Xbox Game Pass, Game Pass Ultimate now Includes EA Play! [XGP, GamePass]

Yes. Even just The Medium, The Ascent, MS Flight Sim, Hades, Psychonauts 2, Forza Horizon 5, Halo Infinite will have easily made the service worth it this year, not to mention the back catalogue and all the indie gems.
 
What is retro crush , why should I be excited that its coming to xbox and why might it be a tie in or bundled part of Game pass ultimate.

Why am I asking so many questions. Guess I will boot up my xbox and see what its all about
 
Try Katana Zero before it leaves on the 15th. Stylish 2D action with a puzzle element in that you have to optimize a run through a level (aka, retry it until you pull it off without getting hit). The retries have minimal friction, but the enemy actions are somewhat random which can throw off your timing on a second (or tenth...) run. Good soundtrack.

Tales of Zestiria leaves the same day, but it's a JRPG, so consider it a demo because you're not finishing it in a week.
 
Yeesh back 4 blood have really confusing and annoying UX.

I guess the developer really have a knack for that kind of UX...
 
Find it funny how it's a scoop when it was already posted on B3D. Hopefully their article has more details. :LOL:

Edit: it was nice to see them confirm it with Microsoft/Xbox.
 
Didn't the Bethesda games support mods when downloaded through the Windows Store?


Finally. The most basic of requirements
I still remember the time I lost trying to manually delete the files of a Windows Store game I had supposedly deleted but its dozens of GB still lingered on my mass storage.
 
Didn't the Bethesda games support mods when downloaded through the Windows Store?
You mean through the Xbox App? Yes, you can turn on modding which opens up a writable folder to add your mod files. You still don't get access to the executable though so it's limited. I have no idea what this change means in respect to the entire game being accessible and whether that includes the executable.
 
This years Dreamhack Winter MS is sponsoring with GamePass pc, you get 3 months of free gamepass for attending (ticket). So everyone going to DHW gets free pc gamepass for 3 months. MS have their own area/stand aswell i think (they had last time).

https://dreamhack.com/winter/
 
So I spoke of Clarity boost for xcloud before. They now have a survey out asking for type of gpu used if you don't see the option on your stream. So it looks like it is using something on the gpu to boost clarity ? Maybe fsaa ?
 
How Xbox outgrew the console: inside Phil Spencer’s multi-billion dollar gamble
Phil Spencer saved Xbox. Now he wants to reinvent gaming. Ahead of Xbox’s 20th anniversary, we sat down with him and Microsoft’s gaming A-Team to discuss their wildly ambitious future including Game Pass, Xbox Cloud Gaming, Halo Infinite, The Elder Scrolls VI exclusivity and more

It was to be the major first experiment for Xbox Game Pass, the service that had been in concept as early as 2013. Codenamed Arches, Game Pass started as a rental service for video games, but as Netflix and Spotify proliferated the team settled on a subscription model. It was the answer to a shift in revenue tails in games. “Something like 75 per cent of a game’s revenue used to be made in the first two months of release,” explains Sarah Bond, head of gaming ecosystems. “Nowadays it’s spread over two years.”


Spencer and his team saw an opportunity.

They went out to publishers, but the idea was met with staunch resistance. “They were like, ‘no way, [Game Pass] is going to devalue games,’” Bond continues. Xbox asked instead to experiment with their older games, where the risk was low. Engagement surpassed all estimates, so a potentially even more audacious play came to life. Xbox would release one of its own exclusive first-party games onto Game Pass, on the same day it hit shops. Sea Of Thieves was first to leap over the barricades. It was a big point of differentiation for Microsoft. PlayStation and Nintendo players still have to spend upwards of £50 on a new title. Here was Xbox giving you its latest, most valuable product, as well as its existing back catalogue, all from £7.99 per month.

Craig Duncan remembers turning to Spencer and asking the big question:

“If every single person plays Sea Of Thieves on Game Pass, and we don’t sell a single copy. Are you kind of cool with that?’”

Spencer was categorical.

“Absolutely.”

In the end, Sea Of Thieves had a great launch, people still bought it and it was heralded as Rare’s return to form. But more importantly, it proved Game Pass could work. The economics were “100 per cent a success,” says Bond. Xbox’s business model transformed. Since then, every single Xbox Game Studios game, no matter the size or budget, has been released, day one, onto the service. Major publishers such as Electronic Arts, makers of FIFA, have partnered with Xbox Game Pass too. The 18 million subscribers spend 50 per cent more than non-subscribers. A game’s average engagement goes up eight times when added to Game Pass. And player experimentation within genres dramatically increases. Three years after release, Sea Of Thieves just passed 25 million players, and that continues to grow.

“Even today,” Duncan says, smiling.

https://www.gq-magazine.co.uk/culture/article/xbox-phil-spencer-todd-howard-interview

Tommy McClain
 
How Xbox outgrew the console: inside Phil Spencer’s multi-billion dollar gamble
Phil Spencer saved Xbox. Now he wants to reinvent gaming. Ahead of Xbox’s 20th anniversary, we sat down with him and Microsoft’s gaming A-Team to discuss their wildly ambitious future including Game Pass, Xbox Cloud Gaming, Halo Infinite, The Elder Scrolls VI exclusivity and more



https://www.gq-magazine.co.uk/culture/article/xbox-phil-spencer-todd-howard-interview

Tommy McClain

There's a lot of good stuff in there and people really should read it. I almost feel bad for just picking out a few things that I found interesting in terms of discussions that tend to go round the tree here about Game Pass.

