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8.2 / 10
SCORE Game Pass Ultimate Buy at Amazon $60 at HP Pricing $10 a month (Console Core) $12 a month (PC) $15 a month (Console Standard) $20 a month (Ultimate - PC and Console) Pros Unique breadth of features
Great for both console and PC gaming
Catalog of hundreds of games Cons Available games change frequently
PC integration headaches
Cloud gaming limited to 1080p at 60fps
Editors' note, June 28, 2025: Xbox Game Pass Ultimate offers a slew of benefits, including a massive game library, diverse device support, and both PC and console games. Nifty features like the ability to play on devices like smart TVs, phones, tablets and PCs, instead of just consoles, make this a convenient gaming subscription service for a variety of folks. Xbox Game Pass Ultimate costs less than the price of a new game per month while providing access to hundreds of titles, which is why it received a CNET Editors' Choice award for 2025. The original review follows.
Xbox Game Pass Ultimate is an all-you-can-play video game subscription service with exceptional value. It has evolved far beyond its Xbox-bound origins to become a subscription that delivers something for everyone who plays games. It now encompasses console and PC game downloads, access to online multiplayer services, a deal with gaming giant EA and a cloud-based service that streams games to nearly any device so you don't even need an Xbox. It also delivers a lot of Day 1 launch games from many different game studios, including Microsoft's own.
Finding the right version of Game Pass can be confusing. Microsoft offers four subscription plans, but because of how the features are sliced up between them, only the $20-per-month Ultimate plan, which we'll shorten here to XGPU and includes all the benefits detailed above, makes sense for most gamers.
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