Microsoft wants $1.49 a month to remove the ads it shows inside Solitaire on Windows 10
Windows 10 comes bundled with the Microsoft Solitaire Collection, gathering a bunch of variations on the eternally popular card game. But included withing the game are ads for other products and services - and if you want to remove the ads, Microsoft is charging $1.49 a month (or the bulk discount of $9.99 a year).
In the menu, users see an option to "Upgrade to Premium." Click it, and you get this display:
For your $1.49 a month, you get a score boost in TriPeaks and Pyramid, and the chance to win a bunch of extra "coins," the in-game currency you win by completing challenges. You don't need it to play Solitaire, and the game itself plays more or less as it has since Windows 3.1 in the early nineties. But if you don't want to pay, get used to those ads.
As PCWorld notes, this isn't the first time Microsoft has charged for Solitaire, and Windows 8 had a similar paid plan for its version of the card game. The main difference is that Solitaire didn't come bundled with Windows 8, as it does with Windows 10.
This means that this is going to be front-and-center for a lot more users taking their free upgrade to Windows 10 this week.