Anyone who’s cancelled a Xbox Game Pass, PlayStation Plus, or Nintendo Switch Online subscription lately shares an increasingly common reason: price. That’s according to a new survey from games-industry research firm Circana.
Official Xbox Game Pass logo, one of the services named in Circana’s survey.
According to Mat Piscatella, senior video game analyst at Circana, data from the “Future of Insights for Video Games Consumer Survey” shows cost is becoming a stronger driver of cancellations in the US. “Over 40% of those cancelling in the US cite cost as a primary driver, higher than seen in Q1,” he said on BlueSky.
- 50% of cancellations
of Nintendo Switch Online cited price as the reason — up from 40% earlier this year.
Circana’s latest data shows that 50% of people who cancelled Nintendo Switch Online in the past few months picked the option “couldn’t justify the cost of the subscription within my budget but liked the service” — up from 40% earlier in the year. For Xbox Game Pass Essential and PS Plus Essential, 40% of cancellers cited the same reason, compared to 37% in Q1.
Comparing the start of the year to now, based on Circana data cited by Eurogamer.
Why prices keep climbing
The news isn’t exactly shocking: pretty much everything in gaming has gotten pricier lately, from consoles to the games themselves. PlayStation Plus already saw a price hike this year, while Xbox Game Pass Ultimate nearly doubled in price — until Microsoft reversed course and decoupled Call of Duty from the service. The lone exception has been Nintendo Switch Online, which has stayed the same price in most regions.
- 3 services
tracked by Circana — and only one of them didn’t raise its price this year.
Even so, Switch Online also took a hit in price-related cancellations — a sign the problem isn’t just the cost of any one subscription, but the accumulated weight of running several at once, on top of ever-rising prices for consoles, games, and accessories.
Which raises a real question for anyone still juggling multiple active subscriptions: is it still worth paying for everything, or is it time to pick just one main platform?
Sources: Eurogamer, Mat Piscatella (Circana) on BlueSky
