Microsoft Pulls Xbox Game Pass Trial Ahead Of Starfield Release

It makes sense to have offers when they don't have a plethora of 'big' games coming to encourage people to 'subscribe'. You'd think that games like Starfield, Forza etc would be incentive enough to sign up without 'trial' offers.

Good.

People can make unlimited numbers of accounts based on emails and use these $1 trials every time they want to play a new game.

It’s not all lost though. You can get a month of Starfield for just $17 which is way less than a first party Sony game of $70. And that $17 adds loads of other games on top.

So it’s still a cheap way to play the latest titles. Especially if you get some deals.

Fair decision as far as I'm concerned!

I thought this trial was ending anyway along with the 1:1 gold conversion. Still on the fence about Starfield. I have GPU for another year yet but still to be convinced on this. In a minority I'm sure.

Makes wonder if Xbox regret adding day 1 exclusive. Starfield would maybe become Xbox best selling game, yet in my opinion a huge major gamers will play on Game Pass. I buy my Game Pass £20 for 12 month!! Bargain!!

Makes sense considering the number of big games coming out and how easy it is to just keep creating new accounts to take advantage of the offer considering Game Pass isn't exclusive to consoles. It's the same reason why most companies have stopped free trials/cheap offers.

Game Pass is still a brilliant deal considering the number of day one releases it gets.

Makes total sense. I honestly was expecting the return of the $1 deal to be a “seasonal” thing to encourage growth during slow periods.

UBisoft was doing the same with their UBisoft+, only they put it in their fine print how long their $1 offer would last for (not long enough for the launch of AC: Mirage).

There are things we can accuse MS of being greedy about, but complaining about this $1 deal being only available then there are no strong new titles in the service is a rather entitled take. It’s bad enough that so many whine about not every damned game landing on the service. Now we going to whine that what is basically a free trial isn’t a permanent thing?

@Lightning720 I’m sure eventually that $1 trial will somehow be limited only to the currently logged-in account to stop the infinite $1 renewals. Likely will take some re-engendering of how the console handles authentication, though, reason it has not happened yet.

I understand MS's decision, but maybe they should have done it earlier or something. Optics matter, and removing the trial offer at the same time Starfield hits service just looks "not great" in the eyes of many casuals.
I'll admit they are having a far more complicated problem to crack when it comes to AAA day one releases compared to video streaming services. Where they could make it episodic and introduce delayed seasonal parts, classic SP video games have failed in such format many times. It is the price of being a pioneer, you get to live or die by the rules you yourself make.

@Cikajovazmaj I don't think many casuals would even notice that this deal existed and that it has been removed, and if they did, they wouldn't care. Most would end up just seeing it as a temporary special deal, which is perfectly normal.

As long as i can continue to use my bing points to play for free, doesn’t matter to me. Going in for $0

@Pimpernel That depends on what 'metrics' are more important - sales or Subscriptions - number of gamers playing the game in the 'first' months or sales over that same period etc.

It depends on whether having a 'few' million players who can afford to spend $70 on 'games' versus 20m+ that can play Day 1 and therefore have the 'biggest' launch in terms of Player numbers is 'important'. With a 'lot' of games releasing, some may decide not to purchase Starfield this month or next month, maybe wait until the market slows to 'invest' time and money into a 'massive' game. Therefore it may not 'sell' 5m in the first week, but with Game Pass, they still get 20m+ players. I expect MS to announce that Starfield is the 'biggest' launch game for Bethesda in their history with more players playing Starfield at launch than played any other Bethesda game at launch. Much like Halo or Forza Horizon had their 'biggest' launches in history...

Don't forget that with 25m+ Game Pass members, they receive a 'massive' income every month regardless and that 'income' every month funded those Studios - effectively paying for the development before they release so may not need to 'sell' games to recuperate 'development' costs.

@BAMozzy yeah, maybe. I don’t know which is best, huge sales or huge subs. I know huge subs great but Playstation don’t do day 1 exclusives on PS+ an Playstation make lots more money. I read PS+ has twice many subs as Game Pass at mo so maybe they catch up.

