Microsoft has at last unveiled the Xbox Game Pass Ultimate Family Sharing plan that will allow a group of five members to be given access to all of the benefits of a standard membership. Currently, only Xbox Insiders in Colombia and Ireland will be able to preview the new family plan. It’s uncertain how long this beta testing phase will last, but former reports suggest that it will be ready before the holiday season.
Xbox Game Pass Ultimate Family Plan seems to cost $25 a month
As prescribed in an official blog post on Xbox Wire, joining the family plan via the Xbox Insider Preview will automatically convert any remaining time on your membership. The example it provides says that “a full month of Ultimate will be converted to 18 days of membership of this plan.” Doing a little math, given that a month of Xbox Game Pass Ultimate is $15 per month, means that the full 30 days of the family plan is looking like it will cost $25 per month.
That said, there could be separate tiers for different versions of Game Pass, and it’s possible that there may be variations of family sharing. From the apparent cost, it would seem that the plan would be worth it if only just two people were to use it. It’s a good question, though, whether Microsoft might come to regret this rather generous offer, as another subscription service Netflix has cracked down on users sharing accounts.
For this soft launch, the family plan is only available to Insiders but those included on the account don’t have to be. They just need to reside within the same country as the primary account holder. Sign-ups are currently limited but will remain open while the program is available. Microsoft expert Brad Sams stated in mid-April that we would see the full launch of the family plan right before the holidays, but it looks like the company is ahead of schedule and we might see it sooner than that.
In other news, here’s the full list of Xbox Game Pass titles for August 2022, and another list of PC Game Pass titles for the same month.
