Phil Spencer shared his and his team’s vision for next-gen gaming in an official blog post. Besides their targets with their large ecosystem we now also learn that the company’s ambitious game streaming service Project xCloud is going to become part of Xbox Game Pass Ultimate this September!
Team Xbox isn’t playing around this time. The change in tone compared to the launch of the last-gen Xbox One could not be more different. Head of Xbox Phil Spencer truly transformed the gaming division of Microsoft into a razor-focused place for the future of gaming.
Probably nothing more than the incredible value brought to gamers by the Xbox Game Pass has shown that Phil Spencer and the people at Xbox mean serious business. Offering an ever-growing list of games for a very affordable monthly fee has proven a massive hit among users.
With cloud gaming in Game Pass Ultimate, you will be able to play over 100 Xbox Game Pass titles on your phone or tablet. And because Xbox Live connects across devices, you can play along with the nearly 100 million Xbox Live players around the world. – Phil Spencer
And it looks like the service is very soon going to become even more essential for gamers. Project xCloud, Microsoft’s game streaming service, is going to join Xbox Game Pass Ultimate. This means users of the service will not only be able to enjoy a large library of games – among which are all Day-1 releases from Xbox Game Studios and select third-party games – but they’ll be able to play them on their phones, tablets, smart TVs, and laptops anywhere they are. We expect a similar combination to happen on PC in the future.
Don’t be fooled, this is a massive offering that is undoubtedly going to sway lots of gamers into the Xbox ecosystem. Sony really needs to wake up and show their answer to both Game Pass and Project xCloud. PS Now is still getting nowhere near the amount of attention and PlayStation users don’t have any alternative to a gaming subscription.
It’s true that both platform holders follow diverging strategies in the console space, with Sony adhering to the traditional formula of publishing great exclusives and Microsoft focusing on a bevy of services on top of exclusives. It’ll be interesting to see who manages to win gamers starting this Holiday season when the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X launch.
