XBOX has been shutting down a number of its services, leading fans to speculate what will be next.
The company first shut down its £1 ($1) Xbox Game Pass offer, leaving many fans disappointed.
People aare complaining that Games with Gold are unknown games.
Next, Xbox announced a price increase for Xbox Game Pass and the Xbox Series X.
All of the tightening of belts has led many to believe that Xbox is looking for more features to cancel.
Top of the list is Xbox Live Gold, a service that allows people to play multiplayer games online, and gives users a few games to download.
However, these games are often lesser-known titles, and not a large number of users bother downloading them.
For example, the Xbox Games with Gold for July 2023 include survival horror Darkwood, and the story-based When The Past Was Around.
While the quality of these games are sometimes high, the unknown nature of these mean that people often overlook them.
When there are a number of free games given away every day via popular platforms like Epic Games and Steam, it’s easy to pass up on these free offers.
Xbox Live Gold is already included with Xbox Game Pass Ultimate, the more expensive Game Pass tier.
However, it is not available with Xbox Game Pass for Console, as this tier doesn’t allow people to play games online.
Players are speculating that Xbox Live Gold might be completely absorbed by Game Pass Ultimate, making this the only way to purchase the service.
The other change that people believe could happen, is that Xbox Live Gold will continue being a standalone service, but will stop offering Games with Gold.
Either option is disappointing for players. Those who only want to play the monthly free games, don’t want to pay more for the Ultimate subscription.
Also, removing Games with Gold feels like taking away a benefit from players without offering anything in exchange.
Xbox has not announced any plans to remove Xbox Live Gold or Games with Gold, but players are awaiting the next big change.
Written by Georgina Young on behalf of GLHF.
