Microsoft has officially confirmed the Xbox Game Pass family plan it’s been testing for the past month.
As uncovered via a leaked image a few days ago, the new subscription tier is called Xbox Game Pass Friends & Family.
At the moment, it’s still only available to players in Ireland and Colombia, but now it’s available to all players in those countries instead of just those who are part of the Xbox Insider programme.
Xbox has yet to confirm when the new tier will roll out to other regions.
According to a new FAQ about the service on the Xbox support page, Friends & Family allows Xbox Game Pass Ultimate subscribers to share their subscription with up to four other players.
The four other players have to live in the same country, but otherwise they will receive the full Xbox Game Pass Ultimate treatment, including Xbox Live Gold, the entire Game Pass library on Xbox and PC, EA Play, perks and discounts.
“With the Friends & Family plan, all five members enjoy the benefits of Game Pass Ultimate, with their own unique access to all Xbox Game Pass Ultimate games, content, and benefits, regardless of what device they play on,” an Xbox statement reads.
“All the people you invite can play at the same time – you can even play together in the same game. Plus, you can include friends and family outside your household.”
Players who want to start a Game Pass Friends & Family Plan will have to pay more for their subscription. Since it hasn’t been confirmed in other regions yet, full pricing information isn’t official, but in Ireland it will cost €21.99 per month (as opposed to €12.99 per month for a Game Pass Ultimate subscription).
The official FAQ also states that players with a current Xbox Game Pass Ultimate subscription can convert it to a Friends & Family one. For every month remaining of Game Pass Ultimate they’ll get 18 days of Friends & Family.
Were this calculation to be replicated in other regions, that would amount to roughly $24.99 / £18.33 per month for Friends & Family in the US, as opposed to $14.99 / £10.99 per month for Xbox Game Pass Ultimate.
Given that the point of the service is to have multiple players sharing the same subscription, this would still result in an overall saving.
With two players in the group, each player’s subscription would cost $12.50 / £9.16 per month, while with the full five players in the group it would only cost $5 / £3.66 per month.
Only the primary account holder who set up the group is charged, however, meaning it will be up to them to gather payments from their friends and family should they so wish.
