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Phil Spencer did state that a "price increase" for first party titles "would eventually happen," guess I'm just a little surprised it happened not too soon after he made said statement. But yep now Microsoft is joining Sony in pricing their first party releases at $70, meaning that whether people like it or not (well typically customers never like price increases, it's only business execs that do) this is basically becoming the new standard price for new game releases, and I fully expect Nintendo will do the same with their first party games once they move on to the Switch's successor (it happened when it came to "paid online," it's gonna happen again because it'll appease the suits).

Another reason to not buy AAA games and to stick to promising indie titles instead.

Really the only big title I'm currently looking forward to is Elder Scrolls VI, but after waiting a decade and seeing Bethesda's latest releases, consider my initial enthusiasm thoroughly curbed.

Oh it's worth noting that Microsoft is still going to bring their first party games to GamePass on day 1 like they've been doing, so as long as you're subbed to GamePass you'll be able to play games like Starfield and Elder Scrolls 6 on release and decide if they're worth outright buying later. This is in contrast to Sony and PS Plus Premium where first party Sony games only get added to the service after they've been out for a decent chunk of time, because Sony generally makes most of their money from the launch sales so from a business standpoint they believe putting something like Horizon 2 or God of War: Ragnarok on the service day one would only hurt them financially (technically this does seem to hurt Microsoft financially to some extent too, but the way they're trying to mitigate this is by increasing GamePass subscribers to a point where eventually profits from monthly fees outweigh lost launch sales).

I don't subscribe to "games as a service" platforms out of principle.
If TES6 ever comes out I'll wait and see how it turned out. Chances are that it will be riddled with bugs right at release anyway, so I'll prefer to wait until the game is actually finished. Might even wait a year or so to buy it at reduced cost during a sale than for the full price at day 1.

I'd happily fork over 10$ extra to Microsoft if it meant these AAA game's were solid and & bug free experience on release. Furthermore, without fleecing us with a myriad of pre-order or in-game store shenanigans.

Of their upcoming catalogue, Starfield is the only thing on my radar that I was somewhat interested in. I wasn't particularly excited over it and for 70$ is only making it a harder sell knowing Bethesda antics.