It was never available in my region to begin with, so nothing's changed for me.

@BAMozzy @Pimpernel MS has mostly moved away from the traditional sales model. Starfield is a game that would do great numbers under such a format, but it is also a big and secure investment in a subscription-based model (it will surely boost numbers significantly). I don't doubt Xbox bigwigs have taken that into account as early as when they acquired Bethesda.

@BAMozzy The main issue I have with using number of players as a metric is that without any sort of context to that data it's meaningless. I could download a game and play it for five minutes and decide I don't like it and then delete it. If that five minutes I've played are counted then the results are skewed. If a game is available as part of a subscription service then I am far more likely to download or stream it just to try it out and see if I like it. Now I'm fully aware that I could also do this when I'm buying a game outright too but if I'm paying a premium price for a game then I'm also much more likely to stick with it and maybe end up getting into it than I would if I've downloaded it for no extra cost. Until we start getting figures stating that X amount of players have played for over y amount of hours then number of players played is a worthless figure.

Pretty scummy move to be honest.

@Pimpernel Different business models - Sony rely on Playstation sales to 'boost' their player count and only 'sell' games on Playstation too (day/date) as they are 'sales' focussed and use Sales as their 'metrics'. Want to 'play' Spider-Man 2, well you 'must' buy a PS5 (increasing Sales figures) and 'must' spend $70 to buy the game to play day 1 - they are the ones 'concerned' about Sales figures, having the 'best selling' games/hardware.

MS are more service driven - you don't need to buy an Xbox, don't even need to buy Games. They are 'not' limited to a 'single' Platform (like Sony) as they have PC gamers in the 'MS' ecosystem too and now with 'cloud', are able to reach more people. Want to play Starfield Day 1, well you don't need to buy a Premium Console and spend an additional $70 just to play - you have far more options to play Day 1.

Sony put their games on PC once that game has stopped 'selling' Hardware and barely selling on PS either. Its then 'sold' to those that 'refused' to buy a Playstation to play to effectively 'boost' their Sales figures and put it in their PS+ service to boost Subscriptions once they know it won't affect their 'sales' figures as they are 'Sales' based.

Different business model, different 'ecosystem' (MS's isn't just the Console like Nintendo/Sony ecosystems). PS+ is only for Sony Playstation users, Game Pass isn't 'just' for Xbox console gamers...

@Kevw2006 I have bought games that I haven't yet 'started', got games in 'bundles' I never wanted, started games I bought and hated etc so its no different from Game Pass.

Cyberpunk 2077 had a massive launch with big sales figures, but how many actually stuck with it in the first few months? Every 'sale' adds to the sale figures too - whether you spend $70 at launch or $10 in a sale months later. Sales and 'unique' player numbers are basically the same and neither is indicative of 'Player Engagement' or 'enjoyment'. Feeling 'forced' to push through something you aren't happy with because you spent a lot of money on it doesn't make it 'more' engaging - others may well decide to trade it in and 'add' another sale to a different game instead.

You can release a 'broken' game and still be the best selling game that week - especially with marketing, get your money upfront and not care about players at all.

Neither is a 'perfect' metric, but the point is that different business models may have different metrics that are 'more' important. For Sales, sales numbers are more important than Player counts/engagement because that's what the business model is - Sales. For Service driven businesses, player numbers/engagement is far more important. Being able to say you have 25m+ people that could 'try' your game and, if you've done your job well, will stick around - if not, they'll jump to another 'Game Pass' game so still in the Service, still contributing to 'player' numbers/engagement in other Game Pass games

I'll buy the physical copy second hand in a few months for 20 quid,in the meantime ,game pass it is,fingers crossed it lives up to the hype,if not ,ive got baldurs gate 3 on ps5 to play

People abusing the deal makes it a stupid deal, it's supposed to be a one time thing and that's that. OTOH the optics of just removing existing deals with no warning the moment it becomes valuable is equally bad. XB continues to annihilate their own image.

@Wheatly "MS are clearly rationalising the Xbox brand and are likely fed up of putting money in with pretty poor returns. The money men have decided that Phil's play thing must now start making big bucks!"

