Microsoft has discontinued offering year-long subscriptions to Xbox Live Gold. It is still permissible to purchase the service per month or per quarter. Microsoft would change its Live Gold subscription with the introduction of the Xbox Series X.

In the Microsoft store you can only buy subscriptions for a month or three months. "Xbox has decided to withdraw the subscription from the Microsoft store for 12 months," said a spokesperson. The company gives no reason for the cancellation of the annual subscriptions. Microsoft has confirmed that it is not an error, but a conscious choice. That choice has not been further explained.

A Microsoft spokesperson said, "At this time, Xbox has decided to remove the 12 months Xbox Live Gold SKU from the Microsoft online Store. Customers can still sign up for a one month or three month Xbox Live Gold subscription online through the Microsoft Store." Unfortunately, the company did not specify the reason why it has decided to delist the 12-month option. 

As of yet, we don't know why the 12-month offer has been removed. Both the one month option (at $9.99/£6.99) and three-month offers (at $24.99/£17.99) are still available to purchase. It's possible that this could be some sort of error on Microsoft's behalf, but many customers across the internet are also speculating that Xbox Live Gold will soon be phased out or fully combined with Xbox Game Pass in some way. Currently, it is still possible to purchase 12-month subscriptions from third-parties.

Microsoft stops selling Xbox Live Gold annual subscriptions