Take 50% off six months of Xbox Game Pass Ultimate today, Ars Technica

Ars Technica Today’s Dealmaster is headed up by a nice deal on Xbox Game Pass Ultimate that makes six months of Microsoft’s Netflix-esque gaming service available for $ . That’s effectively a 79 – percent discount, since the company typically charges $ for a three- month membership.

The Deal is available at a handful of retailers but works by emailing those who buy a three-month digital subscription code an additional

Three-month code shortly after purchase. Amazon, for one, says at checkout that it will email that bonus code “within two days of the purchase date.” The retailer says the offer is limited to one bonus code per customer but that it’s available to anyone, not just new Game Pass subscribers. for the unfamiliar, Game Pass Ultimate rolls Xbox Live Gold, the Standard Game Pass for Xbox consoles , and Game Pass for PC into one $ – a-month membership, or $ 299 a year. By contrast, a year of Xbox Live Gold normally costs $ on its own , while a year of Game Pass costs $ , and a year of Game Pass for PC costs $ .

This is a better value if you have a rig capable of playing PC games, but either way the service has steadily grown into an excellent deal for Xbox One owners over the past year. Xbox Live Gold remains a requirement for Xbox One online play, and the Game Pass library now includes a few hundred downloadable games , many of which are genuinely worth playing.