Microsoft reportedly adds a family plan to its Xbox Games Pass subscription service.
The Redmond technology giant is expected to add a new tier to its Xbox Game Pass subscription service, according to sources. It will let up to five players use only one family plan that sources say will be cheaper than the individual services.
According to one such source Windows Central, the Redmond technology giant has been considering the possibility of adding a family plan for quite a while now and appears to be ready to launch it sometime this year.
Sources have told us that the new plan will be cheaper than the accumulative cost of five separate accounts, and Microsoft plans to use Office 365’s family account system to handle it. As for now, no details have surfaced yet on whether there will be separate tiers for console and PC players or if the plan will be exclusive to the highest Xbox Game Pass Ultimate tier, which is available at $14.99/mo.
The company has announced recently that it will cut prices for the Xbox Game Pass starting April 2022. Under the new pricing, the cheapest plan for the Game Pass will start around $4, and the Game Pass Ultimate would cost somewhere around$14, although the new prices have not come into effect as of yet.
Microsoft’s leading rival, Sony, has also announced a similar service to the game pass. It has retooled its PlayStation Plus service into three distinct tiers. The basic tier will stay similar: it gives players the ability to play online, cloud storage, discounts on the store, and lets them download two games to keep every month.
With the PlayStation Plus Extra tier, players will get all the benefits of the basic tier along with an added catalog of 400 PlayStation 4 and 5 games to play that will be a combination of first party and third party titles.
In the Premium tier, even more games will be added, including some returning PlayStation 1 and PlayStation 2 classics, as well as the possibility to stream PlayStation 3 games over the cloud. PlayStation Portable games will also be made part of the Premium tier. This service is set to go live in June this year.