Make Xbox Game Pass affordable again

Microsoft users are tough. Gamers are tougher.

No one complains more about the direction of a franchise than a customer who just dropped $60 or more on a new PC or Xbox game, only to find it riddled with bugs or a lifeless upgrade.

Both sets of traditionally Microsoft customers are currently heading for the door. Why? They feel betrayed. Microsoft has gutted the loyalty programs designed to keep them happy, lifelong customers. But a new leadership team could right these wrongs by refocusing on two programs that have kept them happy: Xbox Game Pass and Microsoft Rewards.

Here’s what’s going on. In the last few days, Microsoft’s Xbox leadership has shifted, as Asha Sharma has displaced both Phil Spencer and Sarah Bond as the next leaders of the division. Separately, Microsoft has quietly raised the redemption value of its Microsoft Rewards points. The price of “rewards” like gift cards for Amazon, DoorDash, and Xbox have gone up, diluting their value.

The answer, I think, is both obvious and novel: drastically lower the price of Microsoft’s Game Pass subscription services, but only within the Rewards points framework. Why not take your most loyal customers and reward them for engaging with your platform while placing the burden of any price increases on less committed customers?

The solution is right in front of you, Microsoft

If you’re unfamiliar with Microsoft Rewards, it’s Microsoft’s loyalty program that’s been around for years. Search on Bing, earn Rewards points. Play a PC game using Xbox Game Pass, ditto: You can earn more points for playing Game Pass games on subsequent days or playing on PC, the cloud, and more. Even better, it’s totally free.

I’ve argued before that it doesn’t require that much of a commitment, but it’s also true that Microsoft has made it increasingly harder to trade in Rewards points for something useful. Not only have the values gone up, but Rewards points now can only be used to purchase Xbox gift cards for gaming. You can’t trade in Rewards points directly for a Game Pass subscription.

Game Pass today covers both the PC and Xbox. In October, Microsoft also raised the price of Game Pass Ultimate by a whopping 50 percent ($29.99 per month). It has all turned off legions of loyal customers, including PCWorld staffers. (I have points stored up, so I’m still in the program for now.)

Here’s what I would do. First, roll back the decision that prevented Rewards loyalists from buying Game Pass subscriptions directly with Rewards points. That was simply a dumb hurdle that pissed people off.

Secondly, I’d lower the price of Xbox Game Pass subscriptions and dramatically so — but only when redeemed with Rewards points.

Microsoft

There’s nothing wrong with buying goodwill

You can pay for Game Pass and Microsoft’s other gift cards with cash. But the only way that you can earn Rewards points is by interacting with Microsoft services. Yes, “paying” users with Microsoft scrip for searching and playing games and the like is bribery of a sort, but it’s no worse than a big social-media presence buying followers. I’ve gone back and forth about whether I prefer Bing Search over Google and then vice versa, but for most searches they’re pretty close — and Bing has backed down on AI summaries replacing real search results, at least on the web.

Before Microsoft mucked up its Rewards exchange program, you could exchange 35,000 Rewards points for three months of Game Pass Ultimate. Now, 1,000 Rewards points buys you $1 Xbox credit, and Xbox Ultimate costs $29.99 per month, or nearly $90 for a three-month subscription. That’s insane.

Think about this, though, Microsoft. Return to the 35,000-point offer for a three-month Ultimate subscription while keeping the $29.99/mo cash price. I’m not arguing that other gift cards need to be changed. It’s currently 10,500 points for a $10 Amazon gift card, and maybe it’s fine to leave it that way. But reducing the Microsoft point price for a Microsoft subscription sends the correct message, which is that Microsoft will reward Microsoft loyalists.

I mean, let’s face it. Asha Sharma has moved from Microsoft’s Core AI business to Xbox. If there’s any business that understands spending (gobs of) cash to fund users, it’s the AI token business. Allowing Microsoft fans to partake in a little of that for playing games and searching and more just makes sense. And if people whine, “But that makes me use Bing!“– well, they don’t have to.

There’s been talk about whether Sharma is a gamer, or whether the “everything is an Xbox” strategy was a smart idea. No one’s quite sure what a next-gen console might look like, or how it might be priced, with memory and storage in such short supply. Is Xbox just a PC running Windows or something different? All good questions.

New leadership, however, is a chance to right past wrongs. And funneling users back into Xbox while easing the pain on their wallets simply seems like a smart idea.