It’s hard to tell what exactly the game plan is with Xbox. For the past few years, it seemed as though it was looking to exit the console space entirely, especially with the “Everything is an Xbox” campaign they were running last year. Yet, now that campaign has been very quickly and quietly retired with nothing to replace it. The only clear thing now is that Game Pass is still the centerpiece of the company’s strategy, and so they’re continuing to develop it.

The latest rumor, as reported by TwistedVoxel, is that Xbox is planning on adding a new tier to Game Pass, one centered around titles published under the Xbox Game Studios label. The games cited as being related to this new tier are all years old now, examples including Fallout 4, Dishonored 2, Hellblad and State of Decay 2, so it’s unknown whether this new tier will include future first party releases as well. If it doesn’t, then perhaps this is a tier meant for those who don’t want the Ultimate tier but still want to enjoy most of Xbox’s releases.

If such is the case, then I suppose this can only be a good thing. I used to be a fan of Game Pass, but that changed after realizing the impact it has on game value and the overall lack of must-have releases available through it. Yes, it has a lot of games, and that’s great for those who only want to interact with gaming casually, but for old timers like myself, it’s just not a good value proposition. It’s the same for Nintendo Switch Online and PS Plus, the latter of which I only have because its holding all online play and features hostage.

Being forced to pay for stuff you don’t want sucks, so props to Xbox if this is indeed going to be a way for users to limit the service to what they actually want. Now, if only Xbox could put all those studios it snapped up back in 2019-2021 and produce some games that people actually want to play. The only things they got giong for them right now are Forza (for racing fans) and Fable, and Fable is debatable at best. Some people are psyched it, others like myself are not. Anyway, that’s all I’ve got for now. This could be a good thing, so fingers-crossed, yeah?

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How do you feel about Game Pass? Would more tiers offering different packages make it more appealing or just more confusing?

Image is promotional artwork