Earlier this year, Microsoft officially ended its $1/£1 free trial offer for new Xbox Game Pass subscribers. The deal returned shortly after but it has now been tweaked again. While before, you could get a full month of Game Pass by taking advantage of the offer, this has now been reduced to two weeks.
When Microsoft first ended the $1 Game Pass trial, it stated that it would be evaluating new promotions in the future. Ultimately, this simply amounted to reintroducing the trial offer, but by reducing the trial period to two weeks, Microsoft is looking to convert new users into paying customers at a quicker rate.
Of course, this news arrives just one month ahead of Starfield, Bethesda's next big RPG and Microsoft's biggest Xbox exclusive of the year. The game should cause a spike in Game Pass adoption and assuming most trial users aren't taking a week off to finish the game as quickly as possible, gamers will have to either buy the game, or become a paying Game Pass subscriber to play it all the way through.
Microsoft also recently announced some other changes to Game Pass. From September onwards, Xbox Live Gold will no longer exist and instead, users will be pointed to Game Pass Core, an entry-level tier for the subscription service that includes console multiplayer access and a selection of 25 games from the Game Pass library.
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KitGuru says: The old trial system was heavily abused, with many only subscribing for the one month in order to play games like Halo Infinite. These recent changes to the trial seem to intentionally be arriving ahead of Starfield, Xbox's next big pillar release.