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[MosquitoSmasher]

There will be 100 games at launch for download (not streaming). These games will cycle in and out, similar to how netflix works. Halo 5, Payday 2, Saints Row etc all at launch based off the picture. So lets say you liked those three games, and you intend on playing them a year from now. You could then buy them for 20% off so you could play them even once it cycles out.

But on the other hand, lets say you beat Saints Row, and you dont think you will ever touch it again. Then you just dont buy it. Truthfully I think people will tend to buy multiplayer games a lot more than singleplayer games because multiplayer tends to have more replay value.

Ah yes, very very EA Access like indeed. I have one month of EA Access now and i saw i can get Andromeda for a discounted price via that. Not nearly as much as MS is offering though. But i assume that 20% off is only via their digital store? WHere Halo 5 is still 60 bucks i think.

 

[Zedox]

This totally makes sense why they would do this. If this is also for Xbox Play Anywhere or Windows 10 games...that's how they would get PC gamers to have a subscription and not pay for online.

EDIT nvm. it says Xbox One and 360 games.

 

[EBreda]

They will probably add UWP games as well. Maybe offer something for devs in exchange of porting existent games to the UWP platform and make it run on Xbox as well.

Maybe even do like 360 games where they are only required to sing off a form and the Xbox team takes care of that.

 

[Flintty]

Simply brilliant. MS doing great work.

 

[le.phat]

Yeah this is better than PS Now in many ways. Sony needs to copy this, and Nintendo.

We just want gaming, Netflix style!

'Netflix style' is what Sony has on offer right now. Now downloads, no waiting.

 

[jmdajr]

This is what Nintendo needed to do with the Switch.

 

[TS-08]

This is a nice move...

-I can spend $120 a year on my Xbox Library instead of $1000+

-This + EA access + Live = roughly $220 a year (without bargain hunting)

-Download speed patch a few weeks back makes this even more awesome



Hopefully, the list of participants grows and Play Anywhere gets into the fold as well...

I just don't see how you're going to save that much money. You're not going to have access to games that you would have spent close to full retail value otherwise.

 

[Gren]

Quick and dirty list from the alpha test:

- A Kingdom for Keflings
- Banjo 1
- Comic Jumper
- Defense Grid 2
- Gears Judgement
- Gears Ultimate
- Halo: Spartan Assault
- Hexic 2
- Jetpac Refuelled
- Kameo
- Max: The Curse Of Brotherhood
- Monday Night Combat
- Ms. Splosion Man
- OF: Dragon Rising
- Perfect Dark Zero
- Sacred 3
- Sam & Max
- Sunset Overdrive
- The Maw
- Viva Pinata

The cycling out of titles *really* puts a damper on this for me. I wouldn't mind this selection starting out, knowing that there would only be more games added upon it. But Sunset Overdrive aside, this would honestly be a "lackluster month" for me (putting it into a GWG/PS+ perspective).

 

[Travado]

Me: "Time to finish my game, lets turn the Xbox on"

Xbox: "I'm so sorry, but the game you were playing isn't no longer in the service. But you can pay $ 70 dolars to coninue playing it"

 

[Trup1aya]

Excellent idea. The EA Access-sh model.

I'd probably never subscribe long time, but If I could hop in and out occasionally then I'd consider it whenever something good is in.

 

[7DollarHagane]

Price point seems about right but

As an added bonus to Xbox live gold and replacing games with gold this might be awesome. As a separate $10 service... Maybe not.

 

[MeisterLeder]

Seems more like EA Access but in a bigger picture.

 

[RedFury]

No, those games are part of the free alpha test. The real list hasn't been revealed yet.

Either way they are asking for 180 a year to play games in the library. I bet you could just by many of the games that interest you in the many sales they hold with that money. Instead this way people get locked into continually paying because "my large library!". Its absolutely ridiculous this is 120 bucks when gold is 60. If they had like a platinum membership that was 120 for the year then I'd think about it but asking 60 for gold then 120 for this is stupid especially with all the cross over of games I can call my own do to gold.

 

[Primethius]

Yeah this is better than PS Now in many ways. Sony needs to copy this, and Nintendo.

We just want gaming, Netflix style!

Sony needs to improve PS Now, not necessarily copy this.

A rotating library for PS Now is such a terrible idea.

 

[Bruce Springsteen]

This is pretty awesome, will jump on this with Scorpio

 

[ajjow]

Um... I don't know how to explain, but the first thing that came to my mind is that this service can kill GAMESTOP.

They have a living of selling used games. Most people that buy those games are teens with a bad budget.

For 9 bucks, you'll have so many games that kids wont bother theis parents anymore. They'll only do it by Crhistmas or on their birthdays.

This will present even more value for consoles as entertainment machines.

