An absolutely loaded game subscription service
Xbox Game Pass is a subscription service that provides access to a sizable game library for both Xbox consoles and Windows PCs. For a monthly fee, you can play hundreds of titles on your platform of choice. It’s an appealing service that becomes even more tempting the more you’re willing to pay, with its flagship Xbox Game Pass Ultimate membership tier providing incredible value and numerous benefits, including cloud-based game streaming across multiple devices. That’s enough to earn Xbox Game Pass Ultimate our Editors’ Choice award for gaming streaming services.Prices: The Best Game Pass Plan Is Now $10 More Expensive
Xbox Game Pass has four tiers, three of which include games for Xbox Series X/S, Xbox One, and Windows. More importantly, two tiers recently received price hikes: Xbox Game Pass Ultimate and Xbox Game Pass PC. Below, I break down the games and features included with each plan.
The Essential base plan ($9.99 per month) comes with more than 50 games and lets you stream select titles to compatible devices. The Premium tier ($14.99 per month) includes more than 200 games, and you can play recent Microsoft-published games within 12 months of their release. It also features shorter queue wait times when cloud gaming. The Ultimate tier (now $29.99 per month, up from $19.99 per month) features more than 500 games, including EA Play and Ubisoft+ Classics titles.
In addition, you’ll enjoy Microsoft releases on day one, plus the best game streaming quality. These three tiers enable online multiplayer on Xbox consoles (online gaming on PC is, as always, free), and include discounts on individual game purchases.
The Essential and Premium memberships are priced the same as the Essential and Extra memberships for PlayStation Plus, but the included game streaming puts them a step ahead of Sony’s subscription service. Xbox Game Pass Ultimate is significantly more expensive than PlayStation Plus Premium ($17.99 per month), and unlike Sony, Xbox doesn’t give you a discount for three-month or 12-month subscriptions.
The fourth plan is the PC-only Game Pass (now $16.49 per month, up from $11.99 per month).
