Xbox might be dead..

So basically Xbox decided to shoot itself in the foot. This is the first time it's happened this month.

I used to love Xbox, man. What happened to the game I used to love? What it has become...

Oh, I love how you say that. What happened to the game that I used to love? Charlie, did you love Xbox or did you love Halo and Gears of War? Because both of the main flagship franchises that made Xbox Xbox are fucking dead.

Is just embarrassing. Every step of the way they're finding new lows to hit. Today Xbox has announced a Game Pass change and it's a doozy. Try a 50% price increase to the Game Pass Ultimate tier.

Yeah.

And I think also it's locking the day one- I think locking day one games to that Ultimate tier is the real thing that's problematic because that's the inshittification that Prime Video and Netflix have already gone through and we are very familiar with. It is revolting. It's going about as well as me in a dunk competition. They have increased the price to $30 a month for the ultimate tier and the two previous tiers for essential and premium are just not worth it. The ultimate tier is the only one that lets you get the game day one. And for a large number of people that was one of the main draws of the service here.

It was a great draw and I simped for game pass so many times. I always said game pass was great. Now they've increased it by 50%. Would I still recommend using game pass? I don't know what other people's finances are. It's hard really for me to say,

but I think $30 for a service like that is really, really, really high. And I think it's too high. You know the Xbox catalog has been like a fucking Magikarp over the last few years, just extremely weak. The value you got out of Game Pass at the previous price point made up for it, like it was worth it. It's something that I glazed quite a bit. But now... Okay, alright, see I'm not the only one. Alright, good.

Price point... the fuck is the point in keeping it anymore? It's just not worth it. And a lot of people are now cancelling their subscription to Game Pass in response to these price increases. It's just L after L for Xbox. Like even just recently they farted out a new price increase for the consoles. I forgot all about that. I was- because I was AFK then. And so like I didn't even remember that. Yes, they increased the price and Playstation did the same thing. I forgot all about this. Time period where Xboxes are like fucking fossils. Like you can't give those bitches away sometimes.

It's a console that doesn't have a whole lot of reasons to buy it unless your friends are already on it. But chances are your friends have already moved past it because being an Xbox fan in 2025 is like being a fidget spinner enthusiast. It's just not cool. It's lame.

Like it is so...

I think that it's like being a fan of Xbox. What is that kind of like nowadays? Oh man. I don't know. I'd really have to think about it. Because it's just like, I think Xbox as a brand, you know, it's like being a fan of World of Warcraft. Oh, you remember back whenever we had Xbox Live and everything was good and it was 20 yeah I remember that.

Those were the days. And it brings me no joy saying that by the way, as I've always proudly stated Xbox and Xbox 360 have been my favorite gaming experiences Those two consoles I think are the most important pieces of like gaming hardware ever made

I totally disagree with Charlie on this I think that Xbox and the Xbox 360 were successful purely by the nature of the games that they provided, and not by the nature of the consoles themselves. I think whenever you look at the individual hardware, the PlayStation 2 is vastly superior to the Xbox, and the PlayStation 3 is vastly superior to the Xbox 360.

And I think that looking at the game offerings that a console has, yes, obviously this is innate to the console, but the Xbox 360 fuckin' had the red ring of death. The PlayStation 3 never had anything like that as far as I know. It's debatable? Well, I'm saying that like if you include video games it like the game if you include exclusive games I think his argument is accurate if you look at the hardware in itself I think PlayStation has been ahead of the ball ahead of the curve, and I think also in that same generation

Or the 360 generation. I think the the Nintendo Wii is the second most successful console of all time behind the PlayStation 2. That's my opinion. That's just me. But once the Xbox One came out... I threw my Xbox 360 down the stairs. Fucking piece of shit. It got the red ring of death too. That's when it all tits up and it is not recovered. You hate to see what Xbox has become.

And anytime I talk about Xbox or like criticize a lot of the decisions they've made over the years somehow there is still like this last holdout of warriors willing to fight Xbox's PR battles for them,

even though the general, Phil Spencer-

Bro.

Bro, yes.

