Microsoft Nerfs Xbox Live Gold to Game Pass Ultimate Conversion, Though $1 Promotion for New Users Is Back

Ever since Microsoft launched Xbox Game Pass, clever Xbox users have been using a legitimized loophole to access the subscription service’s highest tier at very cheap rates.

Microsoft had promised that it would allow Xbox Live Gold subscriptions to convert at a ratio of 1:1 into Game Pass Ultimate. Users could stack up to three years of Xbox Live Gold time and then use a single Game Pass Ultimate code to convert all of it to GPU. That worked for six years, but now, Microsoft changed the ratio to 3:2 as explained in the updated page on the Xbox Support FAQ.

Even with the nerf, though, this remains the cheapest way to get a lengthy Game Pass Ultimate subscription. With a three-year XBL Gold subscription that can be purchased for around $150, you’ll get two years (instead of the previous three) of Game Pass Ultimate, which would normally cost around twice as much.

It may be a coincidence, but with the biggest game to ever launch on Game Pass (Starfield) now less than two months away, Microsoft might be seeking to close certain loopholes that have stayed open in the early years of the subscription service. This follows the recent decision to increase the pricing in many countries (not in the United States, though).

On the flip side, it’s not all bad news as the $1 promotion for new Game Pass users is apparently back, though only for Game Pass PC and Ultimate rather than console. Microsoft’s reasoning might be related to the fact that, as mentioned repeatedly by Gaming division CEO Phil Spencer, the PC market is seeing the most growth in Game Pass subscribers.