Microsoft has closed a loophole that allowed users to get the “Xbox Game Pass” at half price. A conversion error in the duration change from EA Play to the Ultimate Game Pass made it possible to purchase the pass for half the price.
What was this loophole? The loophole arose when EA Play became part of the Xbox Game Pass in September 2020.
Microsoft and EA now had to solve a problem: if a subscriber of EA Play already had the Xbox Game Pass Ultimate, he had to be compensated in some way; otherwise, he would have paid for an EA Play subscription that would no longer be useful since he already owned the Xbox Game Pass and thus had EA Play twice, effectively paying for it “for nothing”.
Therefore, subscription time for EA Play was converted into additional time for the Xbox Game Pass, as long as the “EA Play” subscriber already owned the Game Pass.
This, however, created a loophole:
- Normally, one month of Xbox Game Pass costs 12.99€.
- However, it was possible to get a year of EA Play for 24.99€ and then convert it into subscription time for the “Xbox Game Pass Ultimate”. With 1 year of EA Play, one could obtain 4 months of access to the Game Pass Ultimate.
- This meant that one month of Xbox Game Pass cost only 6.25€ – just half the normal price.
Microsoft closes EA Play loophole
This is the change now: In the FAQ for the Xbox Game Pass, you can see that Microsoft has now closed this loophole.
Anyone who, as an owner of an Xbox Game Pass, obtains an “EA Play” code for the Xbox console will still have their time automatically converted.
But now, one year of EA Play only brings 2 months of Xbox Game Pass Ultimate instead of the previous 4 months.
This means: Microsoft has maintained the basic idea of conversion but has adjusted the exchange rate so that a buyer no longer receives an advantage from it.
Are there any other loopholes of this kind? There is still the possibility to save money on the Xbox Game Pass through the “Xbox Live Membership”. How this loophole works exactly, we explain in an article:
Be careful, don’t just pay 10 € for the Xbox Game Pass – I almost made that mistake
