Press Release
Microsoft has announced, this morning, that it is moving towards a Netflix-styled subscription service for its games with Xbox Game Pass, a monthly service that will provide a selection of downloadable video games , playable on Xbox One.
The service will gives subscribers unlimited access to over 100 Xbox One and Xbox 360 backward compatible games on Xbox One for NZ$10.95 a month.
Xbox Game Pass will begin rolling out to select members of the Xbox Insider Program at 6 a.m. PST today, and will launch to the broader community later this spring (US). If you’re part of the Xbox Insider Program and would like to take the update right away, you’ll need to reboot your Xbox One; otherwise, Xbox Game Pass should appear on your dashboard within an hour or so.
A few things about Xbox Insider Program:
- As is common with new features and programs going into preview, Xbox Game Pass will be an early build with some feature limitations and will not be on par with the final experience that will be available later this spring;
- Most notable for users in the Xbox Insider Program will be a limited catalogue (i.e. approximately 20 titles in preview, many of them arcade) and potentially some slight tweaks to the user interface. Most AAA titles in the Xbox Game Pass catalogue will begin appearing in when the program launches to the broader Xbox community later this spring;
- You can expect to run into bugs while in the Xbox Insider Program. Note that the main focus of Preview is to test features and report bugs so the team can refine the experience before it launches broadly;
- Xbox Game Pass will initially launch to the Xbox Insider Program without full localisation, meaning the product description and channel names will appear in English. When the program launches to the broader Xbox community later this spring, the product description and channel names will be localised appropriately.
Some of the great titles coming later this spring when Xbox Game Pass launches to the broader Xbox community include: Halo 5: Guardians, Saints Row IV Re-Elected, NBA 2K16, Mad Max, LEGO Batman, Mega Man Legacy Collection, Terraria, Payday 2, Gears of War: Ultimate Edition, Fable III, SoulCalibur II and Tekken Tag 2. Note that these titles will not be part of the Xbox Insider Program.