Nintendo could have done a good thing with this, but they lack the american businness vision.

When they decide to adopt this, they wont be able to compete against many third party games on Xbox or Sony. People wont bother to pay 10 dollars to play only nintendo games... They lack third party games for almost 10 years now.

 

[Omnistalgic]

Very cool idea...how Sony takes notes on this...if rather download stuff than stream. But the cycling stuff is meh...

Not sure I would use it much, but very very dope service.

 

[RoKKeR]

That's pretty damn cool.

You could save tons of money on games this way. Although, maybe I'm misunderstanding, wouldn't this discourage people from buying games? I foresee a (small) collection of people simply waiting for the game to hit game pass.I imagine they won't be new releases so maybe it's a non issue entirely.

EA has already done the calculus on this regarding people holding on new game sales to wait for them to hit the Vault, and I'd suspect the results are favorable enough that MS would do the same.

 

[Spades]

Me: "Time to finish my game, lets turn the Xbox on"

Xbox: "I'm so sorry, but the game you were playing isn't no longer in the service. But you can pay $ 70 dolars to coninue playing it"

My assumption was once you've downloaded it, it's yours so long as you're still subscribing - similar to how GwG and PS+ work.

 

[Complicated]

I can definitely see myself buying a month of this every now and then like I do with EA Access. If the library is good enough I might just add it to my Live Gold Subscription for the year and not worry about. Microsoft making some fucking moves out here.

 

[Justin]

Announcing this on Horizon launch day is extra cheeky. MS going hard.

It is going out to insiders today so they kind of had to announce it.

 

[chrominance]

Definitely think Live Gold sub is going away in favor of this as a bomb drop announcement.

That would be great if so, as paying for access to games seems like a much better proposition than paying for multiplayer, even if it's twice as much as Live Gold.

That said, I'm not sure I see it happening. The two offerings seem to target different people; chances are the games in the Game Pass library will be older, and possibly ones Gold members that play online a lot either already have or aren't interested in. I guess we'll see when the full list comes out.

An interesting idea from a business standpoint would be if the pass got you free multiplayer, but ONLY for the games in the pass. If the pass truly is targeting more casual players, as some in the thread seem to think, it would make sense for the Game Pass to be an all-in-one package.

This is also another area where Microsoft's recent commitment to backwards compatibility is paying dividends. This would be a less appealing proposition without the 360 games, though I guess we're at a point in this generation where the current console libraries are robust enough to not really need the help. Kind of. Maybe.

 

[Andodalf]

Agreed. Exhibit A:



There will be some great old games like Sunset Overdrive and Halo 5, but a lot of filler as well. And it all rotates out, so you cannot keep what you download, but can buy it at a discount... in addition to the the $10 a month. I am not seeing the appeal, personally.

this is, at most, 1/5th of the titles offered. I think the value is there. Ib be shocked if it didn't include titles like forza 5 and horizon 2 as well.

 

[gamz]

Me: "Time to finish my game, lets turn the Xbox on"

Xbox: "I'm so sorry, but the game you were playing isn't no longer in the service. But you can pay $ 70 dolars to coninue playing it"

I mean it's not a forced service. If you don't like it opt out and just continue to buy games like you already do.

 

[TwistedFreeze]

Damn, that's actually really cool. It's like Netflix but with games instead of movies and shows. I'd love to see Nintendo and Sony offer something similar for older classic titles, like the Virtual Console and for PS/PS2/PS3 games

 

[Kill3r7]

I guess first party titles will be on the service in perpetuity.

 

[iamsirjoshua]

This really reminds me of when Sony needed to make up ground last gen and debuted the Instant Game Collection with PS+. This seems like much more of an evolution of that concept than what PS+ and GWG are today.

Honestly, although this isn't a service I'd use right now (not too interested in the announced titles and I just don't need a bigger backlog), I love its potential for helping push Microsoft forward and also advancing such practices across the industry.

 

[IncognitoPanda]

So do the games stay in your library if you are still subscribed? Like if they get removed from the service do they get removed from your library?

Then you would eventually have a massive library for 10$ a month, so no.

 

[Skyr]

Me: "Time to finish my game, lets turn the Xbox on"

Xbox: "I'm so sorry, but the game you were playing isn't no longer in the service. But you can pay $ 70 dolars to coninue playing it"

As long as you are subscribed you will be able to play the game you already downloaded. It's just not in the store anymore to redownload.

 

[febLey]

Now kick Games with Gold and cut the price of Xbox Live by 50%

 

[JayWood2010]

Clarifying misconceptions? What am I trying to do?

Quotes from you

"Seems like kind of a waste for $120 a year.

Especially if you need gold to play multiplayer on top of this, no thanks. I'd rather just buy games when they hit sales for $5-$10.

