Microsoft looks to be bringing Xbox Game Pass to new platforms. Yesterday, during the company’s fiscal year 2019 first quarter earnings conference call, Microsoft’s CEO Satya Nadella stated the company plans to bring Xbox Game Pass to PC. However, Nadella did not give a date on when the company plans to expands the service. Xbox Game Pass, the Netfilx style gaming subscription service, allows players to download and play over 100 titles for a monthly fee of $9.99 USD. Though it was not stated how Microsoft plans to bring the service to PC, but it is expected to run through the built in Microsoft Store on Windows 10 PCs.
First announced and released last year, Xbox Game Pass has become a major draw of the console. Along with the multitude of old titles available on the service, earlier this year, Microsoft would start to bring all first party titles to the service on the same day that they are released, which started with Sea of Thieves. New first party titles weren’t the only games that would get to debut on the service upon release. In April, Freejam Games’ Robocraft Infinity came to the service on its day of release thanks to the ID@Xbox program.
Bringing Xbox Game Pass to PC allows Microsoft to double down on their Play Anywhere program. This program already lets consumers to buy and play Xbox games on both their Xbox console and PC. Thus, it makes sense for Game Pass to be available to PC players. This announcement also comes on the back of Microsoft’s other recent Xbox brand expansion announcement of Project xCloud. This is being touted as a service that will let players stream Xbox games on any device. This decision to expand Xbox Game Pass also allows Microsoft to match Sony’s PlayStation Now game streaming service’s availability which has been on PC since 2016.
With all the things Microsoft has done and plans to do to secure and expand the Xbox brand, the company is in a prime position as the next generation of video games nears ever closer.