Apple Arcade rumored to cost $4.99 a month

We are in the age of subscription services. Physical media is all but dead except for those few collectors still holding on, and Netflix is no longer the only game in town. Every major media company from Disney to Apple have announced plans to launch their own streaming service. The latter, Apple, announced several subscription services earlier this year, but left out details such as pricing, launch dates and so on.

On Monday, 9to5Mac reported that Apple's gaming service Apple Arcade will most likely cost $4.99 a month. Apple has rolled out early access to Arcade, allowing employees and some journalists to get a sneak peek at the UI and a few of the games.

Apple Arcade is Apple's video game subscription service that will offer unlimited access to over 100 games. It will include support for Family Sharing, no ads or in-app purchases, and offline play. It is basically Apple's way of combating the race to the bottom mentality and microtransactions that plague the App Store. Those who are willing to pay for good mobile games can now pay $5 a month, and those who don't mind freemium garbage can continue to muck about the App Store.

While nothing has been officially confirmed, $4.99 seems like a likely price for Apple Arcade. Even though both of Apple's available subscription services, Apple Music and Apple News+, cost $9.99 a month, most people don't like paying much, if anything, for mobile games. It would be smart for Apple to keep the price of Apple Arcade as low as possible, and anything less than $4.99 doesn't seem feasible.

9to5Mac claims to have seen this price in a "promotional message" listed in "one of the APIs used by the App Store app." This doesn't mean $4.99 is the final price Apple will land on and it could change before its official release.

Apple Arcade is expected to launch alongside iOS 13 in the fall. The service will most likely include a free month trial for all new subscribers.