Xbox Game Pass Launches June 1 with 100+ Games

Megalith

Megalith

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Xbox’s $9.99/month gaming subscription service will officially launch next Thursday, but if you are an Xbox Live Gold member, you can try a 14-day free trial of the service right now through the Early Access to Xbox Game Pass program. Subscribers have access to over 100 Xbox One and Backward Compatible Xbox 360 games, and unlike PlayStation Now, Game Pass will let subscribers download the included games.

When Xbox Game Pass launches, you can download and play a broad range of games in full fidelity on your Xbox One or Xbox One S console, including blockbusters like Halo 5: Guardians, NBA 2K16 and Payday 2; fun for the whole family in LEGO Batman, Banjo-Kazooie and Viva Pinata; retro and classic games like Mega Man Legacy Collection, Streets of Rage and Pac-Man Championship Edition DX+; and of course, Xbox Game Pass has a number of great first-person and third-person shooter games, including all three titles in the amazing BioShock franchise, Gears of War 1-3, Gears Ultimate, Perfect Dark Zero, Borderlands and more.
 
I was getting ready to poopoo this service, but $9.99 seems reasonable. And I like how you can download the titles, not just rely on a streaming tech.
 
I think this will be the future of gaming. A netflix-like subscription that lets you play any games. This can REALLY help inject life into the console wars. How many of us choose not to buy a console because we just don't really want to buy all the exclusives worth the console in the first place? hey, never played Halo? Play all of them for 10 bucks a month, then play all of the Gears of War series.. then play crackdown....

and then BOOM. you're an Xbox fan.
 
KazeoHin said:
I think this will be the future of gaming. A netflix-like subscription that lets you play any games. This can REALLY help inject life into the console wars. How many of us choose not to buy a console because we just don't really want to buy all the exclusives worth the console in the first place? hey, never played Halo? Play all of them for 10 bucks a month, then play all of the Gears of War series.. then play crackdown....

and then BOOM. you're an Xbox fan.
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Gotta make the games first through. PS4 still leading there. And with the Xbox Anywhere thingy, most PC won't bother adding a console. (Maybe if Project Scorpio includes a 4k blu-ray drive)
Edit: changed "switching" to "adding"
 
Okay, I'm a belieber now. Might actually get this since you can download the games.
 
KazeoHin said:
I think this will be the future of gaming. A netflix-like subscription that lets you play any games. This can REALLY help inject life into the console wars. How many of us choose not to buy a console because we just don't really want to buy all the exclusives worth the console in the first place? hey, never played Halo? Play all of them for 10 bucks a month, then play all of the Gears of War series.. then play crackdown....
and then BOOM. you're an Xbox fan.
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Agree. I see this as the future too. With MS and EA already doing this, I'm guessing Ubisoft and GoG won't be far behind. I think that will take care of most of the major players.
 
snowcrash said:
Agree. I see this as the future too. With MS and EA already doing this, I'm guessing Ubisoft and GoG won't be far behind. I think that will take care of most of the major players.
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You need DRM to run a game rental service.

GOG's reason for existence is to be DRM free. So no, GOG won't be running a service like this anytime soon, if ever.
 
Snowdog said:
You need DRM to run a game rental service.

GOG's reason for existence is to be DRM free. So no, GOG won't be running a service like this anytime soon, if ever.
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Eh... blockbuster used to rent out video games. I suppose the cds and dvds had drm on them, but it was broken.

This is just a way to recycle old games and still get a profit out of it.
 
SighTurtle said:
Gotta make the games first through. PS4 still leading there. And with the Xbox Anywhere thingy, most PC won't bother adding a console. (Maybe if Project Scorpio includes a 4k blu-ray drive)
Edit: changed "switching" to "adding"
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Xbox One S has a 4k Blu-ray drive and so will Scorpio....
It's amazing that Sony skimped on that on the PS4 Pro....
 
This is the first time in a while I thought Xbox and Live were innovating since early on in the Xbox 360 cycle.

I'm legit excited as this isn't horrible, way to not screw this up MS!
 
Krazy925 said:
This is the first time in a while I thought Xbox and Live were innovating since early on in the Xbox 360 cycle.

