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[PSA] Xbox has changed EA Play to Gamepass Ultimate conversion from 4 months to 2 months

elliot5

Member
Yeah Microsoft should have given a heads up however short. However, I also don't really have any sympathy for someone with a bunch of EA codes stacked up unused.

You can only have 36 months at any point. If they gave a heads up saying they would change the rate effective tomorrow, that may spur people to go and buy codes to top off at an effective 50% discount for their already existing sub. If you were already >32 months on your account you couldn't add any anyway.

If you had a lot of sub remaining, and had a bunch of EA Play codes sitting around then that's pretty foolish given the limit and how the rate is subject to change. It just means you have to convert at the 1:1 price ratio tl like the rest of the table (I think).

This is why you load up prior to upgrading so it's 1:1 time and not converted. I think you can do 1 year EA -> buy Ultimate and it'll make it 1 year Ultimate?

Anyway, there's also eneba that sells 1 week GPU for $0.74-1.00 which is cheaper than any of this just a little time consuming.
 
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Can you point out where OP did this? I believe he mentioned they changed the small print and changed the conversion rate. Glad he did. Mine is up in the next few months and I would hate to have bought EA cards without knowing. Or are you replying to someone else?

I was not pointing the OP, but some messages written in this topic. I agree that this ratio changed need to be shared (and could be communicated by M$).

It wasn't a gift. It was the conversion ratio that they themselves set.

Anyway, as I said earlier, they can choose whatever price they deem fit for their products; it is completely within their right. And the consumers can choose to use or not use that product. The only problem here is that Xbox didn't warn consumers that they are making this change and quietly edited the small text on one of their web pages.

The ratio was clearly done in favor of the "customer", M$ didn't need to put such ratio, that's why I said that it was a gift. Now they they simply align the ratio with the real cost of these services. I agree that it should have been communicated, and that THIS IS A GOOD THING you shared this info. What I'm complaining is that some people sent such messages :

Sony makes a post about changes to prices of services - "OMG PONY CRAP COMPANY VERY SHADY BUSINESS PRACTICES
MS sneakily changes prices and terms of service - "Yeah, it's grand, it was cheap anyway! #ConsumerFriendly #UnclePhilTheGreat"

For me that's ridiculous because not the same thing... And when we also take in account the crisis when M$ tried to increase the xbox live gold subscription...
 
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Heisenberg007

Gold Journalism
Yeah, when I first saw this I went looking for the conversion rate changes, so thanks for pointing this out.

All I will say is....so it begins. Its gonna eventually be a point in time when the deals will end and the price will go up. I stated this last year, ppl better get in on the deals when they can.
I think most people were expecting something like this to happen. It's okay, Xbox needs to make money too. It's, again, just the fact that they didn't announce it beforehand, which is wrong in so many ways.

I wonder for how long the XBLG 3-year deal will go on in its current form. I think it will change in some shape, way, or form after by Q1 2022.
 

jroc74

Phone reception is more important to me than human rights
Yeah Microsoft should have given a heads up however short. However, I also don't really have any sympathy for someone with a bunch of EA codes stacked up unused.

You can only have 36 months at any point. If they gave a heads up saying they would change the rate effective tomorrow, that may spur people to go and buy codes to top off at an effective 50% discount for their already existing sub. If you were already >32 months on your account you couldn't add any anyway.

If you had a lot of sub remaining, and had a bunch of EA Play codes sitting around then that's pretty foolish given the limit and how the rate is subject to change. It just means you have to convert at the 1:1 price ratio tl like the rest of the table (I think).

This is why you load up prior to upgrading so it's 1:1 time and not converted. I think you can do 1 year EA -> buy Ultimate and it'll make it 1 year Ultimate?

Anyway, there's also eneba that sells 1 week GPU for $0.74-1.00 which is cheaper than any of this just a little time consuming.
Yup. This is how you do the Gold to Game Pass thing. I have it until Oct of next year. So I'll use it to its fullest by that time. After that.....might be back to my normal spending habits. I'm not really sure what I'm going to do when it ends.

With Xbox not being my main platform it might be a waste to get it, the full year of Gold I never mind getting. Gotta see how much a full year of GPU will be.
 
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elliot5

Member
Yeah if you're in a good region with Rewards on Xbox and Bing you can get nearly 2 months of GPU worth in a single month. I usually get >20k points a month
 
Every company does stuff like this. First XBLG price hike. Now this quiet change in conversion ratio. There is just this false perception of MS being super pro-consumer, but that's not always the case.

It is just important to call out and look out for our gamers' brotherhood when companies do.
I thought they reversed the gold price increase and added free to play games. Maybe you know something I don't.
 

Bo_Hazem

Banned
Previously, if you converted EA Play to Gamepass Ultimate, you were able to convert 1 year of EA Play to 4 months of Gamepass Ultimate. Microsoft has now quietly changed this from 4 months to 2 months.