Codenamed Arches, Game Pass started as a rental service for video games, but as Netflix and Spotify proliferated the team settled on a subscription model. It was the answer to a shift in revenue tails in games. “Something like 75 per cent of a game’s revenue used to be made in the first two months of release,” explains Sarah Bond, head of gaming ecosystems. “Nowadays it’s spread over two years.”

Sea Of Thieves was first to leap over the barricades. It was a big point of differentiation for Microsoft.

Craig Duncan remembers turning to Spencer and asking the big question:

“If every single person plays Sea Of Thieves on Game Pass, and we don’t sell a single copy. Are you kind of cool with that?’”

Spencer was categorical.

“Absolutely.”

The economics were “100 per cent a success,” says Bond.

The 18 million subscribers spend 50 per cent more than non-subscribers. A game’s average engagement goes up eight times when added to Game Pass. And player experimentation within genres dramatically increases.

So, at least information from Sarah Bond appears to indicate that MS are very happy about the current economic situation with Game Pass.

Also, contrary to what other people might believe, subscribers to Game Pass buy more games (or at least spend more money on games) than people that aren't subscirbed to Game Pass. And not just a little bit more that might be lost in the noise of random variation, but a fairly significant ~50% more on average.

I suspected this was the case and had argued that this was likely the case in various posts, but it's good to see MS confirming what I suspected.

Also, if you haven't yet, read the article, there is so much good and interesting information in there that has nothing to do with Game Pass. :D

Like for example,

The first “disruptive innovation”, as Choudhry calls it, was with backwards compatibility. “After the Xbox One launched, I went to Phil,” he says. “I’m like, ‘I’ve been thinking, we don’t have the ability to play old games on Xbox One. I want to take a team of about 30 of our smartest people. And we’re gonna go work on it for a year, and only at the end of the year will I then tell you whether or not it’s going to work.’”

Regards,
SB
 
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"It's a “creator-driven” platform that gives developers the confidence that whatever game they make is “going to find an audience of some heft. Before [Game Pass] you might want to make this game, and then you’re gonna sit in a lot of forecasting sales meetings, and say, ‘well, I don’t know if we can make that game’,” he says.
“Game Pass opens up the creative canvas to many more types of games that may not find an audience in other ways.”
"

This is such a relief, in the world where only next iteration of cod fifa BF whatnot make economic sense and innovation and risky ideas are found in indie titles. As a gamer i couldn't be more happy.
 
I think the model of 80 dollars a game will be a thing of the past sooner then later.

I think they might still exist for a long time to come. There are a lot of Microsoft games over the next few years that I'm really excited for and with a sprinkling of third party stuff that ms also has game pass is a no brainer for me.

But if I look at other companies lets say ubi soft and honestly there is nothing on their release line up that interests me. So I wouldn't pay for a subscription to ubisoft. If there is a game that pops up it will most likely be cheaper for me to buy it than tay subscribed.

So at the end of the day I think for smaller and mid level publishers its smarter to offer a stand alone option and perhaps also exist on the bigger companies platforms.
 
So, at least information from Sarah Bond appears to indicate that MS are very happy about the current economic situation with Game Pass.

Also, contrary to what other people might believe, subscribers to Game Pass buy more games (or at least spend more money on games) than people that aren't subscirbed to Game Pass. And not just a little bit more that might be lost in the noise of random variation, but a fairly significant ~50% more on average.

I suspected this was the case and had argued that this was likely the case in various posts, but it's good to see MS confirming what I suspected.

Also, if you haven't yet, read the article, there is so much good and interesting information in there that has nothing to do with Game Pass. :D

Like for example,



Regards,
SB
I don’t think anyone disputes what they say, it’s just without context it means nothing. There’s several examples, not least what constitutes a gamer who does no subscribe to GP? An example, a family share a console and one person has GP and buys all the games but the rest of the family (obviously) don’t.
I could go on but clearly one data point means nothing without context and full understanding of all the data being counted and it’s interpretation.
 
What I'm hoping to see less of in games is filler. I think GP enables that more. You don't need to add tons of filler content to games to justify the $70 price tag, just put whatever makes sense into the game and put it on GP.

For instance, I'm playing DQ XI (almost done) and it's a very good game, but it really didn't need to be 60 hours long. They added a ridiculous amount of filler to pad the game IMO for retail release.

Hellblade is a good example of a nice 10 hour focused experience that doesn't have any filler. People get mad when they pay $60 for something like that, but throw it on GP and it's fine.

In the last 12 months I played and completed Hellblade, Call of the Sea, The Medium, Ori 2, Battletoads, and What Remains of Edith Finch? in less time than I've spent on DQ XI because those games don't have any padding.

Sure, it's good to have these more involved games like FH5, Halo I, and Witcher 3 etc..., but not everything needs to be a sprawling epic. I hope GP makes that happen more.
 
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