Whereas Sony and Nintendo are all about their big first-party exclusives, Microsoft’s approach to this current gaming generation has been all about its Game Pass platform.
A combination of Day One launches and cheap deals to entice customers has managed to see the Game Pass service grow to a membership number said to be around 30 million.
There has been understandable concern that, in order to try and entice more subscribers, the company might look to make games exclusive to the service.
That won’t happen, according to Xbox boss Phil Spencer whilst visiting the Tokyo Game Show last week. He tells Japanese publication Game Watch (via Insider Gaming that the idea of launching games exclusively on Game Pass was one he shut down early on:
“What we want to offer is choice. Xbox isn’t just about Xbox Game Pass. The real success of Xbox is that more people play Xbox, whether it’s on Xbox consoles, on PC, in the cloud, or on other consoles. We want to grow the community that plays Xbox. I have no intention of doing anything that would hinder that.”
Instead, Xbox will look for other ways to grow its Game Pass membership numbers. Microsoft recently ended the Xbox Live Gold plan for players – replacing it with a new Xbox Game Pass Core plan.
Unfortunately, future price increases for the service are inevitable according to Spencer.
