will now get less for their money? i.e. no additional monthly Games with Gold as part of their subscription…

@Wheatly they’d kind of have to rotate it at some point. I’m assuming it’s 25 Xbox titles. Like stuff MS owns the IP for.

If there gonna scrap gold make online play free. It help bring the casuals over when Call of Duty becomes an Xbox brand. It would also help shift consoles. I agree with others it kinda de values the more expensive tears. But until its announcement I'll keep an open mind.

@Thaliard GWG games don't dissapear when you unsub though, you own them ...

You keep all the 360 games you have redeemed permanently but Xbox One/S/X redemptions are only playable with a valid sub.

Will be interesting to see what happens.

Now giving zero ganes every month? Even less competitive...
GwG needed a change. But this wasn't the change needed imo

This is not a win.

On PlayStation Plus we get 3 permanent games, often good games.

We already get these “Core” games with our Game Pass Ultimate sub. So this is a DOWNGRADE for Game Pass subscribers not an upgrade.

It was nice having bonus games on top of the Game Pass catalog, they just needed to give away better games. And the Core pack could have been in addition to those games for those on the lower tier.

Remember, this is a multi-billion/trillion dollar corporation…

Goodbye conversion loophole.

And it doesn't seem like a good offering. For a £/$1 less than regular GP you're getting a small(er) handful of games and online multiplayer. And losing the loophole.

@NorthwestEagle "Free games previously acquired with Live Gold will remain with the User's account" - from the leak. Not sure if that is the case when subbed to Game pass Core or it means they will now be on your account regardless

@NorthwestEagle All Xbox 360 games acquired through GWG are owned and don't require an ongoing sub. I would imagine that to play any games from the Xbox One gen onwards will require a sub of some sort to still play going forward, although it would be nice if Xbox just removed that requirement and allowed us to keep them, seeing as GWG is being abolished.

Does beg the question - why not just pay an extra few quid/dollars and get GPU 🤔

Seems worse value compared to Gold but also makes Ultimate worse value at the same time. Can't say I'm surprised though as it is very well documented over the past 15 years that whoever owns CoD ends up being very arrogant and anti-consumer.

Personally I think this probably makes more sense. MS want to keep charging for 'online' play as that is 'essential' for some people so they will Sub at least to the lowest tier - Its why I sub to PS+ Essential because without it, I can't play ALL the content in Games I bought to play 'online'.

Instead of a Couple of 'Indie' games that people complain about time after time after time - despite the fact that these games would cost you more to buy than 1 month of Game Pass, having a small selection of games to play is perhaps 'more enticing'

As a GPU subscriber, it doesn't 'lessen' my Subscription. I may not get 'GwG' anymore but still get the Full Library of GP titles, EA Access, Ability to use GP on PC/Cloud, Perks etc - so losing two games I would never play because I had many 'better' games, better ways to spend my gaming time on Game Pass.

It may well work 'better' too - introduce people to a 'small' selection of what Game Pass has - seems 'older' games - in the hope that they will 'upgrade' to a higher tier to get access to the 'full' GP Library - inc 'New' day 1 releases. Some feel Gold is not worth it for the 'Games with Gold', but having access to a collection of 'great' Games may be more enticing...

@HonestHick why cancel game pass. Just use it and get games on cd keys cheaper.

@Markatron84 - lol, you’re missing the point - all that is being said is that under this new system GPU subscribers will be getting a bit less for their $/£

Yes, GWG is often rubbish, but I’ve enjoyed a few titles that have dropped ‘free’ as part of my GPU sub - Aeero, Hoa, Hue, Iris Fall, Star Wars Racer, Sudden Strike, Truberbrook and the brilliant Portal 2 have all been on my playlist (from GwG in the past 2 years).

Flawed as currently GwG is, no one is ever going to convince me that getting nothing is better than getting something.

@Grumblevolcano it's great news. We don't want gold anymore. Game with gold is daft. Imagine having game pass and live in one. Will be perfect.

@GADG3Tx87 the loop is still active. If you're quick. My friend has his sorted until 2026. Mine is sorted until 2025. The value is still fantastic.

I am a gamepass ultimate subscriber and for me it's a loss of value this news, no more free Games, for the same Price . Maybe the Games were not so good but still I played and enjoyed some of them. Thanks to all who made complaints now we got to pay more for less.

@Feffster I'm not missing any point. I'm also thinking beyond "muuh now we get less" and thinking about how now that Microsoft doesn't have to pay developers and publishers to outright give their games away for nothing, perhaps that frees up that money to improve Game Pass further. But hey, that's just me.

Gold has felt utterly pointless for me ever since they stopped offering the free 360 titles. This actually makes sense. All we ever got with gold for the past few years was just a lame selection of lame titles.

@NorthwestEagle Oops, my bad, it is only that way for Xbox 360 games.... not for all on GWG...

Perhaps Microsoft can improve gamepass now

Another thing that came to mind is that Game Pass doesn't exist on Xbox 360 so is this change a sign that Microsoft is going to fully shut down Xbox 360 like they did in 2010 for the OG Xbox?

@Markatron84 - but that’s not what this story is about, is it? There’s no mention of improvements to the service, just a suggestion that it will be (slightly) diminished.

It’s no biggie, but I think people have a valid reason to point that out, rather than being told to ‘settle down’ by you.

So thing about this is that regular console gamepass is a great deal now because you don't need gold on top of it but GPU is basically getting a price hike because you getting gold included was a big part of the savings. So this better keep the prices locked in for a bunch of years.

