Journalist Jeff Grubb has reiterated on his GrubbSnax show – a part of Giant Bomb – that Microsoft is still planning on getting rid of Xbox Live Gold in the future.
Grubb reiterated claims he made last year, after he originally stated that since Halo Infinite’s multiplayer component went free to play, Xbox Live Gold leaving would make sense.
He said (thanks, VGC): “I just wanted to reiterate, Xbox Live Gold is still on a board somewhere saying ‘this is going to go away at some point’.” He added “Whether or not they’re actively talking about it right now, I don’t know, but they still have it on a roadmap saying ‘Xbox Live Gold will be dropped at some point in the future’.”
The main reason Grubb gave for Microsoft not dropping Live Gold as of now is due to the fact it wants to keep growing Game Pass.
“[Dropping Gold] might take years, because the focus right now still very much is getting Game Pass into a very healthy position.”
“So Microsoft’s just kind of [keeping their] heads down on getting user acquisition, and that means ‘Xbox Live will go away but we need to get to a certain threshold with Game Pass before we can make that choice and unplug that revenue source because we have enough coming from something else’.”
Grubb thinks that Xbox want to get Game Pass to around 40 to 50million subscribers. The service was last reported to be at around 23million in April of this year by Jez Cordon, with expectations that it will hit 30million by Halo Infinite’s launch this holiday season, according to Forbes.
Microsoft walked back the price changes to Xbox Live Gold at the start of this year, where six months of Xbox Live Gold would have gone from £29.99 to £42.99.
In other news, Xbox and Bethesda have donated money to an animal shelter to honour River, the dog responsible for inspiring the design and characteristics of Fallout 4’s Dogmeat.
