Microsoft announced Xbox Game Pass on Teusday; a new subscription service that allows you download and play any game in Xbox One and Xbox 360. The $9.99 a month service will launch later this year and will be only available to Xbox One and Xbox On S consoles and this comes as the we expect the “highly anticipated” VR based Project Scorpio to launch later this year too.
As Microsoft puts it, “One of the best things about Xbox Game Pass is that you can discover and download the full titles directly on your Xbox One. That means continuous, full-fidelity gameplay without having to worry about streaming, bandwidth or connectivity issues. In addition, all Xbox One games in the catalog – and related add-ons – will be available to purchase at an exclusive discount for Xbox Game Pass members, so you can make the games you love part of your permanent library to play whenever you want. Every month new games will cycle into the subscription with some cycling out, giving you a constantly-updating library of games. Xbox Game Pass is your ticket to endless play.”
So when you eventually sign up, here’s what to expect;
You will have access to over 100 games that will be available for download on your Xbox One or Xbox One S which can be played offline thereby bypassing bandwidth concerns. By doing this, Microsoft is doing something its closest rival doesn’t do because as at today the Sony PlayStation Now service lets you play games by streaming in the cloud.
Once you’re a paying Game Pass subscriber, you can download, delete and re-download at any given time and should you want to own the game, you will be paying 20 percent less than others who are not on the service and it even gets better, you will be saving an additional 10 percent on the cost of add-ons.
While we don’t know the over 100 games that will be on the Game Pass service, we do know that games like Halo 5: Guardians, LEGO Batman, Mad Max, NBA 2K16 and Gears of War among others will definitely be available for you to download.
But Microsoft already has a similar service because you see Xbox Live Gold members are able to download games to their devices to be played offline but the basic difference between this and the new Game Pass is that you’ll be able to continue playing the downloaded games on Xbox Live Gold membership even as even if you leave the collection while on Game Pass, you should expect not to have access to the games once you stop paying.
Paul Balo is the founder of TechBooky and a highly skilled wireless communications professional with a strong background in cloud computing, offering extensive experience in designing, implementing, and managing wireless communication systems.
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