PpcuWlM.jpg


As there was no announcement by Xbox regarding this, it is super easy to miss out on this small detail. They just edited the text on their website.

This change has been already implemented, so do your future calculations accordingly. Please also tell other Gamepass subscribers who have been using this conversion path.

59uihs.jpg
 

reinking

Gold Member
Yeah if you're in a good region with Rewards on Xbox and Bing you can get nearly 2 months of GPU worth in a single month. I usually get >20k points a month
I don't go that hard at Bing rewards but they do accumulate at a decent rate just using Bing. I'm not going to put in the effort to make it feel like a second job but I will definitely take the easy handouts. :)
 
For that much money you can buy a few games on sale per month and own them for resale. 480 pounds per year on subscriptions for games that you will never own is a shit deal.

They will do everything to justify Gamepass. If uncle Phil makes Gamepass 100 quid per month, there will still be people praising it. Just wait until Xbox's are rented and not owned.

Who's they? Anyone who enjoys Xbox and gamepass? I personally feel gamepass is great and would pay its current price, or up to £20pm... Based on its current quality....i wouldn't pay more than that though. So when you refer to they... You specifically mean that user?
 
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Frankily the usual Sony fanboys are out here baiting. I agree with all that stated MS should have given warning.... But I won't agree that the conversion should have lasted forever. £4pm clearly wasn't the intended cost/RRP and was obviously meant to be a limited offer. I expect the gold conversion to end this year and no doubt we will see the same trolls complining/spreading FUD that MS wants people to pay the proper price
 
My one dollar conversion ended months ago. I've been paying the full 15 plus tax ever since.
I think I'm willing to pay more though it will depend on the content over the years.
I've lived through the Netflix price hikes. I pay netflix over 3 times now then when I first started with them.
If Gampass does the same it will one day be 45 to 50 bucks a month in the future. Thats a bit cray cray as they say.
 

jroc74

Phone reception is more important to me than human rights
Frankily the usual Sony fanboys are out here baiting. I agree with all that stated MS should have given warning.... But I won't agree that the conversion should have lasted forever. £4pm clearly wasn't the intended cost/RRP and was obviously meant to be a limited offer. I expect the gold conversion to end this year and no doubt we will see the same trolls complining/spreading FUD that MS wants people to pay the proper price
I'm sorry...but how is that FUD or trolling that MS actually want to make money from Game Pass?

Shouldnt that be their ultimate goal?

If some ppl think the freebies and deals will last forever....thats their own fault for thinking that.

My one dollar conversion ended months ago. I've been paying the full 15 plus tax ever since.
I think I'm willing to pay more though it will depend on the content over the years.
I've lived through the Netflix price hikes. I pay netflix over 3 times now then when I first started with them.
If Gampass does the same it will one day be 45 to 50 bucks a month in the future. Thats a bit cray cray as they say.
One thing ppl should be aware of or look out for is the one year Gold subscription. If that gets raised or is gone... you can be damn sure Game Pass will be going up or they will have ppl buying the monthly, X amount of month plans. The yearly is usually the cheapest overall when factoring in the monthly plans.
 
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Hezekiah

Banned
MS was happy to offer deals when there was no meaningful game development pipeline in XGS. Now they need money for 23 studios + thousands of new employees that they are now responsible for because of the aggressive acquisition.
The idea that they just keep throwing money massive away is absurd, they've assumed huge costs with the Bethesda acquisition as you say.

Hopefully the upcoming content makes any pricing changes worth it.
 

SLB1904

Banned
Frankily the usual Sony fanboys are out here baiting. I agree with all that stated MS should have given warning.... But I won't agree that the conversion should have lasted forever. £4pm clearly wasn't the intended cost/RRP and was obviously meant to be a limited offer. I expect the gold conversion to end this year and no doubt we will see the same trolls complining/spreading FUD that MS wants people to pay the proper price
Come on son. MS ain't charity. This low prices is to get more customers. As soon as they hit the quota the price will go up straight
 
I'm sorry...but how is that FUD or trolling that MS actually want to make money from Game Pass?

Shouldnt that be their ultimate goal?

If some ppl think the freebies and deals will last forever....thats their own fault for thinking that.

Well that's my point exactly. MS is ending these deals to make people pay the proper price... And the comments have been:
I can foresee a price hike soon : P

I didn’t think Xbex did things like this
 
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graywolf323

Gold Member
well that sucks, I bought a code last week but it wouldn't let me redeem it because the 4 months would put it past 3 years on my sub, so of course now today when it would finally work they've cut it down to 2 months? 🤦🏼‍♂️
 

Dodkrake

Banned
I was not pointing the OP, but some messages written in this topic. I agree that this ratio changed need to be shared (and could be communicated by M$).



