Featured Image Credit: Microsoft/Xbox Game Studios
Topics: Xbox, Xbox Game Pass, Microsoft, Netflix
Xbox Game Pass is seemingly changing for the better in the coming months, as new CEO Asha Sharma reshapes the brand’s future.
Since joining the company earlier this year following Phil Spencer’s departure it’s said that Sharma is willing to “question everything” in an attempt to get Xbox back on track.
Xbox has come under fire from fans for a variety of reasons, from AI implementation, age-verifcation and of course the ever-changing Xbox Game Pass subscription service.
Price-hikes and confusion over different tiers has been the predominant issue but Sharma’s plan for the service is to seemingly offer more value for less money, in a bid to to get fans back on side.
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One of the first things Sharma did in her tenure at Xbox was kill the “This Is An Xbox’ campaign, which was relentlessly mocked online and did little to enhance the company’s public image.
In an interview between the vice president of Xbox, Jason Ronald and The Information (via MSN), Sharma is "considering ways to make future consoles and products like Game Pass more enticing to a broader range of customers."
This apparently includes lower-priced tiers which will allow more users to reap the benefits Game Pass provides, which is quite a u-turn considering it was price-hikes that crippled the service’s active subscriber base in the first place.
Another idea under consideration is a partnership with Netflix, leading to a combined streaming service that’d give users access to the thousands of games Xbox Game Pass provides, in addition to the thousands of films and TV shows Netflix possesses.
This would likely take the form of a brand-new tier, or perhaps added on to Xbox Game Pass Ultimate.
On paper it’s a good idea as many Xbox owners will likely use their consoles as a streaming device.
Netflix has also been leaning into the gaming industry as of late, with exclusive titles that subscribers can play via the app. With Xbox also enabling its users to cloud-stream certain games there’s a chance this partnership could lead to games like Halo: Infinite, Forza and more being playable on the Netflix app.
There has rarely been a change to Xbox Game Pass that users have liked, but less expensive tiers and seemingly more benefits to subscribing to the service could be a step in the right direction, especially if the long-term goal is to return Xbox to the beloved and respected brand it once was.