The CFO, Amy whatshername basically said so explicitly during the hearings. Corporate is back in control of Xbox and they want it making as much money as Office as fast as possible. IMO corporate is getting in XB's way and they'd be better off spinning it off or selling it off. Phil and Sarah, I think have a solid plan. Not a meteoric money maker but I think they're genuine and have their own plan. But corporate keeps taking over just like back in the old days and telling them how to run things which trades a long-term strategy and its good will for some instant cash instead.

Because they know people won't be talking about Starfeild after 2 weeks, but they'll still have GP at a loss.

@Wheatly according to who?? You... You can only speak for yourself. I've had game pass for three plus years and I pay every month regardless. But they're not going to spend a few hundred million making a game so people can work around it by paying a dollar and open it up numerous accounts and emails. Who else gives you day one games all the time it doesn't make you pay full price for it it just so happens that right now starfield is the biggest game everyone's talking about. They're constantly releasing games on day one for just a subscription price. To some maybe it's not but to me and others it's a good deal. And besides they were supposed to do away with 1$ thing a long time ago people have been talking about this for almost a year. You can't give away a possible g.o.t.y. contender for $1!! That's just bad business and anyone with good business sense would do the same. Also if they're so scummy they're giving anyone with GP the opportunity to own the digital deluxe version for half price! Doesn't sound very scummy to me sounds like a good deal! I paid a little over 30 bucks for the premium upgrade. And since the base game comes with the GP that means for under 50 bucks I got $100 version of the game. Sorry but your logic is flawed here.

@Wheatly it’s Microsoft, owner is Bill Gates? The man squeezed an entire world trying to make as much as he could off vaccines, trying to charge 3rd world countries out the ass for extra doses when they ran out. And when he went to school as a child, learning his craft in computers, he was fully funded by 3rd party wallets and foundations. When he graduated, years later, he turned around and SHUT DOWN, all the programs and avenues he used to get where he is today, so no one else could be like him. This ain’t news, just another day in bill gates’ world

@Microbius people are forgetting who bill gates is.

I want this game to succeed
And guys go check n4g..OMG i never seen a bunch of grown crying babies like on that site everyday they only bad mouth starfield its like a rituel for them ...i hope spiderman 2 will drop soon so they can chill

@Wheatly "Need" ? 😆

I work for a living, so while I've subscribed to Game Pass Ultimate, I still bought Starfield: Premium Edition.

P. S. I have better things to do, that sit around on forums and cry/whine about things I don't like/disagree.

@Missiletow And forgetting he doesn't run it nor has much influence in over 15 years.

Not a fan of Gates in anyway, but it makes me chuckle when people say/think Bill is somehow making all the decisions at M$ that they hate.

@PROPS Gotta say, It's good fun to screw around in forums between game release.

@Telin I hear ya. Maybe 25 years ago, I would have considered it amusing...but now that I'm older and see how toxic the internet has become, I'm going to disagree.

@Fishticon Unless Starfield ends up like FO76(and all "journalistst" and new media tubers walking on eggshells when trying to praise it...which is hilarious) there's no chance it'll suddenly stop being talked about in two weeks, let a few years.

I can respect those who aren't fans of BGS games, but their games have a long shelf life. People still discuss Daggerfall up to FO4.

I'm skeptical that SF will be "the most polished" game, but if it is anywhere near similar to Elder Scrolls or Fallout..it'll be talked about for decades.

@NEStalgia Corporate may indeed turn MS into the next Sega. Or the next game company that sells all their IPs...or holes them in the dusty closet for the foreseeable future.

@tallythwack Patience will continue to be the best defense and offense as a gamer.

@Telin his company. His belief system. To say he doesn’t make decisions is heavily ignorant hahahahaha. And for the record, I agree with this decision of game pass, what company wouldn’t do that?! They’re not going to give away a decades in the making long game for 1$😂. Especially one from Bethesda. I’m merely stating, why is anyone surprised a well practiced capitalist founded company, is doing capitalist things. But hey, reactionary comments are king online I get it.

