Microsoft is reportedly planning to merge the Xbox Game Pass and Xbox Live Gold services into a single subscription service. The combination of the two services has not yet been officially confirmed by Microsoft. The two services will probably also remain available separately.
The information was first brought by WalkingCat, who regularly posts about Microsoft on his Twitter page. He reports that the new combined subscription will be called Xbox Game Pass Ultimate and will be available for $15 per month. In the US, this yields a profit of about five dollars per month, compared to the situation that both subscriptions are purchased separately.
The Verge reports that it understands that the new subscription service will be presented later this month along with the new Xbox One S without a disc tray; the latter console is rumored to be released on May 7.
The Xbox Game Pass is a subscription service that gives users instant access to more than a hundred downloadable Xbox games, including proprietary Microsoft titles such as Sea of Thieves, Crackdown 3 and Minecraft, as well as Shadow of the Tomb Raider and Just Cause 4. Xbox Live Gold is a subscription required to play Xbox games online in multiplayer. Subscribers to this service also get a few free games and special offers every month.