It’s been rumoured for a while, but now Microsoft has officially launched an Xbox and PC Game Pass family plan as an Xbox Insider benefit for users in Colombia and Ireland. If you’re in either of the two regions, you can sign up for the program, which allows up to five accounts including the owner to be registered on a single subscription – all with their own access to the full range of Game Pass Ultimate games and benefits.
Only the initiating account needs to be an Xbox Insider, but the other accounts you add to your subscription must also reside in the same country as the primary account owner. Joining the program will convert your current subscription time over to the new plan, although your time will be adjusted “based upon the monetary value of the old membership.”
There are a few small issues detailed in the post announcing the trial which players may run into. Members who already have an existing Game Pass subscription may be unable to accept an invite, although Microsoft says it is “working on enabling these members to cancel immediately to accept the invitation.” Players also cannot upgrade their account twice in a 24 hour period – so if you need to first upgrade from Xbox Live Gold to Game Pass Ultimate, you’ll have to wait for 24 hours before upgrading to the Game Pass Insider Preview that enables family sharing.
How much does the Game Pass family plan cost?
Windows Central reports that the Xbox Game Pass family plan is currently being offered for €21.99 EUR in Ireland. We can also get an estimate by calculating the time conversion rate – which Microsoft says will see “a full month of Ultimate converted to 18 days of membership for this plan.”
This means, at the current Ultimate current pricing of $14.99 USD per month, we can anticipate the price of the family plan to clock in at around $24.99 USD. Performing a similar calcluation on the UK price of £10.99 GBP comes out to around £18.33 GBP. That works out a lot cheaper than the standard pricing when using all five accounts, then, but it would even be worth it for just two users.
There’s no doubt, of course, that Microsoft is hoping this value proposition will entice more users to join the Game Pass ecosystem – and that some of those new players will then decide to buy add-on content or microtransactions for games included on the service. It certainly seems to be shaping up to be a good deal for users, regardless.
It was recently reported that the best Wolfenstein game on PC could be coming to the Game Pass service. The Persona series of JRPG games is due to join the subscription platform over the coming months, starting with the release of Persona 5 Royal on October 21. Also arriving on Game Pass on day one will be long-awaited sequel Hollow Knight: Silksong, although we still don’t yet have an exact date for when that will be.