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The story
Speculation is spreading around Xbox Game Pass over possible changes: a cheaper ad-supported tier, the end of day-one release availability, and a ¥300 monthly price cut. The source is a post reportedly from a moderator on the gaming forum ResetEra, who is said to have correctly called last October’s Game Pass changes ahead of time. On 5ch, threads argued over whether this source can be trusted, while reactions to the end of day-one split between people welcoming it as “a good sign — less gets sunk into games this way” and people worried that “there’d be no reason left to choose Xbox.”
What people said
It just won't be day-one anymore, right?
It'll get added within a year, like COD does.
No problem at all.
So we have to wait a year now? 😭
Don't just swallow it whole.
The source looks sketchy — go verify it yourself.
BTW I'm on Game Pass Ultimate too, so we're probably comrades.
That's just people who reacted without checking it's from a moderator.
Scroll down or check the next page — it's full of apologies.
Look more carefully yourself.
It's a thread started by a ResetEra moderator.
The early repliers just reacted without checking that.
Everyone's apologizing further down and on the next page.
Someone who mistook a possibility for a fact and started a whole thread over it?
Better grab a screenshot of this.
Then that's not a real source, is it.
ResetEra moderators have ban powers,
so anyone who doubted or talked back is just scrambling to suck up now.
This moderator's source
leaked last October's Game Pass changes ahead of time,
so there's a good chance this one's accurate too.
https://www.resetera.com/threads/rumor-big-changes-to-gamepass-including-a-free-cheaper-tier-with-ads.1313263/?utm_source=chatgpt.com
PC Game Pass will be discontinued, leaving only Game Pass Standard and Game Pass Core, and day-one games will be gone. Game Pass
Ultimate's price rises to $25 (this could slip to 2026).
Cloud streaming will be included in every tier.
Subscription renaming will mirror the PSN tiers (unconfirmed):
Game Pass Core → Game Pass Essential,
Game Pass Standard → Game Pass Premium.
In 2026:
A cheaper ad-supported tier,
plus a free/cheap streaming-only tier, time-based access, and forced ads.
That's a legit leak.
So day-one's confirmed dead, huh?
> PC Game Pass will be discontinued
That's already wrong right out of the gate — sure this holds up?
How many new games got thrown under the bus because of it…
Right?
Even the die-hard fans are bailing at this point.
What's that supposed to mean?
Does day-one come back after May?
That's just a translation slip.
It means the change lands around next March.
So suddenly axing Day One out of nowhere is a bad move — it leaves zero reason to buy an Xbox.
Just buy the game lol
If you're willing to pay that much anyway.
That's the cue for the boomerang to come flying back (Japanese net slang for an insult that backfires on whoever threw it).
Nah, PS still has plenty of small/mid-size Japanese third-party games that never hit Xbox,
plus you get 3 free games every month — PS Plus is still the better deal.
I made it as far as the part about being jealous of day-one, though.
Day-one was the only value it had, and now that's ending.
Go look at the reality of what it costs to develop a game.
They didn't, though.
But you're the walking proof of it, aren't you?
Normally you'd realize it's weird for day-one to vanish even next year, since publishers already have contracts in place.
BTW, the furthest-out confirmed day-one release is ARK 2 in 2028, I believe.
Xbox's pre-emptive "bad news" leaks
are basically Micro$oft's (a mocking nickname blending "Microsoft" with "kuso," meaning "crap")
damage control,
so it's 100% coming.
There were developers before who said their Game Pass contracts got torn up,
so having a contract doesn't matter if they just cancel it.
Background and Key Points of the Debate
Xbox Game Pass’s headline feature has been “day-one” access to new releases, but the soaring cost of big-budget game development has made the burden this places on publishers an increasing concern. A cheaper, ad-supported tier follows a revenue model already pioneered by streaming services like Netflix, and it looks like that trend is now spilling over into gaming. What split the thread was the credibility of the source — a ResetEra moderator: some praised their track record of past accurate calls, while others pointed out that parts of the claim (like “PC Game Pass being discontinued”) were wrong, and opinions differed over whether the poster ever actually retracted it. It’s worth noting this isn’t an official Microsoft announcement but unconfirmed information from an overseas forum, and details like how already-contracted titles would be handled remain unclear.
※This article is excerpted and summarized from the 5ch Hardware/Industry (“Geha,” a board known for console-war-style discussion) thread “[Bad News] Game Pass Adding Ads & Killing Day-One — ¥300 Price Cut Instead.”
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