Xbox Game Pass Price Increase “Like a Betrayal” — One of Xbox’s Co-Founders Criticized Microsoft

The backlash to the Xbox Game Pass price increase has moved beyond just players — one of the platform’s co-founders, Laura Fryer, has now spoken out about Microsoft’s decision.

On her YouTube channel she published an impassioned response. Fryer argued that Xbox’s current leadership is insulated in a bubble, disconnected from the realities of gamers, and that the communication surrounding the price rise was “completely deaf to the community’s viewpoint.”

Fryer said:

“This price hike is nothing short of a betrayal — an expression of greed rather than a love for games.”

She added that Xbox has lost its core identity — the distinctive hardware, exclusive titles and genuine collaborations with developers.

The brand, she noted, was originally shaped not for pure profit but to build a closed ecosystem that kept direct ties between players and creators. Today, by labeling everything simply as “Xbox,” the strategy has diluted the brand’s uniqueness.

“It was meant to be a unifying slogan — ‘Xbox welcomes everyone.’ But if everything is Xbox, then nothing truly feels like Xbox.”

Although Fryer accepts the commercial logic behind a shift to services and the cloud, she believes management does not understand players or developers:

“Maybe they’re just incompetent and are trying out different approaches.”

Her remarks are among the first particularly sharp critiques from someone who helped build the Xbox brand.

Source: iXBT.games