The only thing I thought is they might do a Series x promotion, say £399.99 for Starfield week, to up console numbers and maybe get some more Gamepass subscribers.
I mean the PS5 disc is down to £399.99 until the 7th of September, the second time they have done this recently.
I know different companies different aims but it would probably give the series x and gamepass subscribers a good push upwards.

Not any different than what Ubisoft did before Mirage - offering deals to lure you in before anything special is available.

@Wheatly even after your lengthy explanation you're still wrong. I did get it half price I didn't do what they wanted me to do if you had read what I had said I've been paying for it for 3 years regardless of starfield was coming or not so they didn't dupe me into anything. In case you're unaware. This is how video games work you pay for extra content people just don't give you premium and deluxe editions on a subscription service. And on the base version I still got the old Mars skin pack and a bunch of other skins with it. I paid cuz I want to play five days early cuz I'm excited for the game if you think that's dumb that's fine I don't again it's all subjective. If you don't want to pay for GP don't. If you want to play starfield then go ahead and pay more money that's on you. If you don't want to play at all then don't. I'm only refuting that you think that they should just give you everything for damn near nothing. You call an anti-consumer I call it business this is America! The fact that you think it's anti-consumer cuz they aren't giving away game pass for a dollar it's ludicrous it's super consumer friendly that they've been doing this for years and years on end.maybe they're tired of just giving away their subscription service to people for a dollar a month for years on end now. The video game welfare is up. pay for the service or don't use the service simple as that. I chose to pay cuz to me it's worth it to play 5 days early and for the future DLC. You can't realistically expect them to just let everyone have their subscription for a dollar a month forever? But then again you clearly do. I'm not sure where you get that entitlement from but the jigs up pay up or play something else

Microsoft are in a very strange position right now.

Every Xbox fan championed them as pro consumer. That is just ebbing away.

They can’t shift consoles, can’t hit any sort of GP growth (neither can Sony). So it’s a strange move to put prices up.

Just feels like the up aboves are trying to pull as much cash out of Xbox as much as possible recently.

I have no interest in Starfield, while my Game Pass runs through next April. Maybe Microsoft should pay me $1 per month until then 😆.

Shock as a business decides to address glaring hole in revenue streams.
Tribal snark and narrative peddling ensue unabated as expected.
Can't think of any example of a business increasing prices in the social media age where loyal customers took it well, nor do I recall a time where there wasn't a barrage of riding the outrage pony until its hooves bled from fans of the other console.

@Kaloudz totally right xbox needs to be like microsoft in 90s and they need a CEO as aggressive as bill gates before (go check his history....he was a villain that destroy everything to acheive his goals including betreying his old friend (that was sick with cancer) ! I know bill gates now is the nice guy but your allowed to be nice only if your at the top! Not on rock bottom Mr. Phill!!!

@PsBoxSwitchOwner Microsoft expected to already own Activision by now so the plan was probably that all these anti-consumer decisions would be forgotten about in the midst of Activision games coming to Game Pass.

But then the acquisition was delayed long enough that Xbox players can see all the anti-consumer moves Microsoft are making. The CMA are doing Xbox players a huge favour by dragging out the Activision acquisition.

@NEStalgia agreed, the CEO of MS said his plan is to double the revenue of Xbox by 2030. So they have their eyes on the platform and it’s about making money in a big way. On one hand i don’t like the sound of that, on the other hand i do cause that means Xbox as a platform is alive and well. Time will tell how it plays out.

A year of Gamepass with the gold conversion method is still a whole load of bang for your buck with Activision games soon to join along with this.

@Netret0120
As you can see, you'll now need to purchase around 18 months of Xbox Live Gold to convert it to 12 months of Xbox Game Pass Ultimate

The conversion rates changes for every 3 months of gold now convert to 2 months of Ultimate.

Really bad timing on this they should have not made it as obvious as they have 😂

Not great from MS.

@ZuneTattooGuy

Still cheaper than buying 12 months of gamepass up front. Just checked and I am seeing 18 months of Xbox live for £60

£60 for a year of gamepass ultimate is a steal even at the 3:2 conversion.

