Highlights
- Xbox Game Pass has been a successful subscription service, offering day-one access to Microsoft-exclusive titles and parity with PC gaming.
- Phil Spencer, head of Xbox, has rejected the idea of making future releases exclusive to Game Pass in order to focus on growing the Xbox community and offering choice to users.
- While Game Pass is a cost-effective way to play a variety of games, owning games provides more security as some titles may be removed from the service over time.
Phil Spencer, head of Xbox, has gone on record about whether the company plans to make future releases exclusive to Xbox Game Pass in an attempt to gather more subscribers. Game Pass has become central to the lives of many gamers, so some may be wondering if Xbox has designs to lock game access to the service in a similar manner as an online storefront like the Epic Games Store, which has a record of securing exclusive rights to games.
Game Pass has been crucial to the strategy of Xbox since it launched in 2017. The PlayStation 4 and burgeoning Nintendo Switch were outselling Xbox consoles at this time, which many attributed to Xbox's lack of exclusive games. Game Pass symbolized Xbox's shifting strategy, as it was offering access to a wide swath of in-demand games for a low monthly fee. This model has since been adopted by other gaming companies like Sony, but Game Pass is still the most successful subscription service of its kind. This is due in part to the service's commitment to offering day-one access to all Microsoft-exclusive titles, as well as its parity with PC gaming, allowing players to seamlessly switch between platforms.
There's an argument to be made that Xbox could strengthen the Game Pass subscriber base even further by making certain titles exclusive to the service, but Phil Spencer has rejected that idea. In a recent interview, Spencer was asked if he would potentially make future releases exclusive to Xbox Game Pass, and he immediately responded in the negative, stating that the company "want[s] to grow the community that plays Xbox" and that making games exclusive to Game Pass would not help that end. He also stated that Xbox values offering choice to its users.
Game Pass will receive future price increases, according to other comments made by Spencer, but this commitment to keeping games non-exclusive should please Xbox and PC users who value freedom of choice. Of course, Microsoft-exclusive games will still be exclusive to the company's hardware, so this freedom only applies to those already using an Xbox or PC. Microsoft still profits from games purchased on the Xbox store, so this decision makes sense from a business perspective.
As video games become more expensive, Xbox Game Pass is becoming more alluring to gamers looking for a cost-effective way to play a wide range of games. However, games are also regularly removed from Xbox's service, and there will always be more security in owning games rather than accessing them via a subscription.
Source: Game Watch (via Insider Gaming)