Xbox Gamepass for PC

https://news.xbox.com/en-us/2019/05/30/microsoft-approach-to-pc-gaming/

We believe the player should be at the center of their gaming experience and be able to harness the unique benefits of the devices they choose to play on.

Nowhere is that belief more important than on the PC. As the creators of Windows, we have a unique responsibility to ensure we’re investing in experiences that benefit players everywhere, while respecting the PC community’s preference for an open, highly customizable platform.

We’ve not always lived up to our aspiration of keeping gamers at the center of everything we do when it comes to the experience they’ve had on Windows.

Today I’d like to share three steps we are taking to contribute to the thriving PC gaming ecosystem:

Introducing Xbox Game Pass Designed for PC Players

Two years ago, we launched Xbox Game Pass on Xbox One, and since then we’ve seen how valuable a curated library of high-quality games can be for players and game developers alike. It offers a great way to discover and play your next favorite game. We researched whether a similar opportunity exists for PC players and PC game developers, and we believe that it does. We also considered the importance of bringing something new and additive to the PC gaming ecosystem, and we believe that we can. So, we designed a service specifically for the needs of PC gamers and PC game developers. It’s called Xbox Game Pass, just like the original, but it’s a new experience that we are building together with the PC community.

Xbox Game Pass for PC will give players unlimited access to a curated library of over 100 high-quality PC games on Windows 10, from well-known PC game developers and publishers such as Bethesda, Deep Silver, Devolver Digital, Paradox Interactive, SEGA, and more. And just as we committed on the console, it is our intent to include new games from Xbox Game Studios in Xbox Game Pass for PC the same day as their global release, including titles from newly acquired studios like Obsidian and inXile. We’re working with over 75 developers and publishers to bring PC content to the service and we’ll ensure the library remains curated and full of great PC titles across a variety of genres, with new games added every month.

Xbox Game Pass for PC members will also receive discounts in the Microsoft Store on Windows of up to 20% on games currently in the library and up to 10% off related game DLC and add-ons.

We look forward to sharing more at E3, including the great games coming to the library, as well as more details on when and how you’ll experience the new Xbox Game Pass service for PC gamers.

More Choice in Where to Buy Xbox Game Studios Titles

Enabling gamers to play together, through cross-platform play and cross-network play across Windows 10 PCs and console, is vitally important. Building communities across all of those players, regardless of the store or platform they’ve chosen (console or PC), is also vitally important because it helps bring players together, allows games to find their largest audience and allows gaming to deliver its true potential of uniting people around the power of play.

With that in mind, our intent is to make our Xbox Game Studios PC games available in multiple stores, including our own Microsoft Store on Windows, at their launch. We believe you should have choice in where you buy your PC games.

In March, we announced that Halo: The Master Chief Collection will come to PC later this year, launching on Steam in addition to the Microsoft Store on Windows. We will continue to add to the more than 20 Xbox Game Studios titles on Steam, starting with Gears 5 and all Age of Empires I, II & III: Definitive Editions. We know millions of PC gamers trust Steam as a great source to buy PC games and we’ve heard the feedback that PC gamers would like choice. We also know that there are other stores on PC, and we are working to enable more choice in which store you can find our Xbox Game Studios titles in the future.

We want to bring players together to create a shared player community regardless of where they play, so it’s our intent that new Xbox Game Studios titles include features such as voice and text chat, LFG, friends lists and cross-play across PC and console. On Windows 10 you’ll find this functionality in the Xbox Game Bar, which we’ll continue to evolve and expand.

Supporting Win32 Games on Windows 10

We want creators to be inspired to bring their best content to Windows 10, and we want Windows 10 to be the place where gamers come to discover their next favorite PC game. We recognize that Win32 is the app format that game developers love to use and gamers love to play, so we are excited to share that we will be enabling full support for native Win32 games to the Microsoft Store on Windows. This will unlock more options for developers and gamers alike, allowing for the customization and control they’ve come to expect from the open Windows gaming ecosystem.

When I think about the role we play as a company to support and evolve gaming on Windows, it’s critical that we make decisions that reinforce the open nature of the PC, focusing on how best to unite players on all devices around the games they love. That philosophy will guide us as we introduce new ways to discover and play games on Windows.

These are just a few of our steps in a journey to contribute to gaming on Windows 10. We know that PC gamers want to see games, so I hope you’ll join us at our annual Xbox E3 2019 Briefing on Sunday, June 9 to hear more, including the amazing lineup of new games and offers coming to PC players.

They predicated this prior to this announcement.

Bye bye Xbox One.

@davillain-: ?

Sony is looking more and more like a piece of shit everyday next to Microsoft.

I didn't read all of that... I just want to know if they're gonna charge for Live. If not, LOL to Xbox console owners.

That's a very nice lineup of publishers they got so far. I look forward to hearing more details this E3.

Microsoft advancing gaming as a whole.

@BenjaminBanklin:

Precisely that. LOL

this is a a good strategy by microsoft.

They already don't charge for live on PC and haven't in years. :|

I know they don't now. I'm just wondering if plans will change with a full roll out.

Sweet, this is good news I can finally play a new Halo and Gears. It makes perfect sense if you're Microsoft, you have a console as well as a massively used OS, why not support both as well as other PC services and connect the entire ecosystem together? I was never going to buy an XB1 this gen, but I was sadly missing out on some of my favorite games. Who knows, maybe next gen they design a system without kinect and a power brick and a control without a battery pack, I'd most definitely buy it.

