Microsoft Stops Its $1 Xbox Game Pass Ultimate Trial; Says Its “Evaluating Different Marketing Promotions”

Microsoft has confirmed that it has stopped its long-running $1 Xbox Game Pass Ultimate trial and is assessing alternatives for new members.

Over the weekend, various outlets reported that Microsoft had removed its $1 Game Pass deal across multiple countries. Through this deal, new users could subscribe for a month of Xbox Game Pass Ultimate or PC Game Pass for only $1. After this initial month, the regular Xbox Game Pass Ultimate subscription started for $14.99 per month ($9.99 a month for PC Game Pass only).

In an official statement, a Microsoft spokesperson has now confirmed that this trial deal has been stopped.

“We have stopped our previous introductory offer for Xbox Game Pass Ultimate and PC Game Pass and are evaluating different marketing promotions for new members in the future,” Xbox’s head of Global Communications, Kari Perez, told The Verge in a new statement.

No further details about these possible new marketing promotions were shared just yet. Some are suggesting that the ending of this long-running trial is related to Microsoft’s planned merger with Activision-Blizzard and the Redmond-based company gearing up to add Activision-Blizzard games to its Xbox Game Pass library.

Earlier this month, UK regulator CMA released the responses from Microsoft, Sony, and Activision-Blizzard to its provisionary findings. You don’t have to be a rocket-scientist to guess what the affected parties said in their responses. “The evidence presented in the Provisional Findings do not provide any plausible basis on which it could be found that the Merger is likely to give rise to an SLC in any market in the UK”, Microsoft wrote to the CMA. “Microsoft’s conduct in concluding legally
binding agreements with Nintendo and NVIDIA shows that it has neither the ability nor incentive to make CoD exclusive to the Xbox platform.”

Last week, the CMA concluded that the heavily-debated megadeal between Microsoft and Activision-Blizzard wouldn’t hurt the competition in the console landscape. “Having considered the additional evidence provided, we have now provisionally concluded that the merger will not result in a substantial lessening of competition in console gaming services because the cost to Microsoft of withholding Call of Duty from PlayStation would outweigh any gains from taking such action”, the UK regulator said.