Have you been on Twitter and there's like seven guys that are all fat fucking 35 year old men that are wearing sunglasses that are going to war for Xbox? It's like in World War 2 where like there was that one guy on the island that was fighting World War 2 for 20 years after it was over. They're that guy but there's seven islands. ... himself constantly throws himself pity parties on every podcast that will have him about how

they've lost the console wars. Like he himself recognizes how far behind Xbox has fallen and how Xbox hasn't lost the console war. Xbox has transcended the console war. They've become a platform. And I think that they're trying to hedge their bets around cloud gaming because they think that's the future and multi-device game.

I think that's very obvious. And I think that their long-term business strategy is a lot stronger and a lot more future-proof than Sony's business strategy. That's my opinion. It's been, I think they're smart.

And it just somehow keeps getting worse. Everybody says Google Stadia, but you forget that Microsoft made an iPad in 1999 and 2000. Sometimes whenever you deliver a product to market, you're too early. forget that Microsoft made an iPad in 1999 and 2000. Sometimes whenever you deliver a product to market, you're too early. And I think that Google Stadia was too early, and I think that Microsoft with its tablet

was also too early. Even though they have this like, come to Jesus moment of, man, we really put our own dick in our ass here, they don't do anything that's correct. Like, they did a good decision a's correct. Like they did a good decision a little while back that I praised a lot where they dropped exclusivity. I think that is the brightest path forward for the industry where every title hits every platform. So consumers have

a fair pick of playing it on their preferred platform. No downside for the consumer. And I appreciated it, but for every one step forward, they've taken, they've taken 20 steps back.

And today it has been a...

And you also, you know, since we're shitting on Xbox right now, we have to keep in mind, why is it that we still can buy and sell our used video games? Why is it that our console is not required to be connected to the internet at all times? It's because of Sony. Sony is the reason why we don't have that.

Because in the Xbox One and PlayStation 4 era, the Xbox One had a better surveillance system than Palantir. And they were enforcing it. Until Sony said, no, we're not going to do that bullshit. And they edged Microsoft out of so much market share that Xbox, in my opinion, has still never recovered from it.

And Xbox had to go back on everything. And that's the reason. I gotta respect Sony for that. I've got my PlayStation 4 right over there. A catastrophic disaster for them because now they're fucking their golden goose. They even posted a delusional video celebrating these Game Pass changes as if it's something that the community was asking for. Please, please make us pay more money. It's so

out of touch and tone-deaf just take a peek at this. Hey everyone, Xbox Game Pass is getting an upgrade. We've listened to your feedback and now you have even more freedom to choose how you play the games you want. We've expanded all Xbox Game Pass plans to give you more games and more ways to play and more rewards than ever. Previously, Core was primarily for console,

but Essential now lets you play games on Xbox console, PC, and cloud.

You can see very clearly how this fits into what my projected long-term strategy of Xbox is and Microsoft is, right? Where like they're trying to make a play for cloud gaming and cloud computing as a meta level thing that will be ubiquitous for all users and I think this will also another

big part of this that you're not maybe actually many of you guys know this but like this will also activate a lot of people in developing countries like South American countries too in a way that they've never been activated as consumers and users before. Obviously if it's regionally priced etc. Because they don't have the technology or the money in order to pay for a fully you know decked out computer or xbox but they can afford a phone.

That means you have the freedom to stream and play on any supported device. And with cloud gaming, that includes a lot of devices.

So she goes through each tier with the upgrades that have been introduced, the improvements that they've augmented all this with. And I'm just not fucking seeing it. Like it really just seems like you get the same deal, but with more money needed to be forked over to achieve. Like the big thing that stands out to me

is that they're putting more of a focus on, you know, PC gaming. So instead of it being all about console, now you get more freedom to play on PC and like the cloud stuff. But for people that are like Xbox heads,

they don't give a fuck about that. like they're not getting a much better deal they're just having to pay more money for in my opinion i think that if you're still an xbox loyalist you deserve to pay more at a certain point there needs to be a cost for foolishness.

I do. I think they deserve it. I think maybe you think you think it should go up again. Hmm. I like the sound of that.

