Xbox Game Pass has become one of the most important services in the entire games industry since its launch in June 2017. Not only does the service offer excellent access to some of the greatest games across all four generations of Xbox, it has also become one of the cornerstones of Microsoft’s marketing strategies, with all of the company’s first-party titles launching into the services day 1. To grow the service out, Microsoft has reportedly approached “every major publisher” to bring their titles to Xbox Game Pass.
The current rumor surrounding Xbox Game Pass is that Microsoft is looking to bring Ubisoft’s subscription service, Ubisoft Plus, to Xbox Game Pass in 2021. This comes after EA Play joined the service in November 2020, bringing the entire back-catalogue of EA games to Xbox Game Pass as part of the regular subscription model, without the need to upgrade to a higher tier of subscription. The rumors indicate that Ubisoft will bring all of its back-catalogue to the service similar to EA, however newer Ubisoft titles will not join the service on day 1 and Xbox Game Pass may see a price increase or higher tier introduced to accompany the titles’ inclusion.
Speaking on The Xbox Two Podcast, Windows Central’s Jez Corden, who has been sharing insider information regarding the discussions between Microsoft and Ubisoft, indicated that Microsoft has been talking to as many publishers as possible regarding bringing their titles to Xbox Game Pass in 2021. Corden claims “It’s not as much of a revelation as you might think, because Microsoft didn’t just get EA Play and think, ‘we’re going to stop there’. They’re all-in on trying to get all publishers to bring their games to Game Pass.” He later continued, “It’s just not Ubisoft either, I’ve heard they’ve been talking to basically every major publisher, it’s just EA is the first one that bit. EA is the first deal they locked down.”
Since Xbox Game Pass launched in summer of 2017, Microsoft has relied on its partnerships with publishers and indie studios when bringing games to Xbox Game Pass, with many indie games such as Ikenfell, Haven, and the upcoming Cyber-Shadow joining the service at launch. Insiders have indicated that this could extend to AAA publishers in the future though, once deals are in place. This is partly evident by Microsoft’s acquisition of Bethesda, which will bring all of the studio’s back-catalogue and future titles to Xbox Game Pass at launch.
Microsoft has recently made huge efforts with specific publishers to bring their titles to Xbox through Xbox Game Pass, with one major success story being that of Sega’s Yakuza series, which saw a huge leap in success in western territories with the release of Yakuza 0 on Xbox Game Pass in February 2020. With steady releases on the platform since Yakuza 0, by March 2021 all of the eight mainline Yakuza games will be available on Xbox platforms, with seven of them available on Xbox Game Pass. It’s partnerships like these that Microsoft is likely looking to continue as Xbox Game Pass begins to grow thanks to more AAA publishers supporting the platform.
![\"IT電腦補習](\"http://itteacheritfreelance.hk/test/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/logo2-2.png\"){kind=logo}
www.itsec.hk
www.itsec.vip
www.itseceu.uk
Leave a Reply