Microsoft is ending its experimental Xbox Game Pass Ultimate Friends and Family plan less than a year after it started. The company has confirmed the plan will end in its supported markets on August 15.
Microsoft first launched this plan, which allowed up to five people to share the same Xbox Game Pass Ultimate benefits for one monthly price, in September 2022 for Xbox Insiders in Colombia and Ireland. In February 2023, the preview expanded to six more countries: Chile, Hungary, Israel, New Zealand, South Africa, and Sweden.
In a statement sent to Eurogamer, a Microsoft spokesperson stated:
We"re excited about how the Friends and Family plan has resonated with gamers and will be evaluating the learnings to help create an offer that we can bring to more players worldwide in the future.
According to Microsoft"s support page for the Friends and Family plan, the primary account holders won"t be able to add any people to their Friends and Family plan starting July 17. Again, all Family and Friends plans will be discontinued on August 15.
However, people who have been signed up for the plan will get a consolation prize. Microsoft stated:
We’ll be sending Xbox Game Pass Ultimate codes as a thank you for participating in our preview program (to both Primary and Secondary members) depending on your Primary account holder’s remaining time.
If the primary account holder of the plan has less than one month to go before the subscription was due to expire, everyone on that plan will get a free three-month code for Xbox Game Pass Ultimate. The more time the main account holder had for their Friends and Family plan to expire, the bigger the codes will be for all users. The highest is for plan users who had more than 10 months to go, in which case, everyone signed up to that account will get a Xbox Game Pass Ultimate code for 36 months.