GameStop issues promising statement following Xbox Game Pass price hike

Anyone rushing to cancel their Xbox Game Pass subscription amid the recent price hikes might want to walk down to their local GameStop, as the popular retailer has issued a promising statement that could quell the backlash.

Xbox Game Pass was considered for a long time to be the 'best deal in gaming', as it offered a subscription library of hundreds of titles alongside every single first party release on day one.

This was massive news for anyone who is interested in Xbox's line-up, which has only continued to grow stronger with recent studio acquisitions, and the ability to play Call of Duty for 'free' was certainly an appealing prospect.

That dream might just have died this week with a shocking announcement that not only will it now cost 50% more each month for the Ultimate tier of Game Pass, but also that the middle Premium tier will no longer get first party games on release, and will need to wait around a year instead.

Xbox was met with a tsunami of backlash and frustration in the immediate aftermath of the announcement, and it got to the point that the page to cancel your Game Pass subscription crashed due to an overwhelming amount of traffic.

The new price of $29.99 per month for Game Pass Ultimate means that you could buy roughly six new full priced games every year and keep them forever, so it makes sense why so many would rather ditch their subscriptions in response to the unpopular announcement.

As reported by IGN, GameStop, however, might just have handed Xbox owners a lifeline with a recent promising statement, as while the store is happy to hand you nothing more than a few cents when you trade in your games, it is keeping Game Pass subscriptions the same price for the foreseeable future.

"We will continue to sell Xbox Game Pass Ultimate for $19.99/month in-store and online," wrote GameStop in what's turned out to be an incredibly popular post on X, so if you're looking to avoid the price hike then you now know where to head.

The best part is these monthly codes stack on your account, meaning that you could hypothetically buy as many as you wanted and load up your Game Pass subscription for years down the line at the existing price.

What's more is that anyone who currently has a GameStop Pro membership can get even more money off, with that taking the price down to $18.99 when accounting for savings.

Even without a GameStop Pro membership you'll be saving a considerable amount over the course of a year thanks to this deal, as 12 months at this price is $120 cheaper than if you paid the new subscription fee that has left Xbox so unpopular in the gaming world.

"I never thought I would live to see the day that I root for GameStop," writes one user in the replies to the retailer's post, with another adding that it's "some good marketing from GameStop."

As always though there's a catch, as while GameStop hasn't explicitly stated this, the reduced price will likely only continue until the company runs out of the old Game Pass cards, and has to go ahead with the new price from then onwards.

It's unclear quite how long it'll be until that happens though, and GameStop will probably want to extend that for as long as possible, so make sure to take advantage of it while you can.