@HonestHick Nah, nothing to like the sound of, a focus on revenue like that means going the EA, 2K, route. Or more specifically the Activision route. They even have ABK itself to lean on.

TBH between Sony going all "lifestyle brand" and Microsoft going this route, I think I'm leaning back toward leech Nintendo. The fun likable vibe of XB is heading back into Matrick territory. Not Phil's fault but MS corporate is back in control just like the Balmer era.

@NEStalgia good ole Balmer. The greatest gift to Apple ever imaginable. I will have to wait to see how it turns out. Sony would be much higher this gen on my list if their controller didn’t make my thumbs hurt. Xbox for me just needs lot’s more games. Nintendo will always been one of my favorites, however they just have such performance issues and lack of 3rd party that i want. Honestly seems like even tho i own all 3 i don’t have that 1 system that really speaks to me, at least yet. I don’t have a PC or a Steam deck so i can’t speak to those. Gaming is just in a weird space.

@HonestHick Yeah, I mean last few gens I was super into it, but especially 3DS hit a huge sweet spot. I was super into Switch when it launched, but that interest waned quickly, and while it's come back, it never quite hit that 3DS holy grail spot. Then when X1X launched I was all into it. And that carried into XSX. But MS has managed to annihilate much of my enthusiasm. It feels like they have 150% changed course from where they were in 2018-2020 and gone back to where they were in 2013. It's a practical platform but it's not exciting me, and Phil just seems like a corporate lackey at this point, not his own choice, but they've finally boxed him in and killed his spirit like when he walked onto Matrick's stage to go on about how great TV is. PS....Jim took the PS out of PS. Now they make movies, TV shows, earbuds, breakfast cerial, and now have bout a boutique hifi company I previously liked. Why is a video game company buying boutique hifi companies and making movies while offering handfuls of games here and there?

So....Xbox lost its shine, PS's glossy black plastic's shine is scuffed beyond repair, and Nintendo is a trip back to 2011. TBH 2011 was a whole lot better than any time that will ever come after it, so that's probably the ideal sweet spot. I'm finding overall I'm just spending a whole lot less time playing games in general. I'm still working on P5R since May, plus a little Pikmin 4 on the side, and haven't even touched TotK past the early parts. It's not grabbing me like BotW did for some reason, but the same happened with TP on Wii and then it became one of my favorites when remastered on WiiU. TotK just seems to emphasize the busy work more. Kind of like ACNH. I guess kids these days like tedious busy work?

Discontinuing the 1€/$ trial doesn't really make sense to me. Starfield is such a massive game that nobody outside of professional reviewers and a few diehards will be able to finish it within two weeks. On the other hand, dipping your toes into Starfield for free for two weeks might convince people to want to keep playing and subscribe to GP outright.

@NEStalgia not sure kid’s like work in general these days. But they do like Snoop dog in their war shooters. If that don’t say where the industry is, i don’t know what does. For me nothing beats the Xbox 360 that was by far my favorite console and time in gaming. Age and money plays a part in some of these takes. Nintendo had me hooked on GameCube. I had 2 consoles a Black and Silver. Almost every color controller and i just loved the games they had. As for PlayStation, i really enjoyed PS1 and PS2 cause it filled such a gap in the industry. It brought games that just weren’t anywhere else to play. Sure i hated the controllers but then also. But it was such a needed console that i enjoyed those best. Since PS3, i just own one to have one for a few exclusives. I am excited for the upcoming Switch 2 or whatever it’s called. But i am more excited to just learn more about it than maybe what it will do for me personally. It could easily just be my Mario Kart and Mario machine only. Xbox Series X i am just not sure what i even want from it other than ID’s next game and Gears. There’s just not much for me to play other than my 270 hours in Diablo 4. Without D4 i might not even go into my media room that i so badly told my wife we had to have 🙄

Bit of an obvious move from Microsoft. If you don't like it however, move along...
Regatdless, there seems to be more pressure from the top to trim out the freebies the Xbox division offered.

