An ad-supported Xbox Game Pass tier could be under consideration by Microsoft.
According to reports, the tier would have a monthly cost of $3 and would provide access to a variety of Xbox Game Pass content with some fairly generous restrictions.
As part of the service, you would be able to access a vault of past Xbox first-party games, with an EA Access-style 6-month delay on new Xbox games.
Users of this tier will be required to view an advertisement before gaining access to these download-only Xbox games.
In such a scenario, Xbox Live Gold would be aggressively undercut by this alleged ad-supported tier, which leads to a number of head-scratchers.
For quite some time, Microsoft's Bing business has been growing in terms of online advertising.
In light of the fact that other subscription services such as Netflix have explored ad-supported tiers, it makes sense that Microsoft should follow suit.