New annual Apple Arcade subscription option will save you a few bucks in the long run
While Apple is far from struggling financially, generating more than $33 billion in revenue from iPhones alone in the July - September 2019 timeframe, the tech giant always likes to think ahead, seeking new ways to make a profit and expand its business to not rely on just one or two big segments.
As global smartphone sales have taken hit after hit in the last couple of years, Cupertino increased its focus on the thriving wearable device market while looking to diversify its "services" portfolio in a few major ways. Several months after the commercial debut of the Apple News+ platform, the company opened its Arcade and TV+ doors to the public. Right off the bat, the video game subscription service and video content streaming platform caught the attention of the masses with their very reasonable pricing.
We're talking uncharacteristically low rates for Apple products of $4.99 a month. Of course, there wasn't a lot of TV+ content available at launch, and the Netflix-dominated market is certainly crowded and competitive enough to justify Apple's pricing strategy. We can't exactly say the same about Apple Arcade, though, which completely crushes Google Play Pass in terms of cool new and exclusive titles that would cost a fortune if you were to buy them one by one.
But believe it or not, you can now actually pay even less than 5 bucks a month for an Arcade subscription... as long as you don't mind committing to the platform for an entire year when first signing up. Better still, the newly introduced yearly subscription option can be claimed by existing users as well, who are free to switch from paying for their access every 30 days to coughing up $49.99 all at once by visiting their profile in the iOS App Store, selecting "Subscriptions", and then "Apple Arcade."
You're looking at saving a cool 10 bucks or so for a year of ad-free gaming with no in-app purchases on iPhones, iPads, Apple TVs, and Macs compared to how much you'd spend overall with a monthly subscription. That's obviously not an earth-shattering discount, but for a service priced very aggressively from the get-go, it's pretty great.
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