@Kaloudz google it he tried to cut him down wheb he got cancer,MS was a true treat to the conpitition they slowed down other browsers on windows and dried out many compitition

Bill gates was playing game of thrones and thats how he made one of the top 3 companies in the world and became the richest man alive at the time before he turned good and got to the point were he start doing charity and all

@HonestHick Kids like Snoop dog? Isn't that dude even older than us? I thought he was a forgotten 90's star that's kept around for meme-worthiness like Chuck Norris?

I'm not sure what to think of today's kids if then. They don't even have bad modern celebrity idols, they just borrowed the bad celebrity idols from our time or before and run with it? Is Johnny Cash the new cool for the tykes?

Yeah, I mean Xbox is still a perfectly practical get-around-nuketown daily driver, a very functional tool for video game tasks. Like an HP Pavilion i5 for gaming. Nothing sexy, nothing exciting, but gets the job done more practically than a Macbook (I jest ) but....the cool "brand" and fun buzz Phil spent 2-3 years building up feels like in the past year it just took a nosedive. Xbox went from the edgy punk platform to being integrated with Office364. Went from mohawks and piercings to a polo shirt and dockers. Phil didn't do that. Corporate did that, showing they never really let Phil run his division his way after all, it needs to all be under "the Microsoft Way".

I don't do lifestyle brands. Apple. Bose. The whole lifestyle brand thing is an instant turn off to me. Sony went "lifestyle", Microsoft went bland and utilitarian. Nintendo does fun for double the price and half the quality. Gaming is very very bleak right now. I do find I'm spending a lot more time doing other things and less gaming right now.

@NEStalgia well Snoop dog is in modern warfare is all i seen, and yes he is older than us. Richer but older HAHA

Yeah i can’t find any fault in your logic. It makes sense to me. I just wish Xbox would go all in and do something big again thats not buying ABK, even tho i do approve of that move and will be glad when it’s over. Maybe once they get all those IP’s and have a chance to settle in they can surprise us, but i ain’t holding my breathe and don’t expect you to hold yours. Apple is my lifestyle brand cause that was their roadmap to success and it works for them. They made it work. Sony is merely trying to grab as much money of their race horse as they can. They don’t make artsy video games any more and could care less about us fans that want Sly Cooper. Those days are long gone and i agree Nintendo is cool and all, but the price to performance you get with them is questionable at best. How come you can say these things and make it make sense but when i do it, i get the PUSH Square Bullies attacking me? HAHA and yes if not for Diablo 4 i wouldn’t be gaming much these last 2 months as i previously said, so i understand your situation.

@Wheatly It's a game. Saying you need it sounds pathetic.

@Missiletow

He isn't involved in anything remotely close to calling any shots. And he most certainly isn't deciding if a game pass trial is ended or not.

There's a board and CEO and shareholders. It's a corporation. End of story.

@HonestHick If Snoop is cool at his age with the kid's we must be rad groovy!

Yeah I approve of abk but not that it's taken over Xbox as the reason for Xbox. Activision sucks. I don't want an Activision console 😂

Thing with Apple is they WERE a lifestyle product. They still retain the image. But in key categories they're actually a value leader. iPads. $99 iPhones. That's they're secret. They're a mass market low margin product disguised in lifestyle brand marketing. Sony wants to be high margin lifestyle without substance. Like Bose.

Lol because the worst push people already blocked me so only the generally sensible people remain . Most there are really sensible. But the obnoxious ones are so loud.

@NEStalgia so you’re saying i need to get blocked is what I’m hearing haha. Most people there are ok, just the ones that think Sony is their dad i have a few issues with. Apple has their ecosystem rocking for the most part. There’s some holes I’d like to see fixed or expanded on. But overall i am happy with my devices. Sony is an arrogant company still with little market share in anything outside of PS. Good luck with them becoming much more than what they are. I just seen a report today that Apple isn’t using Sony for Micro Led cause Sony wasn’t able to meet and commit to the yields Apple wants. Sony lives in their minds like it’s the 80’s again and they are a first thought of electronics company.