I'm legit excited as this isn't horrible, way to not screw this up MS!
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Sony had it already, PlayStation Now.
 
SighTurtle said:
Sony had it already, PlayStation Now.
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Can you download the game? Not a deal breaker for me either way but I fear starting a game and having it stop being offered on the service, I don't finish games as often as I used to. I have a PS4 but I use it mostly for media. People keep giving me these Sony consoles... I'd pay for both if it's a good service.
 
Krazy925 said:
Can you download the game? Not a deal breaker for me either way but I fear starting a game and having it stop being offered on the service, I don't finish games as often as I used to. I have a PS4 but I use it mostly for media. People keep giving me these Sony consoles... I'd pay for both if it's a good service.
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Good point about being able to download and play it, PlayStation Now only is streaming. If Sony is not stupid, they will follow suit. You have up to 30 days to play the game offline before reconnecting apparently.
 
I guess I'm in the minority here because a monthly fee to play some old games that I probably already have if I'm interested in them doesn't sound like a good deal to me. I'm sure for less than the cost of a years sub I could buy any of them I don't already have that interest me.
 
Ebernanut said:
I guess I'm in the minority here because a monthly fee to play some old games that I probably already have if I'm interested in them doesn't sound like a good deal to me. I'm sure for less than the cost of a years sub I could buy any of them I don't already have that interest me.
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Mind reader....get out of my head. And I agree. Wait, WE agree. Yesssssss
 
SeymourGore said:
I was getting ready to poopoo this service, but $9.99 seems reasonable. And I like how you can download the titles, not just rely on a streaming tech.
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I had "Sega Channel" back in the day on Sega Genesis which was basically this same idea and it was a really good deal. They basically had a rotation of games available to play for a monthly fee and you plugged it into your coax (capable of MUCH faster speeds than most people's internet at the time, so the downloads were practically instantaneous). I was sort of surprised it didn't catch on more back then, but I guess game file sizes exploded after that generation (with the move to CDROM) which made it harder to do even through cable providers, and impossible on dial-up internet.

It's also a great move to allow downloading and locally playing the games. It may not matter to some people but streaming games is a total nonstarter for me. Even Steam in-home streaming over a gigabit LAN has terrible input lag.
 
As part of the insider program I got to play with this last month. I see that they added more games than what the beta version had. Seems like a fair deal to me. There are games on there that I have wanted to try but wouldn't ever want to actually buy. This allowed me to play a few games that I have wanted to try out. With the starting list here that are a few other games now that I would want to try out so would get my money worth from the service. At least to start, what will make or break this service is how often they add new games. A good number of these have been games with gold titles in the past so people would already have some of them. need to get enough new games to keep people around after they play through the 5 - 10 games in the list that they have wanted to try out.

SighTurtle said:
Gotta make the games first through. PS4 still leading there. And with the Xbox Anywhere thingy, most PC won't bother adding a console. (Maybe if Project Scorpio includes a 4k blu-ray drive)
Edit: changed "switching" to "adding"
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Like others have already pointed out the Xbox One already has a 4k blu ray drive,
 
Tbf, Sony removed the blu-ray drive from PS4 Pro. Its not entirely possible MS would do the same to save cost, but they seem to be aiming for premium console status.
 
SighTurtle said:
Tbf, Sony removed the blu-ray drive from PS4 Pro. Its not entirely possible MS would do the same to save cost, but they seem to be aiming for premium console status.
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Sony didn't remove anything from the Pro. It still has a Blu-ray drive like the original PS4.
 
Ahh, I've realized my mistake. Xbox One S has a UHD blu-ray drive, PS4 Pro just has a blu-ray drive. My bad!
 
Sounds great if you play lots of games. I only buy really cheap Xbox games and have for many years and play the Games with Gold I get for free (but only 1/5 I have any interest in).

So they would make more money off me if I paid $10 a month.

But so many games are plagued with paid add ons that pretty soon, you will only be getting a demo by buying the base game. It is almost at that point now. EA gives a lot of their games away very cheaply because they are hoping you will buy DLC.
 
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