Microsoft rolls out bargain Office/Xbox/Skype plan – but you can’t have it in UK

Microsoft is offering customers an all-in-one subscription to many of its leading online services, but only if you live in the US.

The new Work & Play Bundle includes a year’s subscription to Office 365 Home (access to Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook and 1TB of OneDrive storage), Xbox Live Gold (for playing online games on the console), Xbox Music Pass (the company’s equivalent to Spotify which offers unlimited music streaming) and Skype Unlimited World and Wi-Fi (which offers limitless calls to landlines and Wi-Fi access from thousands of public hotspots).

This entire bundle is being sold for $199, a considerable saving on the standalone packages. In the US, Office 365 Home costs $99 per year, Xbox Live Gold costs $60, Xbox Music Pass costs $100 and Skype Unlimited World costs $168 per year, a grand total of $427 for all four.

However, it seems Microsoft is putting heavy restrictions on the offer. It’s only available in Microsoft retail stores – not online – until 4 January, and it’s not currently available to UK residents.

Perhaps if the US experiment proves a hit, Microsoft will be encouraged to extend the offer worldwide. Until then, users of Microsoft’s various online services will have to continue subscribing to each separately.