Microsoft Wants to Bring Game Pass to “Every Screen,” including PlayStation and Nintendo

[Tsing]

Xbox Game Pass on the PS5 and Switch? That may actually be happening.

See full article...

 

[Brian_B]

I don't see why not, with XB C;oud Gaming a part of XBGP. Once you have it running in the cloud - supporting other platforms is mostly trivial at that point.

 

[Uvilla]

Yep, and thats why streaming will in fact dominate within 10years or so.
Connectivity investment is actually happening, I don't know about all over, but I think around me is actually happening a good amount, i see att fiber digging all over, and 5g while not available to me yet, it is around close.

 

[Niner51]

Yep, and thats why streaming will in fact dominate within 10years or so.

Yes I agree with you. Everything is going the streaming/cloud route it seems.

 

[Zarathustra]

Not my thing.

I'd rather just buy the few games I like every year than perpetually subscribe to getting random titles I may or may not like, but having more options is always good I suppose.

I can't imagine Sony would be thrilled about having Game Pass on the Playstation.

 

[Grimlakin]

This is totally to boost MS gaming RMR which looks good to investors. Trust me if this ACTUALLY benefits anyone it's kids with limited attention spans that want to install 40 games a week and play them all 10 minutes each.

 

[Zarathustra]

This is totally to boost MS gaming RMR which looks good to investors. Trust me if this ACTUALLY benefits anyone it's kids with limited attention spans that want to install 40 games a week and play them all 10 minutes each.

Kids also have more time on their hands.

These days I'll be lucky if I can get through 2-3 AAA titles in a year.

But I remember being a kid and playing a large variety of diverse titles, many of which I didn't even like all that much, just because I had all that time to fill.

As I have become older and have less time for games, I tend to focus in narrowly on just the game genres I know I love. For the longest time I played online multiplayer FPS titles, but now I don't even make time for that anymore. These days I'm pretty much exclusively a player of single player offline large open world FPS titles with light RPG elements and a good story.

You know, Fallout/Starfield/Far Cry/Cyberpunk/Deus Ex/Metro/S.T.A.L.K.E.R etc.

In between playing games like these I take a break and run through a game or two of the latest Sid Meier's Civilization.

At most we get 2-3 good open world single player FPS titles a year, so instead of subscribing to a service in which games I am interested in may or may not be offered, and may pop up in or disappear from at random before you are done playing them, and paying $120 per year, I'd rather just spend my money and buy the few games I actually know I want.

The benefits of this approach are that the cost is about the same per year, I get to keep the 2-3 games I buy permanently, I don't have to install a Microsoft game client (the less bloat on my system the better), and I don't have a **** ton of games that are uninteresting to me and I'll never play anyway.

Of the 386 titles that are currently on Game Pass, I have been interested in and played 20 of them (and this is largely only because of the number of really old titles on there. An additional 4 titles still have some interest in, but haven't gotten around to trying yet.

So, 24 out of 386, or 6.2%. The remaining 362 titles would simply never be either installed or launched.

So instead of the whole "just $10 a month for a catalog of 386 games", the reality becomes more like $10 per month for 24 games that are even remotely interesting to me, 20 of which I have already finished, some of them over a decade ago (a few over two decades ago, and a couple almost 3 decades ago) And any of them could be pulled at any moment.

From that perspective it just doesn't feel like as good of a deal.

I presume it works if you are a kid, have lots of time to fill, and just want a game, any game to fill that time. But as I have become older I have - uh - "specific tastes".

So for this reason I doubt I'll ever sign up for Game Pass or any service like it. I'll buy the handful of games that I want, and keep them forever.

 

[Brian_B]

My kid doesn’t flip through a bunch of titles - he has about 4 or 5 he plays at any given time, driven heavily by what his friends are playing.

Me, I tend to play one game at a time

 

[Uvilla]

Kids also have more time on their hands.

These days I'll be lucky if I can get through 2-3 AAA titles in a year.

But I remember being a kid and playing a large variety of diverse titles, many of which I didn't even like all that much, just because I had all that time to fill.

As I have become older and have less time for games, I tend to focus in narrowly on just the game genres I know I love. For the longest time I played online multiplayer FPS titles, but now I don't even make time for that anymore. These days I'm pretty much exclusively a player of single player offline large open world FPS titles with light RPG elements and a good story.

You know, Fallout/Starfield/Far Cry/Cyberpunk/Deus Ex/Metro/S.T.A.L.K.E.R etc.

In between playing games like these I take a break and run through a game or two of the latest Sid Meier's Civilization.

