How much should Game Pass Ultimate really cost, the community has it very clear

Players have a clear deadline for paying for Xbox Game Pass.

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There are questions that blow up a forum… and this is one of them: if Game Pass Ultimate is now worth $30 (slightly less in euros), what would be a “fair” price? The short answer is that many people have already set their limit, and it’s not exactly high.

The curious thing is that it’s not just about the price. In the messages, a feeling that has been growing for months is repeated: the service has gone from being a “steal” to becoming a “luxury that no longer fits what it offers“. And when that happens, the conversation explodes.

The comments make it clear that players have started doing the math. And, for the first time since Game Pass exists, many have decided that it’s no longer worth keeping their subscription continuously.

The breaking point: $20 seems to be the psychological boundary

In the debate, dozens of users agree on a single figure: $20. That would be the price at which they wouldn’t think twice about keeping the service or not. Below that, many say they would stay calm.
Above that, problems start.

• Some express it simply: at $30, “I’m not paying for access; I’m paying for games I might not even play”. And that’s the shock: before Game Pass was a “yes, automatic“, now it’s a monthly decision.

Others point out something interesting: Game Pass is no longer essential if you don’t want to play everything on the day of release. Many prefer to buy the games they’re really interested in and wait for deals.
In many cases, buying a title on sale is cheaper than several months of Ultimate.

A constant pattern also emerges:

Players who converted from Gold to Ultimate for years are now used to paying $5-10 per month, and the increase to $30 seems directly unaffordable to them.

For many, Game Pass Ultimate has lost its “edge”

Several clear reasons why people cancel:

• They don’t play enough to justify such an expensive service.

• Multiplayer no longer depends on Ultimate, so many downgrade to Core.

• First-party games with patches, games that don’t always arrive in shape, or titles they already own.

• Added content like Fortnite Crew or Ubisoft+ that a large part of the community doesn’t use.

• Repeated price increases without proportional improvement.

Some users even say that they’re playing more on Steam, or buying physical copies, because they feel that “what they have is theirs“. The debate about digital ownership comes up again.

How much would they pay… really?

If we reduce hundreds of comments to a realistic scale, the thermometer looks like this:

• $15 → many people would return without hesitation.

• $20 → acceptable figure, but with nuances.

• $30 → limit for most; many have already canceled.

• $0-10 → price seen as “perfect”, but considered unrealistic today.

The most striking thing is a comment repeated several times:

It’s not that I couldn’t pay it, it’s that I no longer feel it’s worth what it costs.

That’s the real problem.

It’s not just the price, it’s the perception

Game Pass was born as an irresistible service. A proposal that made you feel like you were always winning. And that feeling was powerful. Today, a significant part of the players feels just the opposite:
That they pay too much for something they use little, or that no longer gives them the same value.

Can Microsoft recover that magic? Yes. They have studies, catalog, and muscle to spare. But for many players, the price needs to realign with the reality of their daily lives. The final question, the one that sums up the entire conversation, is simple and almost universal:

At what point does it stop being a service… and become an expense?

And that, for better or worse, is not decided by Microsoft: it’s decided by each player in front of their console.