If you are one of the people who have been waiting for the arrival of Xbox Game Pass Friends and Family in Spain, I’m afraid I have very bad news for you (and for me, because I was also on the list of people who were waiting AND that’s how we can read in Eurogamer, Microsoft has decided to end the Xbox Game Pass Friends and Family serviceso it is no longer possible to subscribe to this modality and the current subscription to the said plan will be canceled when the plan closes.

So, the last day the plan is available for existing subscribers is August 15and according to Microsoft’s official statements “All active Friends and Family members will receive an Xbox Game Pass offer as a thank you for participating and a way to ensure they can play the games they love after the demo ends.«. It’s unclear at this point what that offer will consist of, though it’s hard to think it could be as competitive as this shared subscription plan was.

microsoft too she is very happy with how this plan worked while it was available«We’re excited about how the Friends and Family plan has resonated with players, and we’ll be evaluating the learnings to help create an offering we can bring to more players around the world in the future.«. So it will be interesting to see if this learning translates into a similar subscription mode in the future, although I’m afraid it will be a while before we see it and it probably won’t have the exceptional terms that this plan offers.

Let us recall that whispers of this type of Xbox Game Pass subscription began at the beginning of last year and that it was confirmed in the summer when the first tests began to take place. Shortly after, we learned that its scope was not only known, but also open to friends, and Microsoft eventually confirmed the terms. And as for its geographical scope, the tests began incl Colombia and Irelandand earlier this year they were expanded to Chile, Hungary, Israel, New Zealand, South Africa and Swedenwhich led us to consider that its subsequent expansion to more countries was a fact.

It’s hard not to relate this decision to the recent announcement of price increases for part of the Xbox Game Pass subscription, specifically the console and Ultimate modes (which were part of Friends and Family), which are going up from 9.99 to 10.99. euros and from 12.99 to 14.99 euros. For comparison, remember this the cost of the shared plan in Ireland was €21.99In other words, each of the five Ultimate accounts that made it up had a monthly price of €4.40.

However, that doesn’t seem to be the only reason why the company decided to cancel this subscription plan, because in such a case the simplest solution would be to raise its price to match the current cost of the service.