Brandon J. Kessler's Blog

My Personal Ramblings

Xbox Game Pass Ultimate

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Review

Much like PS Now for PlayStation, Microsoft has their own game subscription service for the Xbox One/Series X|S, and PC. It features a formidable list of AAA titles from the last decade, including new titles and many of Microsoft’s own studios. Sea of Thieves, Halo: Master Chief Collection, Gears of War, and Battlefront 1 and 2 (the new ones, not the originals) are just some of the highlights. There are also games to satisfy younger age ranges, including Lego games, platformers like Banjo-Kazooie, Minecraft, and even Fusion Frenzy from the original Xbox. Game Pass ultimate also includes Xbox Live Gold for multiplayer, which means you also get the “free” games included with Xbox Live Gold. Is this enough to make the Game Pass Ultimate a compelling option? The primary difference between Game Pass Ultimate and PS Now is that Game Pass Ultimate requires games to be downloaded and installed whereas PS Now requires streaming for all PS3 games and all games if you use the PC app. On PS4 PS Now allows for games to be installed. Microsoft is testing their own streaming service, called Xcloud, bit it is in beta and only available on Android at the moment. The benefits of requiring an install is that it will act exactly as a normal purchase of the game and you have the full graphical experience. PS Now does the same thing when the games are downloaded to the PS4/PS5. The major downside is that it requires a lot of space. 1TB in my Xbox One S just wasn’t enough to hold most of the games I play regularly and all the other updates and apps, so I ended up purchasing a 2TB external HDD to put all my Game Pass games on. It also may impact your data cap from your internet provider (if you have an ISP that has data caps *cough*xfinity*cough*), but if you have slower speeds it’s much nicer to be able to download the game over time/at night and then not have to worry about your slow network speeds not working with streaming.

The games listed on Game Pass are a great mix of indie and big publisher. You of course have Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim on there, but you have many of Microsoft’s studios and IP like the Halo and Gears of War franchises, but other games from Rare like Sea of Thieves. And since EA Play is included, you also have classics like Mass Effect, Mirror’s Edge, and new titles like the new Star Wars: Battlefronts, and the Battlefield franchise. There are as of this writing 357 console games listed for Game Pass Ultimate, which is substantially less than Sony’s PS Now catalogue. There are also a lot of games that end up on both services, so for example Injustice 2 is on both services, and Control was on PS Now and is now on Game Pass. Dead Cells was another that I noticed was on both services.

I think where Game Pass Ultimate really outshines PS Now is that it’s pricing structure is very easy and you get discounts on purchasing games through both Xbox Live Gold and Game Pass. $15 for everything, or you can buy each service separately at $10 a piece (Live Gold is $10 a month, and Game Pass for PC is $10 a month, as is Game Pass for Console) and EA Play is $5 a month (or less than $3 if paid for annually). That makes Game Pass Ultimate an obvious choice. One of my major gripes with PS Now is that the lines are blurred between PS Plus and PS Now as they do different things. PS Now does not cloud-sync if you download the game unless you have a PS Plus subscription. And if you have PS Now you don’t get discounts on games like you do with PS Plus. Because Microsoft is basically forcing the Xbox Games to download and act as the would normally, it uses the same cloud save location that it would use by default, which is a much nicer experience.

Conclusion

On its own Game Pass Ultimate is a really compelling service if you want quality games to play but don’t need to own them. It is especially compelling for those of us who just recently jumped over to Microsoft from another platform. With Game Pass Ultimate I was able to immediately start playing something without having to go and purchase a bunch of games. The same argument can be made for the other services like PS Now, and EA Play. One of the major drawbacks is the space requirements for most newer games is 50GB or larger, so consumers with a first-gen Xbox One will absolutely need an external HDD, and even a 1TB starts to get cramped. Of course the other drawback is that you don’t own those games and they can be removed from the service at any time.