Microsoft’s Xbox Game Pass Ultimate and PC Game Pass offer great value if you want to play all kinds of games through a subscription. The service normally costs $14.99 per month for Xbox Game Pass Ultimate (which covers both Xbox and PC) or $9.99 per month for PC Game Pass and includes AAA titles such as Halo Infinite and Forza Horizon 5 as well as rotations of major games and third-party indies.
If you want to try it there is an introductory price that will give you a month of Xbox Game Pass Ultimate for $1† But before you redeem it, you should know that it is possible to use the trial period as a way to save money lot of money on Game Pass Ultimate for up to three years.
Microsoft allows Xbox players to order up to 36 months of prepaid Xbox Live Gold service. And if you activate the $1 trial, future months of Gold service will automatically convert to the more expensive Xbox Game Pass Ultimate, saving you hundreds of dollars. For some context on how much money you can save, it costs about $180 for three years of Xbox Live Gold. Add in the $1 promotion and you get three years of Xbox Game Pass Ultimate for about $181 – whereas if you paid the full $14.99 per month for Game Pass Ultimate, those three years would cost you nearly $540.
It’s worth noting that this was really designed as a one-time offer. If you’ve already used the offer to get one month for $1, you’ve taken your chance to convert Xbox Live Gold to Game Pass Ultimate without completely canceling or expiring Game Pass. (You must turn off auto-renewal on your account.) If you resubscribe after that, you’ll be charged $14.99 for the entire first month, instead of the $1 introductory price.
So if you haven’t used this conversion yet, you can get the most bang for your buck here.
Convert your Xbox Live service to Game Pass Ultimate
- To participate in this free conversion, you must first purchase an Xbox Live Gold subscription (assuming you don’t already have one). Microsoft may end Xbox Live Gold sales at some point as it encourages players to purchase Game Pass Ultimate. But, for nowyou can still buy digital codes for the service from Amazon and other retailers in three† six-, or 12 months increases.
- The next step is to activate the Xbox Live Gold codes on your account, either through Microsoft’s website or directly through your Xbox One or Series X/S console. Microsoft states: that the terms and conditions of this promotion are subject to changeso I would do this sooner rather than later as there is no indication if it will ever stop converting Xbox Live Gold to Game Pass Ultimate.
- It is now safe to take advantage of the $1 Game Pass Ultimate Trial† Once you redeem the offer, you’ll see something similar to the image above when you click the “Services and Subscriptions” tab of your account on the Microsoft site.
While this conversion is not possible with PC Game Pass, the Xbox Game Pass Ultimate subscription covers both Xbox and PC. That makes this Xbox Live Gold conversion even more beneficial if you play on both platforms.
Update May 16, 2022, 11:23 AM ET: This article was originally published on June 18, 2019 and has been updated to reflect current offerings.
