Microsoft has quietly reduced Xbox Game Pass Ultimate pricing in Ireland to €20.99 per month, down from the €26.99 that caused so much anger when it landed last October. PC Game Pass has also dropped, now sitting at €12.99 per month. Both tiers are currently badged as “LOWER PRICE” on the Irish Xbox store, which tells you everything you need to know about how Microsoft wants this to land.
The problem is the framing. This is being positioned as Microsoft doing subscribers a favour, when what actually happened is that the company hiked prices aggressively, watched a wave of cancellations follow, and has now partially retreated. If you read our piece on the Xbox Game Pass price hike that sparked serious backlash in Ireland, you know the full story. Ultimate went from €17.99 to €26.99 last October, a roughly 50% jump that pushed the annual cost from €216 to €324. That increase triggered cancellations on a scale that reportedly overwhelmed Microsoft’s own subscription management site.
So yes, €20.99 is better than €26.99. But it is still €3 a month more than the price that existed before any of this started. Annualised, Irish subscribers are now paying €251.88 per year for Ultimate, compared to €216 before the hike. That is still €35.88 more per year than it cost 18 months ago, and nobody at Microsoft is highlighting that particular number.
What you get for your money now
To be fair, it is worth laying out what the current tiers actually include, because the structure has changed since we last covered it in detail.
Essential comes in at €8.99 per month and covers 50+ games across Xbox console, PC and supported devices, online console multiplayer, and game streaming including select titles you already own. It is the entry-level option and the price increase here was comparatively modest.
Premium sits at €12.99 per month and gives you 200+ games, with new Xbox published games joining the library within 12 months of launch. That “within 12 months” wording is doing a lot of heavy lifting and is worth paying attention to, it is not day-one access.
Ultimate at €20.99 per month is the top tier, offering 400+ games, new games on day one including Xbox published titles and third-party games, Fortnite Crew, EA Play, Ubisoft+ Classics, and the best cloud streaming quality available. PC Game Pass is now €12.99 per month, covering hundreds of PC games, day-one access, EA Play, and third-party benefits.
The Call of Duty question
Here is where the “pay more for less” argument still has some teeth. Microsoft has confirmed that future Call of Duty titles will no longer launch day one into Game Pass. New releases will join the service roughly a year after launch instead, while existing titles already in the library stay put.
For anyone who subscribed primarily to play new Call of Duty games on launch day, the value calculation has fundamentally shifted. You are now on Ultimate, paying more than the pre-hike price, without the day-one access to the franchise that was arguably one of the service’s biggest selling points. Existing Call of Duty games remain, so it is not a total loss, but the direction of travel is not encouraging.
Why this backtrack matters more than the saving
The most telling part of this story is not the price change itself. It is what the change admits about the original decision.
New Xbox leadership has openly acknowledged that Game Pass had become too expensive and that a better value equation was needed. You do not make that kind of public statement unless the subscriber data is giving you a serious headache. The sudden 50% hike last October was the kind of shock that breaks habits rather than nudging them. As we noted when the Xbox Game Pass price hike hit Irish wallets, once people cancel and realise they are not missing the service as much as they expected, many simply do not come back. A more gradual increase would probably have retained far more subscribers. Instead, Microsoft handed people a reason to properly examine what they were spending and whether they were getting enough in return.
That is the real cost of the decision. Not just the subscribers who left, but the ones who left, found they were fine, and now have no particular reason to return even at €20.99.
Should you come back to Game Pass?
If you cancelled during the hike and have been managing without it, €20.99 for Ultimate is worth a fresh look depending on how you game. If you regularly play across a broad catalogue and want day-one access to Xbox-published titles and EA Play, there is genuine value there. The library is still substantial.
If you are primarily a PC gamer, €12.99 for PC Game Pass is a reasonable proposition, particularly given it includes EA Play and day-one third-party releases.
Where it gets harder to justify is if you are a casual subscriber who dips in and out, or if you were specifically there for blockbuster franchise launches. At €251.88 a year, you could buy three full-price games and own them outright. As we said last October, the maths only really works if you are actively hammering the catalogue every single month.
Don’t forget – you can also by GamePass keys elsewhere on the web. Just saying.
Microsoft has moved in the right direction. Irish subscribers are paying less than they were six months ago, and that is worth acknowledging. But the “LOWER PRICE” badge on the Xbox store is measuring from a high point that should never have been reached, and it is worth remembering that when you decide whether or not to re-subscribe.