The deal, like it just doesn't seem worth it. And judging from the response from the community, almost nobody is defending it. I don't think there's anyone out there that actually thinks this is them listening to community feedback because you need to pay $30 a month in order to like play Call of Duty Black Ops 7 on launch. It's outrageous. Like, why would you do that? Why would you be paying $30 a month

to then get access to a game day one? It's just, it's so fucking expensive. Well, I could see why people would do it. I mean, if you're like an avid gamer and you play video games all the time and you have a lot of games, like, I could see why people would do it, but I just think the pricing is way too high. They should have gone with like 24 or like $26. Like, going from like 20 to 30 is a crazy jump At that point you might as well just buy the game that you're interested in as opposed to having this like ongoing Expensive subscription is right game pass ultimate for it It's just not yeah that whenever that whenever the subscription is half the price of the video game

And you're only playing one or two video games there's a big difference between like Netflix, for example, and, uh, like, let's say fucking Game Pass is that you can spend 30 hours playing a video game, but you don't spend 30 hours watching a movie. So the amount of value that you're getting out of having a large buffet of content is just systematically higher. whenever you're talking about shorter

form entertainment content versus long form video game content. The value is not there. It does seem like it is now just a price increase without offering any real reason or justification to fork over those doubloons for it. What the fuck is the point? I don't know where the spin is coming that they're trying to put on it, like, is what you guys have been asking for. Everyone's been begging to give us more money, all of you are asking to pay more for game

pass fees, and we're hands-apart, we're reluctant to do this, but we're going to increase the price by 50% per your feedback it's what you this is what yeah everybody's been asking for them everybody's wanted to give us more money so we've decided to listen to your feedback and we increase the price by half guys were demanding so we're just serving you the meal you ordered from the menu yeah okay who's who who's who's asking for that? Nobody. I don't know where it's coming from and again, nobody wants that.

They're talking about in the tier like the tiers that they're introducing. It feels like it's mainly just PC cloud related stuff that I don't think the console players were

really begging for in a big way, especially if at least

he's bringing up a good point here. I never really talk about this because I view console players as... You know how like in the evolution a long time ago there were like Cro-Magnons and Neanderthals, and primarily the Cro-Magnons evolved and they became human beings and Neanderthals generally died out. I look at the console players.

You know.

Price increase the best thing about ultimate is that you can play new games on day one that includes games like Call of Duty black ops 7 the Outer Worlds 2 and high on life too. But now the best is getting even better. Ultimate subscribers will get access to over 75 Day 1 games a year. We're also adding two new partner subscriptions. With Ultimate, you'll now have access to Ubisoft

Plus Classics in addition to EA Play.

Wait, maybe I was a little hasty. Hold the fucking phone here. You get access to Ubisoft

Classics? Oh my god That's can you pay more to not have access to it? That's what I've always wanted access to Ubisoft classics I can't wait to be paying $30 a month We and of course EA play who can understate the value of EA Play there. Yeah. This is so silly. And I was really curious if they were going to mention the price increases in this video here. They did not. Because it's so pivotal, like this is a really big deal. They didn't even end it with an infographic.

They were just like, Thanks. All right. See ya. We've listened to your feedback, no mention of the price increase anywhere. It's not like some trivial increase of like, you know, 50 cents, it's 50%! They have raised it from 20 to 30 dollars, and they don't make a peep. They don't mention it in this video at all.

That's a surprise. Save that cold water outside of the hype of this announcement, which I think is a little scummy. I don't really like that. You should talk about the price changes too. You talked about everything else, like the name changes, which feel totally unnecessary,

but that's just like corporate America where names change all the time. Well, you have to understand that there are people in the marketing department that, you know, it's getting close to the end of the year. They want to make sure they get their Christmas bonuses, and they want to make sure they don't get fired. So what do you have to do? You have to rename the plans

that people are paying for. Now, instead of core, it's essential. What's the difference? The difference is that now you're going to keep paying me for another year. Time for the most minuscule of reasons. But I'm, come on, you're not going to mention the price here? There's just nothing, there's nothing in this that screams value, that screams that this

is worth it now. Previously, at the old price points of Game pass. I thought it was a good deal I really did think that they had a good service that they were offering at that price point at this I agree. I don't I agree Xbox game pack you guys know I glazed Xbox all the time and Or Xbox as a publisher not the console but xbox is a publisher this is like i i don't i

don't thirty dollars like i that's that's just too much man it's it's too much twitch is forcing analytics, earnings.

