But the way the Core/Console/Ultimate system is laid out is not pro-consumer in the least, and makes little sense in the “of course your console needs access to online multiplayer” era of video gaming we’ve been living in for practically two decades. Microsoft prides itself on being a good value to consumers, even it comes at a potential cost to it with forgone sales on Game Pass titles.
Otherwise, these tiers feel illogical with the blatant goal of herding as many people into Ultimate as possible because buying Core and Console separately makes little sense (though can get a year of Core for half price, $60 total, making the price essentially the same). It feels like Core maybe shouldn’t even exist at all, and online is just rolled up into Console, with Ultimate still attractive with other bonuses should people want that. Players paying a dollar more for Console lose access to online multiplayer, which seems bizarre, although it's likely that Microsoft is doing this to incentivize a shift to the $16.99-per-month Ultimate subscription instead.While this has always been a problem with Gold’s existence, it’s even more visible now that they’re all under one Game Pass banner. The price suddenly looks a lot steeper - despite being the same as Xbox Live Gold - when placed alongside the rest of the Game Pass deals and seeing exactly what they include. However, now Xbox Live Gold is essentially part of the Game Pass model as Core, it makes it even more transparently greedy how online multiplayer is locked behind a subscription. It used to kind of make sense when Xbox Live Gold was a separate service and was included as a bonus for Game Pass users subscribing to Ultimate, and this model was mirrored by PlayStation with its disbanding of its Game Pass Console-esque PlayStation Now into the new tiered PlayStation Plus, which acts more Like Game Pass Ultimate. Xbox Game Pass Core costs a mere dollar less for players to subscribe to the Console tier of Xbox Game Pass, which doesn't include online multiplayer but comes with significantly more games. In principle, the whole idea is kind of dumb and feels like an easy way to milk some more money out of the gaming community, but an infographic on Xbox's official site that explains the new Game Pass Core tier makes it more painfully obvious than it was before.
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