The Potential Trojan Horse of the XBox Gamepass

So….I’m not much into conspiracy theories…

However…..

Can we talk about XBox’s Gamepass? Just for a minute?

What’s their endgame? Honestly? What is the secret plan?

For years XBox has decided to bank heavily towards their Gamepass, which started in 2017 and remains in full full swing in 2021. For the most part its quite a good deal, and they’ve had over 20 million subscribers as of this writing, which places it slightly below Nintendo Switch Online, well above Playstation Now, but way off Steam’s numbers. Either way, Microsoft has definitely put much more focus on their subscription service than the competitors, and to be honest it has me a little worried.

Is it an excellent deal? Of course. But is there a secret caveat that people might be overlooking?

Yes.

Maybe.

My theory is that Microsoft is going to become fully digital within the next couple years and within this generation of gaming, and will try to completely ignore the concept of releasing physical copies of their games as they increase exposure of the GamePass and approach their secret goal of subscription numbers. On the surface, this may not seem like the worst of ideas or aspirations, as the gaming industry has indeed moved much deeper into a purely digital arena. But this can open pandora’s box to many anti-consumer issues in the future.

The primary problem is that this would be a brutal blow to the concept of video game preservation, and would directly impact the second-hand market that people with less income benefits greatly from. Microsoft knows this, and this is part of the strategy; make it impossible for anyone to make any money from their games within the second-hand market, whether new or retro (XBox being 20 years old is proof time is moving way too fast). If everything becomes digital, you are never truly -owning- anything, you are simply borrowing with their permission, paying money for the ability to play video games. Microsoft even has it so that you are locked out of games in YOUR console if you stop subscribing to the service. How messed up is that?

Similar to Netflix, Microsoft can simply collect the money from millions of subscribers every month and never actually have to give them anything for them to keep, its all part of the digital service----as long as you continue paying me, then you can keep playing the games that your hardware has access to. If you look at it from the customer perspective, it’s rather grimy. And if Microsoft churns further towards all-digital, then all the games collected and purchased over the years (physically and digitally) will be at the mercy of the service, will be useless unless you keep the consoles of the past. If Microsoft fully moves towards just being GamePass-centric, -they- pick and choose what games are available, and to add to that they can slow down their output of newer games in favor of justifying the pricing with a beefier mix of older content. The budget would shift from making excellent games for the present and future and instead be pushed towards simply providing the vehicle for access to games.

Unlike Sony and Nintendo, each with strong first-party backing (especially Nintendo), Microsoft doesn’t have much exclusivity to offer, and it appears they are relying on strong third-party support to bolster their library of games. So their advantage against the others would be offering more of these third-party games through their Netflix-like service, which is something the competitors are definitely abstaining from. And if there’s a target and if it gets reached, I predict that the prices will go up while they simultaneously move towards a fully-digital pathway for the XBox hardware.

The Gamepass should be doing better considering its value, but its clear there’s strong hesitancy from corners of the consumer market in gaming. I can’t speak for others as to why they haven’t really embraced this new normal within Microsoft gaming, but for me I fear the company pushing towards a future I’m definitely not going to be in favor of. We’ve already seen companies like Apple make owning actual pieces of entertainment more difficult, so to see Microsoft potentially heading down this same path disappoints and frightens me. There are plenty of advantages to going digital in terms of purchases and enjoying content, but the biggest disadvantage is how even though you’re paying for something, you still don’t really own it unless the provider gives you the permission to do so.

Once again, this might just be a conspiracy theory. I do hope that I’m wrong, but if my fears become reality, then there’s no way I could ever get an XBox under such a business strategy.