From PC World: Xbox Game Pass is getting a lot more expensive—up to 50 percent more expensive for the all-you-can-eat Ultimate tier—which is a problem for a service that appeals to players based on its relative affordability. It looks like Brad Chacos isn’t the only one cancelling before the higher prices hit, as the Game Pass website is straining under increased traffic.
Yesterday, posters on the Xbox subreddit noticed that when they tried to cancel their Game Pass subscriptions, they were met with errors on the Microsoft My Access website where you manage your various Microsoft-associated accounts. Apparently, a considerable number of users found themselves unable to cancel Game Pass, met with this message: “We couldn’t load your subscriptions. Refresh and we’ll try again.”
The Reddit post (spotted by Windows Central) implies that Microsoft is blocking people from cancelling their subscriptions. That seems unlikely to me. With Hanlon’s Razor in full effect, I’d say it’s more likely that the news of the price increase just nudged a lot of people to do some quick budgeting match and drop the sub. (Netflix, Disney+, HBO Max, et al. are probably used to the same dips by now.) Perhaps it’s unsurprising that a 50 percent jump—from $20/month to $30/month for the most popular tier—would cause a rush to leave the service… but the idea that it would overload Microsoft of all companies is a bit telling.
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