It has felt for so long that Xbox is finally getting its magic back. After the undeniably disastrous Xbox One era that cost Microsoft dearly in the frankly ridiculous yet ever-present console wars, it has slowly been scraping back the goodwill of its former fans as well as establishing a healthy new player base through its excellent Game Pass service. Indeed, a lot of the best games releasing right now and due to release in the near future are Xbox first-party titles.

However, that being said, Xbox appears to be making the same types of mistakes it did back in 2013. While it had the chance for a fresh start, a true end of the worst Xbox era, it seems set on once again ruining its positive streak in favor of bad decision-making and greed. This is, naturally, leaving the door open for PlayStation to completely assert its dominance, but it still has plenty of work to do before it can truly take control.

Game Pass Price Hike Is A Major Blow To Xbox

It Could End An Extremely Positive Streak

Xbox has unfortunately hiked Game Pass prices up by a significant margin, and it is being felt by players all across the world. This drastic move, which should have come as a surprise to no one, considering the tech giant’s monopoly on the gaming streaming space, has led to immensely negative reactions from fans and will almost certainly hurt the company in the long run.

Many have long since speculated that Game Pass is draining more money than it is making due to its once extremely generous value proposition for the consumer, even despite Xbox’s claims of record revenue from the service. This price hike, while not confirming these suspicions, certainly makes it seem like either Xbox believes its service is worth more to the average consumer than it is, or is in dire need of more money after blitzscaling the business model.

Of course, while it remains to be seen just how badly this affects Xbox – so long as consumers do truly vote with their wallets – one can only imagine that this opens the doors for PlayStation to deliver the killing blow. PlayStation has long reigned supreme in the console wars, with the PS4 and PS5 drastically outselling their Xbox counterparts. However, Xbox’s successful attempts at regaining some of its former glory in the market have pushed PlayStation back. This Game Pass price increase may have just undone all of that hard work.

PlayStation Needs To Make PS Plus Better Value

It Must Conquer The Space Xbox Has Dominated For So Long

Of course, one would assume that, so long as PlayStation merely keeps its cool, it will completely reign supreme. However, there’s still a lot it must do in order to take what has made Xbox such a household name for the past few years. Not only does its PlayStation Plus service need to offer better value in the form of day-one exclusives, whether they are first-party or not, and a more contemporary library of popular titles, but Sony needs to start releasing more exclusives.

It certainly seems like they are in the pipeline, with the likes of Marvel’s Wolverine releasing soon. However, Xbox’s first-party lineup still remains strong, and PlayStation users may not see many of them for quite some time. Xbox Game Pass remains a good value for those who can afford it, and its library of titles, in addition to its huge focus on cloud gaming, make it a significantly more versatile service than PS Plus.

PlayStation has played it too safe, likely under the assumption it could never afford to surpass Game Pass, but that must end now. It has the perfect opportunity to strike, to deliver the same witty, impactful, and deadly blows it used to during the PS4 era – who remembers its iconic video on how to share used games? I’m not necessarily rooting against Xbox, as I still have a lot of love for its former self and its upcoming line-up, but if Xbox is going to continue to make terrible decisions, then why shouldn’t PlayStation take advantage of it.

Brand

Xbox

Original Release Date

November 10, 2020

Original MSRP (USD)

Series X priced at US$499 and the Series S priced at US$299

Weight

9.8 lb