So I've made

26 cents

today. I think it's just you, bro. Yeah, that's just you. See who the fuck would ever be able to like rationalize spending that kind of money for what you get out of it. It doesn't make sense to me. And what also doesn't make sense to me is how Microsoft thought that this was a good idea. Like I recognize that there- I think it's too high of a price increase. I think they should have just incrementally kept increasing it over time like they have been since COVID, rather than doing this big

jump because I think that this big jump creates a flashpoint for a lot of people to unsubscribe and it just I think it's again you should boil the frog there's a reason why boiling the frog is the way that you do it it's because it works but you know doing amazing but I mean come on like just look at 2025 for Microsoft it has been rough and they've already increased prices on like console and everything and now this

Like they had to know this was going to be a big fucking miss here. I

Just like I did. I don't I don't get it. Yeah, it's crazy to me. I get it. It's $10 Would you rather live in a world where you get $20 or $30?

Well, I think a lot of people would rather have $30 I mean, I think it makes a lot of sense whenever you really break it down. It just doesn't feel good

Anyway though I I just wanted to yap about this a bit. Oh, yeah, really and I don't mean this exaggeratory I really don't know how to work your Xbox is even going to be around before they just pull the plug on it two more Console generations and then the consoles are going to be gone because they're going to be replaced by cloud gaming devices. That's my guess. And I think PlayStation is due to the same fate. Nintendo, I'm uncertain about.

It like, it just seems like it's in such a disastrous state. I think it's going to be too. They have so many things under their umbrella. You think it's one? They have so many things under their umbrella, but yet have so little to show for it. And their one really good saving grace for Game Pass is just getting ruined. It is going straight in the dumpster.

It's already there. This is a dagger in Game Pass for a large, large number of people. It's not blown out of proportion with the amount of people canceling their subscription. It really does seem, I do think that they're going to make more money with this overall, but I also think that X-Box making money and capitalizing on a user exists outside of just the $30 transaction and getting a user into the

X-Box and Microsoft ecosystem is something that is worth more than just the $30 subscription cost and I don't know how they're valuating that versus just simply the subscription increase. So for example are 50% or 1 third of the customers going to stop using Game Pass because of this change? I don't think so. I think that they will ultimately, like month over month, I think this will lead to an increase in revenue.

But I think that also that increase in revenue will create a, like, there are things that, you know, you ever notice how like in a lot of stores, the milk and the eggs are at the back of the store? Well, the reason why is because they want you to walk all the back of the store. Well, the reason why is because they want you to walk all the way through the store,

and that way you buy other things that they have a higher markup value for. So those products are effectively loss leaders inside of grocery stores, and a loss leader in business is very common. And so it's very easily understood.

It's something that you're selling at a loss or at cost in order to get people to make other purchases that you make a higher profit margin on. Another good example of this is drinks and sodas inside of restaurants, for example. So, because it's like basically worth nothing, but you know, you can sell it for $2. That being said, I think that Game Pass, I always assumed that they thought game pass was a loss leader so now you're actually really trying to make money on it Costco hot dogs great example yeah true yeah we can come up with a

lot of good examples of it right it'd be that bad anyway though I won't yap about it any longer that's really about it see ya okay that was always the one yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah we'll get to that uh but not yet number one number one i totally fucking agree with this it it's sad it's very sad to see what's happened with xbox uh and i think again i think they've been spiraling ever since the xbox one it's a charlie video everybody knows him make sure to give him a sub give him a like etc and we talk more smack about Xbox why I haven't had a reason to for a while they've been doing such a great job and now they

decide to eat their own dick and it's annoying man it really is as a huge promoter of game pass when it first came out I think that in the end they devalued all of Xbox gaming in the process. I think so too, but what if Xbox gaming shouldn't be the thing that you're trying to value in the devalued all of Xbox gaming in the process. I think so too, but what if Xbox gaming shouldn't be the thing that you're trying to value in the first place at all? What if that was the wrong thing for you to focus on to begin with?