Microsoft Starts Testing PC And Xbox Game Pass Family Plan In Selected Regions
It’s long been rumored that Microsoft is planning to release a Game Pass family plan for Xbox and PC. Those rumors have now been confirmed as the company starts testing the new subscription plan in Ireland and Colombia through the Xbox Insider program. The new family plan allows up to five accounts, including the owner, to be used with a single subscription, with each account being granted full access to the entire Game Pass Ultimate catalog of games and all subscriber benefits.
Note that only the primary account is required to sign-up to Xbox Insiders but the other four accounts need to be from the same country as the primary account owner. Joining the program and switching to the new family plan will also convert your current subscription to the new one and available game time will be adjusted accordingly based on the monetary value of the old plan.
“For example, a full month of Ultimate will be converted to 18 days of membership for this plan,” Microsoft explains. “This way you won’t lose any of the remaining value on your existing subscription upon conversion. Conversion is final, and users must wait for their new membership to expire before returning to a previous membership.”
Eligible users who decide to participate in the testing may encounter a few minor issues including not being able to accept a family sharing invite if they already have an existing subscription. Microsoft says that they’re working allowing existing subscribers to immediately cancel their subscription to accept the invite. Upgrading a plan twice within a 24-hour period will also not be allowed which means that primary account owners planning on upgrading their plan prior to switching to joining the test will have to wait 24 hours after the upgrade. You can check out the full list of known issues here.
According to Windows Central, the new Microsoft and Xbox Game Pass Family Plan is currently being offered at €21.99, or $22.38 at the current conversion rate. Based on the pricing difference of Game Pass Ultimate in Ireland and in the US, we can probably expect it to launch at around $24.99 which is an extremely good deal for five users and would still be worth it even with just two users sharing the account. Of course, there’s also the possibility of pricing changes down the line once Microsoft has gathered enough data from its regional tests.
