Microsoft appears to be lining up a new Xbox Game Pass tier called Game Pass Starter Edition, and the leak suggests it will bundle a paid Discord Nitro subscription with a smaller Game Pass library. The report comes from The Verge, and it lands just days after Xbox announced a price cut for its existing Game Pass tiers, which will no longer get new Call of Duty games at launch. For players, that makes this feel less like a random add-on and more like Microsoft trying to sell a cleaner, more focused entry point into Game Pass.
The leaked tier has not been priced yet, but the source says it looks aimed at people who might want Discord Nitro first and Game Pass second. That matters because the bundle could lower the barrier for newcomers who already use Discord every day, while also giving Microsoft another way to keep people inside its subscription stack without pushing them straight to Game Pass Ultimate. If the company gets the price right, this could be a smart value play; if not, it risks looking like two half-offerings stapled together.
Xbox boss Asha Sharma also teased that people might start to see some code in the wild
tied to a collaboration between Xbox and Discord, and that line now looks a lot less mysterious in hindsight. The leak suggests Microsoft has already started testing the shape of that partnership in public-facing code. For players, that usually means the company is close enough to a reveal that the broad contours are probably real, even if the final price and rollout plan still aren’t locked in.
About Game Pass Starter Edition
Game Pass Starter Edition appears to sit close to the established baseline Game Pass Essential tier rather than the more expensive end of the service. The source says it would bundle Discord Nitro, which is Discord’s paid subscription offering, and that makes this a different kind of pitch from the usual Game Pass upsell. Instead of selling only access to games, Microsoft would be selling a package that also folds in Discord perks like beefier upload limits and HD video streaming.
That approach makes sense on paper because it gives the bundle a clearer identity. Players who already pay for Discord Nitro could see the Game Pass side as a bonus, while players who mainly want a small games library could treat Nitro as the extra hook. Microsoft already includes a month of free Discord Nitro with Game Pass Ultimate as of the start of this month, so Starter Edition looks like the next step in that relationship rather than a one-off promotion.