I bet this is
insanely expensive. Their page announcing pricing changes shows what looks like a 5 hour block of non-expiring playtime [1]. They aren't doing $1 or $2 transactions, so my guess is somewhere in the $1 per hour range.
People were worried about GTA6 costing $100 on launch. How about $100 per month if you want to play a couple hours a night and half a day on weekends? That's a lot, but I bet it's not uncommon.
It's the perfect testing scenario for those who want to take away ownership and replace it with forever rentals. They have a super popular game that people are desperate to play, the studio isn't launching it on PC for day 1, and the AI industry has given them an excuse to push console pricing over the moon.
Cynical people would see it as being very, very convenient.
The big tech companies are loving their invented supply crisis because it's price anchoring everyone into thinking that owning a PC or console or doing any type of gaming should cost half your paycheck.
Good for Microsoft though. A lot of people were probably considering a console purchase just for GTA6 and spending a few hundred dollars for a streaming service while waiting for the PC port is going to seem like a "good deal".
1. https://news.xbox.com/en-us/2026/09/03/xbox-cloud-gaming-cha...
People were worried about GTA6 costing $100 on launch. How about $100 per month if you want to play a couple hours a night and half a day on weekends? That's a lot, but I bet it's not uncommon.
It's the perfect testing scenario for those who want to take away ownership and replace it with forever rentals. They have a super popular game that people are desperate to play, the studio isn't launching it on PC for day 1, and the AI industry has given them an excuse to push console pricing over the moon.
Cynical people would see it as being very, very convenient.
The big tech companies are loving their invented supply crisis because it's price anchoring everyone into thinking that owning a PC or console or doing any type of gaming should cost half your paycheck.
Good for Microsoft though. A lot of people were probably considering a console purchase just for GTA6 and spending a few hundred dollars for a streaming service while waiting for the PC port is going to seem like a "good deal".
1. https://news.xbox.com/en-us/2026/09/03/xbox-cloud-gaming-cha...