MS..FOR THE PLAYERS!

And UWP died with it.

Wait, did they just said they are also bringing their studio games to Steam? I always knew Nadella is all about 'presence' rather than simply 'dominance' but this affirms it.

Why would it change? For someone who stalks Phil so much I would have expected you to know all of this. :)

Stupid

Please elaborate otherwise your post content is actually just a commentary on yourself.

Oh yeah, I talked to Phil the other day, he said you left your toothbrush at his house. ;) Also, I guess we'll see on the ninth.

Firstly, I don't brush my teeth so wrong person. ;)

Nothing will change on the 9th with regards to Live being free on PC. It may change on consoles though. ;)

nice to have the option.

I probably won't go for it myself because i'm an idiot that likes to buy AAA games for full price, play them for a few hours and then get bored and go back to playing random indie MP games.

Win for PC and loss for Xbox. Seriously, can MS just scrap the box now and get people onto rigs, it serves no purpose.

They said they were going to do this a while back and you can already play the Play Anywhere titles on PC through Game Pass.

Great on Microsoft. I find it funny it didn't take long for cows to come in this thread and have a meltdown over the news ROFLMAO!

Swear the majority of game pass are old gen stuff, tried it a few months ago and was pretty crap to be honest. How many pc gamers have used play anywhere?

I really feel like this past gen will be the last "True" gen of consoles when it comes to exclusives, I feel like both Xbox AND Playstation will have some sort of service with ALL their games available on other hardware; such as PC, TV's, Phones, tablets, etc

No more console wars soon

Good to have more options available to more people. For me though I’ll just stick to buying the games that I want on physical formats and for their consoles. I’m not interested in PC gaming and not really interested in getting Game Pass.

Seems like people didnt notice the SHADE MS is throwing on Epic.

cool, be interesting to see what games they bring

Sigh... The so called master race were annoying before but if this continues they would be unbearable.

I dont get the master race thing, doesn't everyone have a gaming PC? Maybe I'm in a bubble

No thank you. Not paying for games as a service. But many people will love this, so it's good to see more tangible support for PC from MS's games products

The PC version of games pass is going to be half-ass though. GP on xboxone has over 250+ games to play where as GP on PC will have 100+ games

GamePass on PC, Xbox games coming to Steam?

when they announced game pass for xbox the also billed it as 100+ games

how much a month is it?

wait.... will it be compatible with keyboard and mouse for all games? or will it be a forced xbox controller?

will there be graphics options?

oh ok, didnt know that.

no one will buy games on steam again

Thank you MS, truly for the gamers... Jazz. :P

You'll probably find some newer stuff has dropped in since you last had a peek, like Void Bastards and Outer Wilds this week. It'll continue to improve over time I guess...

Doesn't 'Games as a Service' refer to games like Anthem and Destiny? Typically unfinished games that are pitched as having a lot of future improvement and expect you to grind out things like cosmetics and generally just take up a lot of your time.

Anyway... I'm all for a Game Pass on all the platforms. I'm over the idea of paying $60 to own a game that I play for a few weeks and never touch again. Game Pass seems like a great idea. Pay monthly and you can download and play whatever you want. Sure you don't own it, but there will always be the option to buy games at the full price.

@pyro1245: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Games_as_a_service refers to getting games or content for subscription fees. Either way, doesn't really matter what its name is - you like the model, I don't. No biggie - like I said, I'm glad it's coming to PC for those who want this. FWIW, I'd be much more interested if I consumed games at a faster rate. But I refuse to pay for PSN, XBL, PSNow, GamePass, etc because 1) it takes me forever to finish a single game these days and I already have a backlog I'll never get through. 2) most of the games on these services DON'T interest me. I'd rather just buy the one item I actually want, than have a recurring debit for god knows what thrown at me. Plus, I'm not sure when the last time I spent anywhere near $60 for a game was. I pretty much never buy big AAA games at launch

Hmm, did not know the latest tomb raider dropped, as has vampyr. Guess I'll check it out every now and then.

@Random_Matt: Day one releases have been making it to Gamepass for quite sometime. The service has improved a lot.

Xbox One exist like Surface Pro for home living room desktops.

With desktop PC class Zen v2 CPUs, Xbox Lockhart and Anaconda are effectively Microsoft's Surface Pro for the living room.

• Major benefits for Xbox One is Microsoft managed box without the end-user maintaining it.
• Xbox will continue to exist as long Intel Corp has CPU bias within game console price tag. Microsoft's disagreement against Intel's product stack and price. Microsoft wants an APU with GPU power bias within the game console price segments and Intel refuses to provide it.

@sHaDyCuBe321:

Why the blurry picture?

Yeah that's what I do, They do get some great games they just added some multiplat indies on their release date too. It helps that GP is on sale every other week for a $1 for a month, they just had 3 months for a $1.

Game Pass on PC means I don't buy the next Xbox. Cause right now, Xbox 360 games been at least 51% of the reason I love/play Xbox One. Yeah I hope its another great console, but do feel we getting to point that consoles are niche, but still worth making for those who want it, I rather MS invest in making Win10 store thee store on Windows.

Of course PS5 will be as niche, but if it has exclusives I'll have a reason for it. But if both put all their games on a cloud for PC, then chances are I'd just get the next Xbox, since they are doing all the things I want them to be doing.

Good job by MS on this.