New Friends and Family plan adds tremendous value to Game Pass

Microsoft's Xbox Game Pass already has tremendous value with content. Now it's getting even more value through savings and discounts.

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There's two ways to add value to a subscription service: Content and savings. Xbox Game Pass Ultimate has become exponentially more valuable over time with the sheer volume of content that it offers (over 440 games to date, with more on the way), but now Microsoft is adding more icing on the cake with its new shared family subscription options.

Microsoft is rolling out its new Xbox Game Pass Friends and Family subscription tier that offers up to five people access to Xbox Game Pass Ultimate for just $22 a month. For reference, a normal Game Pass Ultimate subscription is $14.99 for one user, so upgrading seems like a no-brainer, especially if you have just one extra friend who's willing to chip in (let alone four). This new tier will tremendously benefit consumers and help onboard more subscribers, boost possible monetization and game sales, and overall inflate Microsoft's internally-tracked KPIs.

One membership, five individual accounts

Add up to four friends and family members, whether they live under the same roof or not.* Each person uses their own account and Xbox profile to save their games, track their achievements, and receive personalised recommendations.

Play together or separately

Share a library of hundreds of high-quality console and PC games, with new games added all the time. Everyone can play at the same time, even play the same game, or play online multiplayer games together.

Play on your devices

No console? No problem. Just connect a controller to a compatible cloud gaming device.

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Xbox's revenues have risen steadily since Game Pass was released in 2017.

The old adage "the more the merrier" is extremely apt for Microsoft's Game Pass service--the company wants to use it to take over gaming and serve as the main framework for its inter-connected, multi-platform digital online entertainment empire. And so far it has worked; Game Pass has transformed Microsoft's business and materially contributed to record-setting revenues for many years now.

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Xbox Game Pass subscribers from 2020 - 2022.

Microsoft's willingness to leave money on the table is somewhat rare in this day and age, especially with the likes of multi-billion companies like Netflix cracking down on password sharing. Nintendo also offers its own family plan for Nintendo Switch Online for $79.99 per year as compared to $49.99 a year for a single user.

PlayStation Plus also has built-in family sharing by default.