At most we get 2-3 good open world single player FPS titles a year, so instead of subscribing to a service in which games I am interested in may or may not be offered, and may pop up in or disappear from at random before you are done playing them, and paying $120 per year, I'd rather just spend my money and buy the few games I actually know I want.

The benefits of this approach are that the cost is about the same per year, I get to keep the 2-3 games I buy permanently, I don't have to install a Microsoft game client (the less bloat on my system the better), and I don't have a **** ton of games that are uninteresting to me and I'll never play anyway.

Of the 386 titles that are currently on Game Pass, I have been interested in and played 20 of them (and this is largely only because of the number of really old titles on there. An additional 4 titles still have some interest in, but haven't gotten around to trying yet.

So, 24 out of 386, or 6.2%. The remaining 362 titles would simply never be either installed or launched.

So instead of the whole "just $10 a month for a catalog of 386 games", the reality becomes more like $10 per month for 24 games that are even remotely interesting to me, 20 of which I have already finished, some of them over a decade ago (a few over two decades ago, and a couple almost 3 decades ago) And any of them could be pulled at any moment.

From that perspective it just doesn't feel like as good of a deal.

I presume it works if you are a kid, have lots of time to fill, and just want a game, any game to fill that time. But as I have become older I have - uh - "specific tastes".

So for this reason I doubt I'll ever sign up for Game Pass or any service like it. I'll buy the handful of games that I want, and keep them forever.

Thats the beauty of this future I am now mentally fully embracing. So you suscribe for a good while, then drop it. Then go to somebody else's service for a good while, then drop that too so on. It will be fine, I can see it.. The switch 2/might be the last console I buy, after that I may move on to a handheld pc assuming it has access to the most services including the beige giant's I mean MS ( assuming these things are moving as fast as they seem to).
Im telling you if the switch 2 has 5g connectivity, Nintendo will also be looking to move to GAS ( potentially) and surely streaming ( in a stronger way I mean, they already have a toe or two in the water), i am sure Nintendo will take much longer for platform agnosticism, but they may not have a choice 10years from now.

 

[Tempest]

Thats the beauty of this future I am now mentally fully embracing. So you suscribe for a good while, then drop it. Then go to somebody else's service for a good while, then drop that too so on. It will be fine, I can see it.. The switch 2/might be the last console I buy, after that I may move on to a handheld pc assuming it has access to the most services including the beige giant's I mean MS ( assuming these things are moving as fast as they seem to).
Im telling you if the switch 2 has 5g connectivity, Nintendo will also be looking to move to GAS ( potentially) and surely streaming ( in a stronger way I mean, they already have a toe or two in the water), i am sure Nintendo will take much longer for platform agnosticism, but they may not have a choice 10years from now.

Gaming streaming services can coexist with the traditional model. If streaming became the only option, it would be the end of gaming for many. It would be for me.

 

[Zarathustra]

Gaming streaming services can coexist with the traditional model. If streaming became the only option, it would be the end of gaming for many. It would be for me.

Yeah, I have nothing against game streaming in theory. If it enables gaming for some that otherwise would be out of reach, I'm all for it.

I don't think it is for me though. I mean, I guess some kind of casual game not highly dependent on latency could be enjoyed that way, but for me that really narrows it down. Only one I can think of right now is my occasional Civilization game. That's totally playable over game streaming, no problem at all.

All of that said, I am not keen to pick up on any further subscription plan. If something has a monthly (or heck, annual, weekly or even daily) or per use fee, then I am out. I already no longer use either Ms Office or Adobe products at home for this reason. I'm not looking to have any more subscriptions at all in my life. I'm looking for as much as possible in my life being based on one time purchase costs followed by eternal ownership, and the ability to use it as much as I please.

And that is a hill I am willing to die on.

My car pesters me every time I start it, that my subscription to the online services has expired. There is absolutely no way in hell I'm ever renewing it. I can live without those services. No more subscriptions. It's bad enough that I have to pay my ISP and mobile bills monthly. If I could get rid of them too, I would.

 

[DrezKill]

My car pesters me every time I start it, that my subscription to the online services has expired.

Oh good gawd, that would drive me INSANE. I'm glad a drive a car that is a quarter of a century old. No drive-by-wire, no touchscreens, no online services that need a subscription, nothing.

If something has a monthly (or heck, annual, weekly or even daily) or per use fee, then I am out.

