Enlarge (credit: Ars Technica)
Today's Dealmaster is highlighted by a couple of deals on Xbox subscriptions, as 3-month membership codes for both Xbox Live Gold and Xbox Game Pass Ultimate are on sale. The former is down to $15 from its usual $25, while the latter is down to $25 from its usual $45. Neither deal is an all-time low, but they're still good prices that we typically see whenever these memberships get discounted from reputable retailers.
For the unfamiliar, an Xbox Live Gold subscription is required to access the online components of most Xbox games and nets you a couple bonus games every month, much like Sony's PlayStation Plus service. Game Pass Ultimate, meanwhile, bundles a Gold membership with subscriptions to Microsoft's pseudo-Netflix-style Xbox Game Pass service for console and PC. We generally consider Game Pass to be a good deal on its own—its library has grown to include several worthwhile games, and Microsoft makes its own first-party games available on the service at launch. The company is heavily pushing Game Pass with its upcoming Xbox Series X console, but since it plans to make all of its "next-gen" games available on the current Xbox One for the first year or so of the Series X's life, Game Pass subscribers who don't plan on upgrading their hardware right away should still be able to get the most out of their membership.
Of note: if you already pay for Game Pass Ultimate, Microsoft says that buying a 3-month Xbox Live Gold membership will convert to 50 days of Ultimate service. If you've never subscribed to Game Pass Ultimate, though, know that it's still possible to save hundreds of dollars on up to three years of service by stocking up on Gold memberships first, then grabbing an Ultimate of the latter for $1 extra, converting all that Gold subscription time to an Ultimate subscription in the process. We've gone over how this deal works before, but if you plan to use an Xbox for the next couple of years, it's still a great deal worth considering.
