[theturtletalks]

Exactly, it seems their only way to make money is charging for online play which used to be $5/m and now $10/m for Game Pass Essential. Now that their high console prices aren't getting new players, the only play is to squeeze the existing ones and increasing the cost to play online.

They actually tried this a few months back when Game Pass Ultimate went from $20/m to $30/m. I cancelled my sub and went to essential. Then Asha backtracks and reduces it to $22/m and people are like wow, she will save Xbox. No, it just shows me they probably saw so much churn, especially from long-time subs, that they backtracked.

[hparadiz]

I've always thought it was borderline crazy that Xbox charged a monthly fee and I never had an Xbox for that reason. It always made me wonder how many people they failed to bring into their ecosystem for that reason.

[trymas]

As far as I understand - that fee is not mandatory.

[theturtletalks]

To play online, you do need to pay them. But for local games, no fees after buying the game.