The Xbox Game Pass Friends & Family plan has been added to six more countries

Microsoft is expanding its Xbox Game Pass Friends & Family plan by bringing it to six new countries.

The service, which lets up to five players share Game Pass benefits for a discounted price, launched in Ireland and Colombia in September 2022.

Microsoft announced on Tuesday that the service is now live in New Zealand, South Africa, Chile, Hungary, Israel and Sweden, bringing the total number of participating countries to eight.

There’s still no word yet on when Friends & Family will be coming to larger markets such as North America or the UK.

Friends & Family allows Xbox Game Pass Ultimate subscribers to share their subscription with up to four other players.

The four other players have to live in the same country, but otherwise they will receive the full Xbox Game Pass Ultimate treatment, including Xbox Live Gold, the entire Game Pass library on Xbox and PC, EA Play, perks and discounts.

A Friends & Family Plan costs more than standard Xbox Game Pass Ultimate. In Ireland, for example, it costs €21.99 per month (as opposed to €12.99 per month for a Game Pass Ultimate subscription).

Were this calculation to be replicated in the US and UK, that would amount to roughly $24.99 / £18.33 per month for Friends & Family, as opposed to $14.99 / £10.99 per month for Xbox Game Pass Ultimate.

Further reading

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New Xbox Game Pass titles for console, PC and Cloud have been dated

Including Atomic Heart, Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty, Soul Hackers 2, F1 22, and Merge & Blade

Given that the point of the service is to have multiple players sharing the same subscription, this would still result in an overall saving.

With two players in the group, each player’s subscription would cost $12.50 / £9.16 per month, while with the full five players in the group it would only cost $5 / £3.66 per month.