Xbox Game Pass Gives You Unlimited Access to Over 100 Games for $9.99 Per Month - News
by William D'Angelo , posted on 01 March 2017 / 8,925 Views
Microsoft has announced a new gaming subscription service called Xbox Game Pass coming later this Spring. The service gives Xbox One owners unlimited access to over 100 Xbox one and backward compatible Xbox 360 games for $9.99 per month.
Confirmed games include Halo 5: Guardians, Payday 2, NBA 2K16, and SoulCalibur II. There will be games coming from several publishers such as 2K, 505 Games, Bandai Namco, Capcom, Codemasters, Deep Silver, Focus Home Interactive, Sega, SNK, THQ Nordic, Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment, and Microsoft Studios.
Xbox Game Pass is not a streaming service like PlayStation Now. The games will be downloaded onto the Xbox One hard drive. All Xbox One games and DLC will be available to purchase fora discount.
Every month new games will be added to the service and others will be removed to ensure the library of games continues to change.
Xbox Live Gold will not be required, however, Gold members will be getting exclusive access to Xbox Game Pass before it launches. Select members of the Xbox Insider Program will be given Alpha Preview access starting today with a limited number of titles.
A life-long and avid gamer, William D'Angelo was first introduced to VGChartz in 2007. After years of supporting the site, he was brought on in 2010 as a junior analyst, working his way up to lead analyst in 2012. He has expanded his involvement in the gaming community by producing content on his own YouTube channel and Twitch channel dedicated to gaming Let's Plays and tutorials. You can contact the author at wdangelo@vgchartz.com or on Twitter @TrunksWD.
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this is awesome. If i had an xbox I'd buy this.
Its a good price. Its an additional way gamers could play their games, nobody is harmed by this and new consumers get options, which is great. Way to go Microsoft.
Gamestop is harmed as this will affect used game sales as will other game re-sellers. Even if you hate Gamestop and other re-sellers the fact remains that this harms their business model. Of course PSNow also harms the used game market.
So what you are saying binary is no one of consequence was harmed. personally I don't think this offers much value to me due to years of xbox gold games in my catalogue and me being fussy in what I play, but looks like a great service for the casual gamer.
Why should we care if this damages Gamestop or any other retailer!? I dont really get it, on my LIFE Gamestop has ZERO influence so why should i care if their business declines, digital and things like these are the future! And even if you buy your games retail at Gamestopy, how will this affect you!? There will always be places to buy retail and retail will most likely be always there but digital will grow more and more and also services like EA Access or now from Xbox, PS Now really is well a 0/10 !!!
malistix said "no one is harmed". I pointed out that re-sellers are harmed, including Gamestop, and thereby the employees at Gamestop who may/will lose their jobs. So the statement is factually incorrect. I didn't ask or tell you to care. Just pointing out a matter of factual inaccuracy.
But good to know you don't care about the livelihoods of average workers being at risk. It would be an interesting analysis to see the net employment effect of this sort of thing. If we get hundreds of Gamestop outlets that are marginally profitable closing down over the next couple of years because of a severe drop in used game sales, will those job losses be compensated for by increased hiring in the development / publishing side of the industry? Interesting question of the socio-economic effects of these things.
personally binary I care more for the consumers and developers that are harmed by gamestop and resellers. Today's season passes and excessive DLC is in at least part to address how gamestop attack their revenue base. There are no real winners but this is definitely a positive direction though I doubt they will ever roll back the season/DLC approach now that it has become entrenched, that damage has already been done.
Dunno how consumers are harmed by being able to buy used games. I certainly haven't suffered whenever I bought a used game.
I don't think season pass / DLC has anything at all to do with the used game market. It's game companies learning how to monetise digital distribution technology. Game companies that consistently made good games made good profits back in the generations when you could only buy physical games and used game sales was all part of the industry. The dev/pub side of the industry accuses Gamestop of harming them because of used game saleswhere revenue is not shared with the publisher. Gamestop can't survive as a retailer on the table scraps of margin that they are allowed for new productsales, and so need to profit from used game / used hardware sales.
I'm still yet to see any evidence of a game studio or publisher going out of business because of used game sales. AFAIK they all go out of business because they end up making sub-standard games that fail to sell. And those games that do sell wind up in re-sellers' bins by the buttload and even fail to sell as used games.
It is absurd and naïve to think all the money places like gamestop suck out of the industry are somehow separate and independent funds, they take a large slice of the pie and it hurts developers. The used games market eats away at revenue making it that much more difficult for developers to break even let alone profit. Even good developers have games that bomb sometimes and when you have to ride closer and closer to the edge those bombs can be a death sentence.
Awesome but Xbox needs to work on releasing new games. They always do this. Come out strong and the stumble through mid-end gen.
Not a streaming service! Thank goodness!
I'm guessing, with all the publishers they have to get on board, that this is going to be more like Netflix with titles coming and going each month. Still a great deal, IMO. M$ hasn't been killing it lately with their exclusives, but they do have some pretty good services available.
It's an amazing value. People talk about games as a service and replacing the current model t one where you pay a fee and have access to everything, Netflix-style. This has usually been associated with streaming (PS Now, GeForce Now, OnLive).
However, we still have severe limitations regarding streaming games. Since you can't buffer it like video or audio and any lag ruins the experience, it seem far away. Maybe the best solution is to have a console to run the game locally, but giving access to all games with a fee. The console is more expensive than a cloud device, but it could be free with a subscription plan, like phones.
Of course, I don't see publishers backing this up that much. They sell individual games for 60 bucks, fighting over a US$ 10 fee divided by all publishers seems like a bad business model.
I'm guessing, with all the publishers they have to get on board, that this is going to be more like Netflix with titles coming and going each month. Still a great deal, IMO. M$ hasn't been killing it lately with their exclusives, but they do have some pretty good services available.
Look at the support X1 and Switch have. MS isn't concerned about Switch, different audience for the most part.
Ignore, responded to wrong post.
It is no coincidence that this drops days before Switch launches.
Switch's primary competition isn't X1, its phones and tablets.
Look at the support X1 and Switch have. MS isn't concerned about Switch, different audience for the most part.