The ratio was clearly done in favor of the "customer", M$ didn't need to put such ratio, that's why I said that it was a gift. Now they they simply align the ratio with the real cost of these services. I agree that it should have been communicated, and that THIS IS A GOOD THING you shared this info. What I'm complaining is that some people sent such messages :



For me that's ridiculous because not the same thing... And when we also take in account the crisis when M$ tried to increase the xbox live gold subscription...

Of course it's not the same thing for you.
 

Dodkrake

Banned
Who's they? Anyone who enjoys Xbox and gamepass? I personally feel gamepass is great and would pay its current price, or up to £20pm... Based on its current quality....i wouldn't pay more than that though. So when you refer to they... You specifically mean that user?

They means a ton of Xbox apologists (there are Playstation apologists, don't worry). The kind of rabid brand loyal people that justify anything a company does and to them it looks perfectly fine.

As for being great for you, that's perfect. It doesn't make it a good deal for a lot of people.
 

jshackles

Gentlemen, we can rebuild it. We have the capability to make the world's first enhanced store. Steam will be that store. Better than it was before.
Pretty dick move by Microsoft.

The conversion was always kinda put in place as a way to help transition people who already had EA Play to easily upgrade to Game Pass Ultimate without missing out on the subscription they'd already paid for. A conversion of four months to one year was obviously incredibly generous. However, when mainstream sites like Kotaku are making articles about how you can buy EA Play cards to top up your Game Pass subscription for half price (or less, if buying from CDKeys and the like) then I would expect any company to try and shut something like this down. As OP said though, it would have been courteous of them to give people advance notice - but if they had it'd be like them saying "for the people aready doing this, go ahead and stock up on 9 years of EA Play cards as long as you redeem them before X date" which ultimately defeats the purpose of what they're trying to do.
 

Heisenberg007

Gold Journalism
Frankily the usual Sony fanboys are out here baiting. I agree with all that stated MS should have given warning.... But I won't agree that the conversion should have lasted forever. £4pm clearly wasn't the intended cost/RRP and was obviously meant to be a limited offer. I expect the gold conversion to end this year and no doubt we will see the same trolls complining/spreading FUD that MS wants people to pay the proper price
No one is doing that. You're projecting.

MS should be charging full price whenever they deem fit. It's their right to earn money. If it becomes too expensive, people won't buy it. If it still offers great value for its monthly price, people will continue their subscriptions.

As you said yourself, the only issue is that MS didn't give a warning. They didn't even acknowledge this change. I think they still haven't.
 

MOTM

Banned
Every dollar is important for many people. Many of us plan meticulously and balance our budgets to afford gaming. So any pricing change must be communicated in advance.

MS pulled a poor move mate. Don't let loyalty blind you.

If 10 bucks can ruin you financially, gaming should be the least of your worries I think.
 

Heisenberg007

Gold Journalism
The idea that they just keep throwing money massive away is absurd, they've assumed huge costs with the Bethesda acquisition as you say.

Hopefully the upcoming content makes any pricing changes worth it.
But I thought MS had unlimited money :messenger_pensive: nah, just joking 😛

Game development is a costly venture. More importantly, they have acquired lots of additional staff now, especially after Bethesda's acquisition. A few days ago, I did some rough calculations on GAF that Xbox will require roughly $35 to $40 billion in revenue every year to break even in a year or two. At the moment, they are generating just $13 billion per annum.

Many of the usual fanboys laughed it off and completely ignored my calculations. longdi longdi even said "no one cares about your calculations" 😂 lol. None of that changes the facts though. Xbox needs money now more than ever. If Gamepass subscribers don't increase rapidly, expect tons more moves like these in a very short span of time.

Edit: Here is a part of the calculations I did.

...
  1. Even at 80 million subscribers, Gamepass will return roughly $13 billion to MS. PlayStation operating expenditures are roughly $20 billion. This shows that $13 billion isn't going to be enough, and that's not even including the xCloud server costs -- which would be huge.
  2. But Xbox also has 2x more studios and more employees than PlayStation, so their game dev costs and employee expenditures will also be more than PS. So that $20 billion would likely look like $30-$40 billion.
  3. To cover the expenditure of $40 billion, Microsoft will need 220 million subscribers. Yes, there will be other revenue sources but there will also be other expenditures.

Edit: Some more context:
  • At $40 billion -- ignoring other revenues and other expenditures -- MS would still be breaking even, not making any profit. For comparison, Sony hit ~$3.5 billion profit last year and will easily surpass $4 billion in profits this year.
  • $40 billion may seem excessive but that's the cost of scaling aggressively. And MS has already incurred these expenses with all those studios and game development. But their revenue sources haven't scaled up.
  • Other revenues mean game sales, MTX, sales %.
  • Other expenses mean loss on hardware sales, xCloud server costs, Gamepass deals, partnerships, second-party game development, timed exclusivity, etc.
 
