Xbox Game Pass Could Be A Threat Next Gen

The next generation in gaming is upon us and with the new consoles comes new trends, in this new one, the trend is subscription services, while it has been done before in other mediums like music and movie, for gaming this is the next step. Sony and Microsoft have been planting the seeds for their respective gaming-as-a-service program for Sony PS Now and Microsoft Game Pass, on paper both services do the same thing but in reality, only one of those is dominating the trend and the market. If you get guessed Game Pass you’d be the right one for many reasons, more games, the catalog grows monthly and it has games coming out on launch on Game Pass. Microsoft has been humbled this generation and is making efforts to right all the wrongs they’ve done.

Microsoft didn’t pull itself out of the hole it dug itself into overnight, it took many years, many years too late though to recover but better late than never as they say. None of this could be done without one man, Phil Spencer, who has been making the right calls since he began to lead the Xbox division in 2014. The console maker saw a massive improvement in sales when the company shifted focus from the gimmicks like Kinect to games itself, although the Xbox lacked in first-party exclusives it made up for that with accessibility like cross-platform gaming with PC and the Nintendo Switch and the big game-changer for Xbox was the introduction of backwards compatibility which Sony lacks on the current-gen. When this was announced at E3 it boosted Xbox sales and has yet to slow down, even the mid-life upgrade the Xbox One X was met with warmth but its only downfall was that no games were on the Xbox so what was the point. However the big thing that is helping Xbox right now and could potentially make them a threat in next-gen is Game Pass, which is a service like Netflix but instead of movies it’s gaming, you can pay $11.99 a month to have access to an ever-growing catalog of games some now appear on Game Pass the same day they launch which is something unheard of. Games like Gears 5, Outerworld and Crackdown 3 all showed up the day they were released and have changed the way in how we get our games.

Granted this isn’t new in gaming Sony first introduced their service a few years before Game Pass called Playstation Now, but didn’t do much with it, allowing Microsoft to take charge — and they did. Sony is now going in on their PS Now service by adding more and more games and maintaining it. There are several and key differences between the two, for Game Pass the games download onto your hard drive so if you’re playing an online game theirs no lag as the system isn’t talking to a server but rather your console instead, for PS Now you’re streaming the games which can have latency, another difference is that for Game Pass you can get both Xbox Live and Game Pass as one in package costing $16.99 a month which is now what most people have since it’s easier to do it that way and cheaper, Sony right now has it separate — right now. Microsoft has been making strides with Game Pass with the promise of more games coming at launch since the company went on the shopping spree for studios a few years back by getting ten new studios so in turn more first-party games. Numbers don’t lie as of March of 2019 Game Pass has a whopping 9.5 million users across Xbox and PC and it’s grown since they’re implementing Xbox Live and Game Pass in one price, however, Sony managed to get over a million users as of October of 2019 and that’s a pretty high number considering Sony hasn’t been keeping to date with PS Now.
Game Pass could ultimately push Xbox beyond Sony even though they’re now competing with PC and other streaming services like Google Stadia (which has a lot of problems on their own), making it the go-to system for to save money on since it’s allowing you to get the main things for one price.

Anything that helps gamers save money will always have an edge, regardless of who’s doing it Microsoft just happens to be ahead of all them in this department. With Xbox Series X and PlayStation 5 launching this year, one can safely say Microsoft has been investing hard in Game Pass because it’s already a console seller, many people who are buying an Xbox are getting it just for Game Pass so let’s see if the Microsoft and the consumer can take that mindset into the next generation since Sony has the edge just based on numbers.

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