The only subscription I pay for is my Usenet subscription ($8/month), and that's because I make up for waaaay more than what I am paying by having free reign to download whatever the f*ck I want: video games/software, movies/shows, music, pretty much anything. I'm sorry but torrents stopped cutting it for me years ago. With Usenet I can use my full Internet bandwidth, and I have a private encrypted connection to the servers (so I don't have to bother with using VPNs that slow down my Internet and such while downloading stuff) so it's much safer than torrents.

I'm looking for as much as possible in my life being based on one time purchase costs followed by eternal ownership, and the ability to use it as much as I please.

And that is a hill I am willing to die on.

Amen to that brotha, amen.

It's bad enough that I have to pay my ISP and mobile bills monthly. If I could get rid of them too, I would.

D4mn straight.

If streaming became the only option, it would be the end of gaming for many. It would be for me.

Same here with me, that is for d4mn sure.

I'll buy the handful of games that I want, and keep them forever.

Yupz.

 

[Grimlakin]

The only subscription I pay for is my Usenet subscription ($8/month), and that's because I make up for waaaay more than what I am paying by having free reign to download whatever the f*ck I want: video games/software, movies/shows, music, pretty much anything. I'm sorry but torrents stopped cutting it for me years ago. With Usenet I can use my full Internet bandwidth, and I have a private encrypted connection to the servers (so I don't have to bother with using VPNs that slow down my Internet and such while downloading stuff) so it's much safer than torrents.

Hey I want this... what one do you sub to that can saturate your bandwidth?

 

[Tempest]

Oh good gawd, that would drive me INSANE. I'm glad a drive a car that is a quarter of a century old. No drive-by-wire, no touchscreens, no online services that need a subscription, nothing.


The only subscription I pay for is my Usenet subscription

Yeah, the numerous Life as a Service (LaaS) fees are really beginning to add up. I don't want to cancel my service: I want an extended free trial! Is that too much to ask?

Reading your complete reply with the inline quotations intact reminded me of a scene from Office Space.
Peter Gibbons: "You know, I've never really liked paying bills. I don't think I'm gonna do that, either."

It's only funny in context, and it's probably one of those things that has to be read in a certain way, but an exact mental reproduction of the dialogue from that scene began playing as I read through the complaints about all the BS subscription fees and bills.

"PC load letter" calls...

 

[DrezKill]

Hey I want this... what one do you sub to that can saturate your bandwidth?

I have friends that sub to Giganews and some of the other popular ones I'm not familiar with, but a friend recommended Astraweb to me years ago, and it's been cheaper than most other services while giving me all the speed I need (despite being limited somehow compared to the more expensive services from this and other companies). From experience with various homes in my area, Verizon's FiOS up-to-1Gbps service usually comes in anywhere between 600 Mbps and 900+ Mbps. Most of the time I see 600s, but it jumps around, regularly seeing the 500s, 700s, and 800s. Astraweb will definitely use all of that. Can't even come anywhere close to touching that with torrents.

I don't even know what the go-to torrent sites are these days, since I rarely have need for torrents. For Usenet, you gotta find a good place to grab the nzb files from, and a lot of those are invite-only and don't want you talking about their sites out in public. I got lucky and was invited to a decent one years ago. I struggled to find a reliable place before that. The only thing sh1tty about the one I use is that they limit you to downloading a certain number of nzb files in a 24-hour period, unless you pay a membership fee, which also gives you the power to invite others (though you get a limited number of invites to use). The only payment method accepted for this membership is one of several cryptocurrencies (I have never owned any cryptocurrency). Don't need the membership, don't want it, and not having it doesn't really f*ck me over in any way, so it hasn't been a problem. Paying for the Usenet service is enough. I should not then have to pay extra to use what is essentially a search engine for nzbs. I just had a "funny" thought: Google charging us per-search, or charging a membership fee to use their search engine.

 

[Grimlakin]

. I just had a "funny" thought: Google charging us per-search, or charging a membership fee to use their search engine.

Imagine a non add version with googles engine without filters other than scammy or like sources. 5 bucks a month or enterprise subscriptions at a per seat cost... I'd totally get my own. . Yes it's bullshit that their service would even warrant it. It's like paying to read a tech forum without adds... Oh wait... .

 

[Uvilla]

Imagine a non add version with googles engine without filters other than scammy or like sources. 5 bucks a month or enterprise subscriptions at a per seat cost... I'd totally get my own. . Yes it's bullshit that their service would even warrant it. It's like paying to read a tech forum without adds... Oh wait... .

As an individual, I might be in if its not Google, subscription is yearly or longer, and search protocols aren't hidden, either open source or opened to scrutiny somehow.
It would be useful to have the ability to define (with simple clicks) emphasis when searching.