Microsoft’s PC Game Pass and Xbox Game Pass Ultimate show a lot of value if you want to play games via subscription. The service usually costs $14.99 per month for Xbox Game Pass Ultimate (which protects both Xbox and PC) or $9.99 every month for PC Game Pass.
It includes AAA titles like Halo Infinite and Forza Horizon 5 and rotations of prominent third-party games and indies.
If you want to test it out, an introductory price gives you one month of Xbox Game Pass Ultimate for $1. But before you redeem it, you should understand that it’s possible to utilize the trial as a way to hold a lot of cash on Game Pass Ultimate for up to three years.
Microsoft lets Xbox players order up to 36 months of prepaid Xbox Live Gold service. And activating the $1 test will automatically correct future months of Gold service to the more costly Xbox Game Pass Ultimate, preserving you hundreds of dollars.
For some context on how much funds you can save: it commands about $180 for three years of Xbox Live Gold. Add the $1 promotion, and you’re bringing three years of Xbox Game Pass Ultimate for about $181 — whereas if you paid the total of $14.99 per month for Game Pass Ultimate, those three years would cost you nearly $540.
It’s worth noting that this is designed to be a one-time offer. So if you’ve already used the request to get a month for $1, you’ve used up your chance to convert Xbox Live Gold to Game Pass Ultimate without canceling Game Pass or letting it expire. Resubscribing after that will charge a total of $14.99 for the first month instead of the $1 initial cost.
So, if you haven’t used this transformation yet, here’s how to get the greatest bang for your buck.
To get in on this complimentary modification, you’ll first need to purchase an Xbox Live Gold subscription (assuming you don’t have one already). Unfortunately, Microsoft may end the sale of Xbox Live Gold as it funnels players into buying Game Pass Ultimate. But, for now, you can still purchase digital codes for assistance from Amazon and other merchants in three-, six-, or 12-month increments.
The next stage is to activate the Xbox Live Gold codes on your account, either through Microsoft’s website or instantly through your Xbox One or Series X / S console. Microsoft says that the terms of this promotion are subject to change, so you’d do this sooner than later as there’s no signal if it may one day stop transforming Xbox Live Gold into Game Pass Ultimate.
Once you purchase the $1 Game Pass Ultimate trial, the prepaid period of Xbox Live Gold will automatically convert.
It’s now safe to benefit from the $1 Game Pass Ultimate trial. Once you redeem the proposal, you’ll see something similar to the image above when you tap your account’s “Services & subscriptions” tab on Microsoft’s site.
While this conversion is not feasible with PC Game Pass, the Xbox Game Pass Ultimate plan encircles both Xbox and PC. Therefore, this conversion from Xbox Live Gold is an even better value if you play on both platforms.
Xbox is a video gaming brand devised and owned by Microsoft. The label consists of five video game consoles, applications (games), streaming services, an online assistance by the Xbox network, and the development arm of Xbox Game Studios. The brand was first introduced in the United States in November 2001, with the launch of the original Xbox console.
The authentic device was the first video game console presented by an American company after the Atari Jaguar ceased sales in 1996. It got over 24 million units sold by May 2006. Microsoft’s second console, the Xbox 360, was unleashed in 2005 and has traded 86 million units as of October 2021.
The third console, the Xbox One, was expressed in November 2013 and included 51 million units. Finally, the fourth line of Xbox consoles, the Xbox Series X and Series S, was described in November 2020. The leader of Xbox is Phil Spencer, who followed former head Marc Whitten in late March 2014.
Microsoft has been working to leverage the branding of “Xbox” above the console hardware but as a general video game brand, mirrored in the renaming of Microsoft Studios to Xbox Game Studios in 2019. Phil Spencer had noted in June 2019 that for Microsoft, “The business isn’t how many consoles you market.
The business is how many players are recreating the games that they buy, how they play.” Consequently, the journalists have taken a route to de-emphasize console hardware and prioritize games, subscriptions, and services for players. Later in February 2020, Spencer said that pushing forward, the company does not notice “traditional gaming companies” like Nintendo and Sony as their opponents but instead those that deliver cloud computing services, like Amazon and Google.
Spencer identified that Microsoft Azure is a significant component of their plans in the future, which powers its xCloud game streaming service. Spencer also cited mobile gaming as a possible area and where Microsoft was trying to position itself with its assistance should this become the more preferred form for gaming.
Spencer stated, “I don’t think it’s ‘hardware agnostic’ as much as it’s ‘where you want to play,” expressing how Microsoft was strategizing its branding for the future.