Microsoft has started testing a new Xbox Game Pass Ultimate Family plan with Xbox Insiders in Colombia and Ireland. The new plan will let subscribers share their Game Pass Ultimate benefits with up to four people in the same country.

“Starting today in Colombia and Ireland, Xbox Insiders can begin to preview a plan that allows multiple people to share Game Pass Ultimate benefits. This makes it even easier to play the best Game Pass games with friends and family across console, PC, and cloud by enabling you to add up to four people to your subscription, all with their own unique access to Xbox Game Pass Ultimate games, content, and benefits,” the Xbox team explained.

To try this new Xbox Game Pass Family plan, Xbox Insiders in Colombia and Ireland need to purchase the “Xbox Game Pass – Insider Preview” plan in the Microsoft Store. However, Insiders who join the preview won’t be able to invite people who already have an active Xbox Game Pass subscription.

The second caveat is that joining the new Family plan will convert the time remaining on your current Game Pass Ultimate membership. Conversion is final, and the current ratio may not really sound great. “For example, a full month of Ultimate will be converted to 18 days of membership for this plan,” the Xbox team explained.

With Netflix and other subscription services already offering family plans, Microsoft offering an Xbox Game Pass Family plan has been a long time coming. As of today, Xbox gamers can already share their Xbox Game Pass Ultimate benefits with other family members by setting up their Xbox console as their “Home” console, but this doesn’t help with family members living in a different household.

If an Xbox Game Pass Ultimate subscription is currently priced at $14.99/month, it’s too early for Microsoft to share pricing details for this new Family plan. We also don’t know yet when the new plan will launch in preview in other markets, but this is definitely an interesting development for the game subscription service that crossed the 25 million members milestone earlier this year.

Tagged with Gaming, Xbox, Xbox Game Pass, Xbox Insider