If the idea of having Xbox Game Pass for free is appealing to you, it might become a thing in the future. At the moment subscribers are required to pay a monthly or yearly amount to have access to hundreds of games, plus cloud streaming, but that could end.
In a recent conversation, Microsoft Gaming CFO Tim Stuart commented on Xbox Game Pass mentioning that the company has thought about the idea of making the service free to all users, but it would require players to watch a certain amount of adverts.
Xbox Game Pass is a 'must have' for Xbox owners
Talking at a Wells Fargo summit the CFO summarised his idea of asking players to watch adverts in exchange for playtime saying “Hey, do you want to watch 30 seconds of an ad and then get two hours of game streaming?” You have to wonder what the response would be from gamers. It’s certainly a tempting proposition and given that many of us are already used to a similar business model with mobile games and YouTube videos, it could work.
Advert
Whether this becomes a part of the Xbox business model, only time will tell. Many of the Xbox executives are passionately selling the idea of Game Pass everywhere and this move would be a monumental step in allowing players from lower income families or backgrounds a chance to play the latest games.
To be fair, Stuart also mentioned the idea of bringing Game Pass to the Nintendo Switch console too, however, that was swiftly shut down by Phil Spencer as nothing more than a pipe dream. At least the dreams are there and there’s definitely scope in the future of Microsoft’s Game Pass plans.
The issue with this idea is sustainability - would only a couple of adverts qualify players to experience the latest Microsoft game? Or would there be some form of scale, meaning older games require fewer adverts watched? Maybe we’ll get answers to this in the future.
Topics: Xbox, Xbox Game Pass, Xbox Series S, Xbox Series X, Xbox One