After raising prices twice for the Xbox console, Microsoft is also increasing the monthly cost for Xbox Game Pass Ultimate from $19.99 to $29.99 per month. The company is spinning the 50% price increase for the Ultimate tier as an upgrade. It also quietly increased the PC-only Game Pass plan from $11.99 to $16.49 per month.

Microsoft has announced Wave 2 of its Xbox Game Pass October 2025 lineup, fleshing out the rest of this month’s titles.

Xbox Game Pass has five new day-one games this week across Xbox Series X and PC, including one of October's biggest releases.

That means the price of a Game Pass Ultimate membership has nearly doubled in 15 months. Microsoft previously raised the price from $17 to $20 in July 2024. The latest change now means that, at $360 per year, Game Pass Ultimate is now more than twice as expensive as PlayStation Plus Premium, which is currently $160 on an annual plan.

Last July, Microsoft raised the price of Xbox Game Pass Ultimate from $16.99 to $19.99 per month in the U.S., with similar increases in other markets, and the recent 50-percent hike will now see Ultimate subscribers pay an additional $120 annually.

In the coming months, Microsoft will reportedly launch a free version of Xbox cloud game streaming that will likely play a pre-roll ad lasting two minutes and sessions lasting up to one hour.

Starting today, Xbox Game Pass Ultimate and PC Game Pass subscribers can check out the game, which will allow them to traverse a fantasy land and build expand castle.

The last 12 months have been pretty depressing for anyone invested in the long-term future of Xbox and the general health of the games industry. Back in May, Microsoft laid off 3 percent of its global workforce,