Xbox Game Pass is one of the most well-known subscription services in the gaming industry. With an impressive and dynamic library of 400+ games, including an EA Play subscription, the service is a must-have, especially if one plays on Xbox and PC exclusively.
There are various subscription tiers for the service. For gamers who only wish to enjoy a compact library of games with the ability to play multiplayer on a console, the Core tier was added alongside the PC, Console, and Ultimate subscriptions. The game library, offered in all tiers but the most economical, gets refreshed periodically. New games enter the collection, and some old games depart from it.
Now, a few features are coming to Game Pass that will make subscribers’ lives easier and prevent bitter experiences.
Xbox Game Pass to Get a Quality-of-Life Update and Xbox Guide New Feature for Alpha Skip-Ahead Rings
As reported initially on Xbox’s official news site, some new features are soon heading to the Xbox Game Pass subscription service. These features are part of an Xbox Update preview released for the player base that opted for the Alpha Skip-Ahead rings for Xbox.
The first focuses on ensuring that if the player launches a title that will leave the service soon, an alert is issued to the player, informing them of the title’s impending departure. This will prevent a playthrough from being halted by the title’s departure from Game Pass. The official statement from the gaming giant says that:
When launching an Xbox Game Pass title that is leaving the catalog soon, a random subset of users will see we have re-enabled a new dialog which will help clarify exactly when it is leaving and offer an easy path to purchase the game to keep playing even after it has left.
Also, the titles that eventually leave the service because of the periodic refresh will be available to subscribers at a discounted rate, as has always been the case with the Game Pass subscription. This will ensure that the players are not forced into buying a game just because they were late to the party or only managed to clear their to-play list when the game was about to leave the service. Also, this isn’t all the company has to offer participants in the Alpha Skip-Ahead program.
A new “experience” will also be offered to a random subset of users in some areas of the guide. The company has been very vague about the offerings, and most likely, the implementations aren’t groundbreaking and are minor UI changes.
Also, as mentioned earlier, these two features will be available only to a random subset of users as part of the Alpha Skip-Ahead, as mentioned clearly in the announcement from the company hyperlinked above. Despite this, users who haven’t signed up for the program can expect this update to be rolled out, given that the feedback is as expected in the foreseeable future.
Xbox Game Pass: Where Does It Stand Among the Competition?
January 2024 has already seen new games coming to the service, including the famous title Palworld which has taken the entire industry by storm. The following games are the ones that have come to the subscription service in January:
- Close to the Sun
- Hell Let Loose
- Assassin’s Creed Valhalla
- Figment
- Super Mega Baseball 4
- We Happy Few
- Resident Evil 2
- Those Who Remain
- F1 23
- Turnip Boy Robs a Bank
- Palworld
- Go Mecha Ball!
- Phantom Abyss Version 1.0
- Brotato
The service’s competition is primarily Sony PS+ subscription tiers. The latter also has various tiers but lacks first-party releases and only offers game trials, even for first-party PlayStation studio titles. Also, gamers must wait several months to get their hands on first-party PlayStation titles as part of the service.
Despite that, PlayStation has the majority of the market share. Apart from the value Xbox provides in its gaming subscription in terms of quality, it needs to offer better quality exclusively to truly rival Sony. Otherwise, this generation is a lost cause for Phil Spencer and company.
What do you think of Xbox Game Pass? Do you think it is the go-to subscription for every gamer playing on a PC or console? Let us know in the comment section below!
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