Microsoft still planning to drop Xbox Live Gold

Microsoft is still reportedly considering dropping Xbox Live Gold once Game Pass is more healthy according to Journalist Jeff Grubb.

During his premium GrubbSnax show on Giant Bomb, Grubb reiterated claims made from last year that Microsoft still plans to drop Xbox Live Gold. At first, these claims were supported by Halo Infinite’s free multiplayer before Microsoft introduced free multiplayer on free-to-play titles. 

“In the past, I’ve said Xbox Live Gold is going to go away, and when I started saying that it was when Xbox Live Gold was still required for free-to-play games,” VGC reports he explained in the podcast as Grubb knew some change would have to be made before Halo Infinite’s multiplayer release.

While Microsoft has worked out a solution, offering free free-to-play multiplayer, Grubb claimed once more that “Xbox Live Gold is still on a board somewhere saying ‘this is going to go away at some point’. Whether or not they’re actively talking about it right now, I don’t know, but they still have it on a roadmap saying ‘Xbox Live Gold will be dropped at some point in the future’.”

The reason it hasn’t been dropped already according to Grubb, is that Microsoft is still waiting for Game Pass to reach a more healthy state. In the podcast, he went on to say that the process “might take years because the focus right now still very much is getting Game Pass into a very healthy position.”

While things were reportedly slowing down prior to E3 and causing concern for some people at Microsoft according to Grubb, he said that “E3 really helped Game Pass hit its stride” as now people can look towards the future and all the big games that are on the horizon. 

With 31 titles revealed at E3 during Xbox’s presentation coming to Xbox Game Pass, there’s now a huge amount to look forward to, including exclusive offerings from Bethesda, which has undoubtedly brought in new users to the platform and allayed some concerns. 

According to Grubb, this means that Xbox Live Gold’s demise is still very much on the table, with Microsoft “heads down on getting user acquisition, and that means ‘Xbox Live will go away but we need to get to a certain threshold with Game Pass before we can make that choice’.”

There’s no clear indication on what healthy numbers might be for Xbox Game Pass where Microsoft feels comfortable pulling Xbox Live’s plug, but Grubb expects that it “probably still won’t go away until it’s probably closer to something like 40-50 million active users for Game Pass.” 

With Halo Infinite this year and Starfield in 2022 expected to act as “lightning rods” for new users since they’re both available on Game Pass Day One, Grubb expects that by 2023 they should have a “pretty fast cadence in terms of releasing games” that will allow Game Pass to hit its stride and allow Microsoft to get rid of Xbox Live Gold.