Newcomers to Xbox Game Pass/PC Game Pass won’t get as long to try out the service, as Microsoft is officially lowering the $1 trial period to just 14 days (two weeks.)
This change comes just weeks ahead of major new first-party releases such as Forza Motorsport and Starfield.
Gone in the blink of an eye
Since Microsoft first launched Game Pass six years ago, it has offered new users the chance to try it out for a full month.
Of course, this lines up with the classic “30-day risk free trial” tactic that has been and continues to be employed by several services/products. But, now, quite sneakily, Microsoft has opted to formally cut that period down by half, as reported by The Verge.
Microsoft has not given any details to explain why this change has taken place.
However, for the sake of speculation, it’s easy to at least assume that this has been done in order to crack down on consumers who’ve simply been waiting to start new trials just to play the aforementioned big new releases in the coming weeks. The thought from Microsoft could be that such consumers will simply opt-in to the Game Pass trial, toy around with the games, and then abandon their membership before converting to the full-priced service.
So, with just two weeks instead of an entire month, fresh trial members will simply now have a much shorter time to indulge in the Game Pass library.
All this being said, it must be mentioned that Microsoft recently joined the slew of other services across the board in price increases with a bump up in membership prices for Xbox Game Pass on console. This, along with the reduction of the trial period duration, does point to the theory that Microsoft is trying to get serious consumers to latch-on fully to the service, rather than merely dabbling and then fleeing.
Check out more Xbox news:
Xbox Live Gold is being retired and spun off into Game Pass Core || Xbox Series S dawns a carbon black look with a 1TB upgrade
