Xbox Live Gold will become Xbox Game Pass Core in September

It has been reported that Microsoft's Xbox Live Gold service will be incorporated into Game Pass, becoming its “Core” tier, giving players a collection of selected titles from Game Pass’ catalog.

The details:

• Microsoft appears to be planning to discontinue its Xbox Live Gold service in favor of focusing entirely on Game Pass, transitioning its entire paying user base to the new subscription service. According to a post on South Korean community site Naver Cafe and a now-deleted WindowsCentral article announcing the change, it will begin on September 1 and cost $9.99, the same price as Gold. The prices for Game Pass PC, Console, and Ultimate will remain unchanged at $9.99, $10.99, and $16.99, respectively.
• It will still give players access to online multiplayer and exclusive discounts, but it will now give subscribers access to 25 games from Game Pass' catalog, including Among Us, Fallout 4 and 76, Gears 5, and Doom Eternal. However, it appears that the Games With Gold program, which began in 2013 and provided Gold members with a few free titles each month, will be completely phased out.
• The exact reason for the change is unknown; however, the change was rumored to be in the works back in 2022. Initially, it was thought that Gold would be phased out in favor of forcing players to subscribe to the base tier of Game Pass for $15 per month. With the recent changes to Game Pass, including a price increase and the upcoming removal of its friends and family tier, Xbox has likely taken advantage of the opportunity to push out all of its plans at the same time.

More Microsoft news:

• Following the announcement of the Federal Trade Commission's (FTC) attempt to halt Microsoft's acquisition of publisher Activision-Blizzard, the Xbox parent has won the court battle against the US-based regulator. The CMA is now open to discussing possible amendments that the company can make to the deal to allow it to pass in the UK after its block in April.
• Microsoft has announced a new Xbox reporting system that allows players to manually upload 60 seconds of inappropriate in-game voice chat to Xbox's support team. The company chose to focus on in-game chat because it is frequently the most used form of communication outside of the platform's party system.