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II_JumPeR_I

Member
They've been closing these huge loopholes lately that they obviously left wide open to get more people onto the platform, but now it's time to start making money.

I got my 3 years of Game Pass for $3.20 a month, I'm good, but they'd closed the Brazilian key thing off when I tried for a friend recently.
You have to use a VPN with Brazilian subs. I just did it last month. 2 years of GP ultimate for 70€ instead of 240€ lol
 

yamaci17

Member
You have to use a VPN with Brazilian subs. I just did it last month. 2 years of GP ultimate for 70€ instead of 240€ lol
I don't mean anything bad by this, but practices like this might end up with Microsoft increasing the price for such countries

Of course, this is Msoft's problem, don't know if they can find a way to prevent this kind of abuse or not

Definetely not a good sign

I always appreciate Microsoft for giving localized prices but we shall see how profitable it will be in the long run
 
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AV

We ain't outta here in ten minutes, we won't need no rocket to fly through space
You have to use a VPN with Brazilian subs. I just did it last month. 2 years of GP ultimate for 70€ instead of 240€ lol

Yeah, I used a VPN when I tried it for myself and it was fine, when I tried for a friend in thee exact same way I got a message about the code not being bought in that region or something. Maybe I messed up somewhere but I was definitely on a VPN when I tried to activate it.
 
Would be really nice if XBOX & EA could actually fix the account linking process and policy that seems to be broken for a lot of people rather than ignoring the issue.


Currently as it stands people who ended up un-linking old XBOX accounts from their EA account are now no longer able to play their EA games that require logins and linking of an XBOX account but this isn't possible because only ONE XBOX account can ever be linked to an EA account in its LIFETIME!.

This is a major flaw with EA's Account linking policy that seems to also impact other platforms that link with EA accounts. Kinda shocked that no one has actually kicked up a stink about it on the GAF already.
 
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Ezekiel_

Banned
For that subscription model to survive, this is Microsoft's Gamepass endgame :
  • Less quality / quantity of games
  • Increasing price of subscription
  • Day and date first party releases are still sold for subscribers, but at a reduced price, like Disney still sells its big releases even for Disney+ subscribers (example : Mulan)
  • Emphasis on "games as a service" or large open-world filler type games that try to make people play and stay subscribed for many months, eventually making them pay more than if they bought it full price at release
  • Emphasis on sold microtransactions / DLC
  • Emphasis on episodic, smaller releases with cliffhanger endings to give the impression that there's periodically new content added, and keep people subscribed longer
  • Making some content exclusive to Gamepass subscribers, to try to drive the subscription numbers
It's quite clear that we are in the "honeymoon" phase right now.

Studies show that once someone is subscribed to something, they are less likely to unsubscribe for fear of "missing out".

Reality will start kicking in at some point, and some of the points highlighted above will start happening.

If Microsoft plays it's cards right and do it gradually, they might be successful in making it profitable.

Consumers, not unlike frogs in water gradually heating to boiling point, won't have a clue what happened until many years later.
 

IDKFA

I am Become Bilbo Baggins
Money is getting tight.
Lmfao paying £40 for a subscription service.

But it would still be amazing value.

Think about it. The cost of a brand new game is now £70. I can either spend £40 pm and get my hands on 100s of games, or drop £70 for one game?

I know what I'd rather do.

Of course, to do this MS would need to make some changes. If every AAA game was on day one on GP and never left the service, then £40 is a bargain.
 

longdi

Banned
The drama mamas need to make up their minds, are they concerned that Gamepass is not making money or MS wants to make money off Gamepass? 🤷‍♀️

Idk what is EA Play, but anyway, just do the XBL Gold to Gamepass hack. Stat! The 'hole' is still open. Newegg is selling 1 year Gold for $50, omg 🙀

Cant wait for more drama should BF6 arrives Day 1 on Gamepass®

 
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SLB1904

Banned
But it would still be amazing value.

Think about it. The cost of a brand new game is now £70. I can either spend £40 pm and get my hands on 100s of games, or drop £70 for one game?

I know what I'd rather do.

Of course, to do this MS would need to make some changes. If every AAA game was on day one on GP and never left the service, then £40 is a bargain.
I mean yeah. I would pay 40 to play the next gta 6 instead of 70 yeah. But become active subscriber just because? Nah bruh
 

Whats particularly wrong with those two statements? If I can get it for less I will.... But if all those discounts end I'll continue to sub at full price (presuming the quality stays the same).
Would you buy brand new from one dealership knowing you can get the exact same brand new car an another dealership a few grand cheaper.

Was that meant to be a 'gotcha' or something?
 
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