GameStop promises to keep selling Game Pass Ultimate for $19.99 — company defies Microsoft's 50% price increase

(Image credit: Future / Microsoft)

Just days after Microsoft announced a series of sweeping changes to its Game Pass subscription tiers, stalwart brick-and-morter vendor GameStop has announced it will continue to offer the service at its original price of $19.99, defying the company and its 50% price hike for Game Pass Ultimate.

In a now viral post on X, the company announced it would continue to sell Game Pass Ultimate for less than 20 bucks both in-store and online. That means you can swipe a one-month sub for considerably less than Microsoft is now asking, or grab a three-month membership for $59.99.

Get Game Pass Ultimate at its old price of $19.99 at GameStop

Microsoft's planned price increases have generally been met with fury by gamers. While the company raised prices last year simply to reflect challenging economic headwinds, this year's increases do at least herald material changes to the platform, whether that will be enough to convince gamers to keep paying for the service is another matter.

Microsoft's Game Pass tiers are now Essential, Premium, and Ultimate. The latter now comes with 400 games across PC, console, and cloud, and over 75 launch day titles annually, notably including Call of Duty: Black Ops 7, High on Life 2, Keeper, Ninja Gaiden 4, and The Outer Worlds 2. Ultimate now also includes Ubisoft+ Classics, with titles that include Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon Breakpoint, Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown, Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag, and others.

The Premium tier remains $14.99, but only has some 200 titles, and also doesn't include the same launch day commitment.

U.S. customers can also grab 1-month Game Pass Ultimate codes for $19.99 from Amazon. While GameStop has made a big deal out of keeping prices fixed despite the increase, whether this is sustainable or not remains to be seen. The company is making enough noise to suggest it may be willing to eat the increase put on the service by Microsoft, or will simply keep selling Game Pass until it runs out of codes.

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Stephen is Tom's Hardware's News Editor with almost a decade of industry experience covering technology, having worked at TechRadar, iMore, and even Apple over the years. He has covered the world of consumer tech from nearly every angle, including supply chain rumors, patents, and litigation, and more. When he's not at work, he loves reading about history and playing video games.