Has Xbox Live Gold been discontinued? New dashboard update makes it look that way

More evidence has emerged that Microsoft is planning a revamp of Xbox Live Gold, but does Xbox Network mean online multiplayer will be free?

Given how important Game Pass has become to the Xbox business there have been rumours for months now that Microsoft is going to discontinue or otherwise revamp Xbox Live Gold – perhaps even making online multiplayer free.

To date that hasn’t happened, but something is definitely going on as references to Xbox Live have been removed from the latest update of the Xbox dashboard and replaced with something called Xbox Network.

There’s been no official announcement, but the references seem to have been accidentally revealed early, with Xbox owners who were using the capture app reporting the changes.

Since there doesn’t seem much point just renaming the existing service, especially since it’s been around for getting on for two decades, the logical assumption is that this marks a major rethink in Microsoft’s online services for Xbox.

It’s also been noted that Larry ‘Major Nelson’ Hryb has also changed his YouTube name from Xbox Live’s Major Nelson to simply Xbox’s Major Nelson, which is surely not a coincidence.

GameCentral has asked Microsoft to comment but until they do exactly what’s going on is hard to say, despite suggestions last year from Microsoft that no changes were planned for Xbox Live.

The service is beginning to seem ever more anachronistic though, given that Xbox Live Gold is needed to play even free-to-play titles like Fortnite and Apex Legends, and so a change to that policy does seem likely, perhaps involving rolling Xbox Live into Game Pass.

That could result in a price increase for Game Pass but likely a price drop overall, for everyone that is currently subscribed to both.

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