Read more from Author Rachel Maga here: https://globelivemedia.com/author/rachel-maga/

In order to encourage players to subscribe to Xbox Game Pass Ultimate, the American publisher Microsoft had decided to revise the price of Xbox Live Gold upwards, but the announcement quickly turned into a monumental fiasco. .

For a few hours, the Redmond firm believed it could calmly swallow the pill to its fans concerning the increase in the price of Xbox Live Gold (monthly subscription which goes from 9.99 to 10.99 dollars, quarterly subscription which goes from 24.99 to 29.99 euros and semi-annual subscription which goes from 39.99 to 59.99 dollars) while last year a crazy rumor claimed that the online service of Xbox consoles would become completely free: “Since we launched Xbox Live, we’ve been working on making it the most advanced multiplayer network on the market, for the largest community of gamers – and there are many of you. Millions of people come together on Xbox to play with friends and experience great games. We invest in our community by strengthening the digital security of our players, enabling new ways to share, communicate and play with your friends, and by providing industry-leading reliability on our network. Periodically, we evaluate the value and price of our services to reflect changes in regional markets and to continue to invest in the Xbox community. We will therefore adjust the prices of Xbox Live Gold in certain markets. In many markets, the price of Xbox Live Gold hasn’t changed for years, and in some markets, it hasn’t changed for over 10 years.”

Faced with the bad buzz, Microsoft is backing down

As usual, the American publisher Microsoft initiated yet another backpedal following the extremely negative reaction of fans of the brand to the green X after the officialization of the increase in the price of the Xbox Live Gold subscription. To be forgiven, in addition to the amount that does not change, free-to-play will finally become playable by all in order to align with the competition after years of doing nothing: “We made a mistake today and you were right to let us know. Connecting and playing with friends is an essential part of the game and we haven’t met the expectations of the players who rely on us every day. As a result, we have decided not to change the price of Xbox Live Gold. We’re turning this moment into an opportunity to make Xbox Live more in line with how we see the gamer at the center of their experience. For free games, you will no longer need an Xbox Live Gold membership to play them on Xbox. We are working to implement this change as soon as possible in the coming months.”

Categorized in:

Technology

Tagged in:

,