Will there still be 12 months time cards available for half the normal price? If not, didn't they just kinda achieve their goal of doubling the price of Gold?

Personally, I think this is a bit of a kick in the teeth to those that support Game Pass and Game Pass Ultimate. Yes, the 'free' games offered were not always superb offerings, but they were at least a bonus. Now, it seems that is you only subscribe to Gold, you are getting no 'free' games, but you are at least getting a library of 25 good quality games to play that you didn't have before, whilst retaining the same price. However, if you subscribe to GP or GPU, you are no longer getting the 'free' games, and as a thank you, you are getting a price hike! Whilst I rarely played the 'free' games, I did at least feel that I was adding to my library, and I did have the opportunity to play them if I wished at any point in time.

Not a fan of this move at all. It seems that those that are keeping Game Pass going are the ones that are getting the smelly end of the stick.

Also, although this is classed as a leak, I often wonder if this sort of 'leak' is not the same as they do in politics whereby the Government allow a 'leak' to see how the public react. If the news is received terribly, the Government can turn round and say the 'leak' was false and it was never their intention. Received well, or little to no reaction, and they can plough right ahead. So I wonder if this is what Microsoft are doing now? 😜

@HonestHick You will probably get a 1:1 transition to this new GP level.

RIP XBOX GWG

I just don’t want to need a subscription to play online.

Eh, I guess I'll take it. I've been meaning to buy some of the games on this list and I'm good with having them free with GPC.

I think the reason that people are unhappy, @Kaloudz, is that despite the Games For Gold being often of lower quality, they were at least something. Now, not only are we not going to be receiving that 'something', but we are going to be paying more for the privilege if you subscribe to either GP or GPU...

This would end the possibility to stack 3 years if gold and upgrade to GP? Ms loving faster than I expected if so

I absolutely understand that, @BrilliantBill, and I think that if you only subscribe to Gold, then Core could potentially be a better deal, and at the same price too (though how much it is worth to you is entirely dependent on whether the games in the list are of interest to you).

The problem I have with it is that those that subscribe to GP or GPU are actually having something taken away from them (the 'free' games) and also having to pay more for the service.

My take: I think some are complaining for the sake of complaining about losing Games with Gold. The selection has been very poor, and honestly, we get better games added to Game Pass regularly. We don't get to keep them permanently, but how many of those games people are happy about "owning" are on a permanent backlog and never played?

My actual issue here is the pricing. Placing everything in a bullet list to make it easier to compare:

• Core: 9.99 - 25 games, online play
• PC: 9.99 - full GP PC library
• XB: 10.99 - full GP XB library, no online play
• Ultimate: 16.99 - full GP PC and XB library, + EA Play games console online play

This is a very non-nonsensical grouping. The value of the Core tier seems to be entirely around online play, and they seem to expect players to just upgrade to Ultimate if they want to play online.

A much more logical tier list, IMO, would be:

• All XBox Game Pass tiers unlock online play
• Core 6.99: only includes first party games **after a year**, no third party games (similar to EA Play)
• XB: 10.99 - full GP XB library
• Ultimate: 16.99 - full GP PC and XB library + EA Play games

@Ep_13 i am sure i will jump back into GP by years end or next year. But i do buy most of my games and use GP as a way to try games i normally wouldn’t have. If i like them i buy them. So with Diablo 4 out. I just decided not to try much for the next 6 months or longer. Diablo 4 is an all time type of game for me. The franchise is a top 3 ever for me. So this could be my game of the generation. So i was clearing out time and extra money for it. I of course still like GP.

@Kaloudz Perhaps we will hear of an additional benefit or perk coming our way?

Careful. That sounds like a very reasonable and level-headed assumption.

@Kaloudz

Perhaps we will hear of an additional benefit or perk coming our way?

Doubt it. It seems they consider that static 25 title list to be the "additional benefit" of the tier. Well that and Gold Deals, I guess.

I would be a bit more forgiving of this change if all xb game pass tiers added online play, but then its even harder to justify $10 a month and just a few games for just $1 less than the basic GP tier.

The scheme is all over the place and honestly makes everything confusing. Each Xbox tier should be a superset of the previous one, for one.

@theduckofdeath yeah thats what i was thinking also. Which will be nice. Well they wanted to double the yearly of Gold and didn’t when gamers and media alike complained. Seems like this was a way of doing it anyways. Haha

How do you get the free games from Amazon, @ChromeMud? I take it they are for the PC? I have a gaming PC, so that's fine, although my preferred place to game is the Xbox...

It's real:

https://news.xbox.com/en-us/2023/07/17/xbox-game-pass-core/

Basically - Gold is replaced by Game Pass Core and 'everything' stays the Same - except that Games with Gold is being 'replaced' by a 'small' selection (25+) games.

For GPU users, of course we 'lose' those 2 games - but get the full list of Game Pass games available on various Platforms (PC, Console & Cloud) as well as the 'Day 1' games, EA Access and 'Perks'.

@Kaloudz Honestly, the entire industry went after MS for the same effective move a couple of years ago. I hope they do again because this is not good value. That Core tier needs a lot of re-evaluating.

@Wheatly they will be adding 2-3 titles per year per the Xbox wire blog . So yeah rotated.

Very helpful, @ChromeMud. Thank you...

@Kaloudz Removed - level-headedness

@Kaloudz I was talking based on the early article that didn’t have any mentions of retaining the yearly $60 bundle discount. I still not crazy about the relative value compared to GP Console, but no longer as concerned.