Almost a year ago now, Microsoft began public testing for an Xbox Game Pass 'Friends & Family' plan in a few select countries, before rolling the preview program out to more regions earlier this year. Well, rather abruptly, the team has announced that the preview is closing down for now as Xbox "investigates" what's next for the program.
This news comes by way of Spitfire_Spud on Twitter, who posted a message they'd received about their participation in the Game Pass Friends & Family preview:
"Thank you for participating in the Xbox Game Pass Friends & Family preview program. It has been incredible seeing our Game Pass Ultimate members share the fun of Game Pass with their friends and family. On 15 August 2023, we will be ending the preview as we look to take the learnings from the past several months and investigate building an offer which we can launch worldwide in the future."
We assumed this new Game Pass plan would continue rolling out globally before eventually leaving preview and becoming available to everyone, but alas, it looks like Microsoft feels the program needs more work before it sees the full light of day. We'll keep our eye out for any further news on this surprising move from Microsoft.
What do you make of this message? Did you hope to move onto this plan if it launched publicly? Let us know down below!
Comments 11
This is incredibly disappointing and I can only imagine the program is "closing" — permanently, I'd guess — because it isn't financially viable or lucrative enough.
Needs more work = we leave ABK now and don’t need to offer generous incentives for people to sub to GP anymore we hope
Shame as it seemed good, I would guess it’s no longer financially viable as the rest is increasing in price.
The family plan was actually one if the very few ways they were going to get me to resubscribe to gamepass.
Hopefully this is just a sign of tweaking things for final roll out.
Is it surprising that a preview ends? They gathered the data they wanted and now will decide what to do with Game Pass. It's likely that they will release several tiers covering PC, console, cloud and mobile. Microsoft Solitaire is a mobile title that goes from free-to-play to premium with Game Pass. Remember that Microsoft is getting Candy Crush. They also have to decide what to do with online gaming and Gold.
I was really looking forward to taking advantage of this so the 4 of us in my family could all use Game Pass on the same plan instead of me being kicked off when trying to remote play whilst the wife or kids start playing.
@Moonglow I do use microsoft rewards. I only use them on gift cards to buy games though. As is I'm nearly to the amount needed to buy Starfield.
Not worth going through the effort of getting all the points for something temporary like gamepass IMO.
@Moonglow it's more than doable to get a monthly sub every month. ~5 mins a day will net enough points for GPU with very very minimal effort (maybe region specific not sure). I usually end up getting a $5 Amazon gift card too after getting enough for GPU every month.
Definitely not the best news, was really hoping the family plan would be out by now. Hopefully we don't have to wait too much longer
@Moonglow That's why I think that they will get rid of Gold but they have to decide what to do with online gaming, free or included with every Game Pass tier? They need to bring tiers for PC, console, cloud, downloaded mobile games and the combos. They should make it simple and getting rid of Gold may help.
@Moonglow If they make it free, Xbox would be the only console to have free online gaming while offering the best servers but online gaming is free on Windows and Play Anywhere games are cross-buy between them, so it makes sense. I also think than it will increase the number of Game Pass subscribers. If they get rid of the Games with Gold but we don't have to pay for online gaming, more of us will pay for Game Pass. I think that the Xbox One Games with Gold we already have will still be available as long as you are subscribed to Game Pass.
@Moonglow I had game pass ultimate as a reward goal on my phone app. But when I last checked, that goal was left empty. When I went to select a goal, only game pass PC was available for purchase with reward points. Ultimate is no longer there and no console version. Tho I only checked the rewards using the phone app and not directly on xbox. I'll check the rewards on xbox next time I'm on it tho.
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