Womp womp.

Depends how quickly they rotate out games I guess.

Microsoft has clearly done an excellent job hiding the fact that these games are only playable while they are part of the play pass service,"




Yeah it just seems to me like you have had an agenda coming in here. Its not that you have been clarifying misconceptions, it is your overall tone and attitude towards the subject.

 

[Night.Ninja]

I signed up gonna play some gears

 

[Lingitiz]

Yes Microsoft, more of this stuff!

 

[ironcreed]

Again, that is not the real list. It's the free alpha test. You can clearly see why it's free. lol

I know, but it is an example. I bet there will be tons of filler titles like that, with some old candy titles sprinkled in that they try and sell you once they rotate out.

It's a rental service for a rotating selection of games that you don't choose that costs $10 a month, with the hook of trying to get you to buy what rotates out. But if that works for you, then do enjoy.

 

[RedRum]

I don't think I mind this. Games can still be bought separately, or played for free if you own them, but having an entire library of BC games for $10 doesn't bother me one bit.

 

[mdubs]

I'm happy that a number of publishers are on board already. I hope Square joins because a number of the JP pubs are there (Capcom, Bamco)

 

[JaggedSac]

It's opt in, if you are on the alpha ring go to the Xbox Hub app, it's already there the option to participate the preview.

Interestingly, I see a new Memberships row in Games and Apps.

 

[Warnen]

Hmmm seems cools if you are new to the console but what the chance they add there new 1st party games to it? I mean $120 a year is a lot if you already own most of the games and they don't add the new stuff.

 

[Lionheart]

Now EA access seems very expensive in comparison to MS own service

I see two downsides though:
1. You lose access to games after a while (a couple of months?). I prefer the PS Plus / MS Gold way of keeping all previous games as long as you 'downloaded' them. Hell, EA Access is even more friendly: all past games are yours to play as well.
2. Fragmentation: Not all publishers are on board here. If you want both EA games and MS games and you also want to play online, you'll now pay around $ 9.99 + ($30/12) + ($60/12) = $ 17,49 per month.

 

[flkraven]

This seems like the type of thing that you don't subscribe to every single month, but rather hop in when they add a game you want to play.

 

[madmackem]

Now EA access seems very expensive in comparison to MS own service

How so £20 a year verses £120 a year? I'd say ea access very much holds its own against this service.

 

[Audioboxer]

Cycling out reminds me of Nintendo's Switch efforts. Of course, having tens of games is far better value for money than what Nintendo are proposing.

Still, the best games will probably "cycle out", to encourage you to outright buy them. A group in marketing/analysis will be crunching the numbers behind the scenes to project how many sales they can get on top of subscriptions.

 

[bennibop]

Not for me, the limited amount of first party games are already in my collection. They are not going to be adding new releases to the list and surely this will impact software sales as people will wait for games to come to the service.

 

[Mihos]

Safe to assume you get the achievements from these games too? I would play some of them just for the meta.... I am shallow like that.

 

[Doug Heffernan]

Me: "Time to finish my game, lets turn the Xbox on"

Xbox: "I'm so sorry, but the game you were playing isn't no longer in the service. But you can pay $ 70 dolars to coninue playing it"

Everything about this post is wrong.
When a movie I like is about to leave the service, Netflix will warn me about it. You can assume Microsoft will announce which games are leaving ahead of time.
Also, where are you getting $70 from? There is a 20 percent discount so you would only be paying $47.99 plus tax.

 

[infinityBCRT]

They should keep all first party titles in the program permanently once they're in, and only cycle in and out third party games.

 

[chrominance]

My assumption was once you've downloaded it, it's yours so long as you're still subscribing - similar to how GwG and PS+ work.

I wouldn't be so quick to make that assumption. With a large enough hard drive, you could have a huge library of games at your disposal. Though I guess Microsoft getting $120 USD a year from you to keep a bunch of old subscription games on your hard drive is not the worst deal for them, either.

I kind of assume it'll be a Netflix-style model where stuff leaves the service and you lose access, but hopefully with a heads-up that your game will expire in X months.

 

[maniac-kun]

So gaming Netflix? Thats a good idea!

 

[black070]

This seems like the type of thing that you don't subscribe to every single month, but rather hop in when they add a game you want to play.

Pretty much. A month sub during a dry spell should be enough.

 

[Dizzy]

So you just get to rent these games, so am I wrong in thinking this is just some sort of glorified demo suite for $10 a month?

Sounds it if you don't get to keep the games like with PSPlus after they're get removed at the end of the month.

Not an issue with a 6-8 hour singleplayer game that you could burn through in a weekend.

For something like Rainbow Six Siege or Battlefield though, ideally you'd want it beyond just one month.