With the gaming and general public alike in a buzz over the upcoming next-gen console releases for the 2020 holiday season, it comes as no surprise that preparations need to be made for said consoles’ arrivals. However, I’m not too sure — or enthused — about Microsoft’s current preparing methods.
Allow me to explain…..
First, they’re discontinuing production of their XBox One X and One S All-Digital Edition consoles. I’m understanding the overall reasoning behind this, but what I don’t understand is, why choose two of your most recently released consoles? Additionally, why discontinue the One X and One S A-DE before the Series X is even released, instead of after? And here’s my favorite pondering – why are the regular One S consoles now more expensive (is this to make up for the halted A-DE brethren)?
But that’s not even my biggest beef with Microsoft at the moment.
The more recent news seems to now indicate that they’re also discontinuing the 1-year subscription of their Xbox Live Gold service — as of right at this moment, it’s only digitally unavailable at the Microsoft Store (although physical copies of those can still be found at third-party retail stores). This sudden abrupt change came without warning or notification, and while I’m sure there were those who thought it was an error, Microsoft later confirmed that this was indeed legit. And to add further to the confusion, their 1-month and 3-month XBLG plans can still be purchased online. zovirax 800mg
So what gives, Microsoft? Are you going to redo the XBLG service when the Series X comes out, or are you just going to phase it out completely and end up forcing us XBLG faithful to switch — I refuse to call it an “upgrade” — to Game Pass? generic Lasix
I really hope it isn’t the second option of my questioning. I mean, I get what Game Pass is about and what it’s used for. But if you get right down to it, you’re just paying monthly for a service to have access to a limited number of games to be able to play, but they’re not yours to keep. In essence, you’re renting these games, and if you can’t pay, then you can’t play. Now, I realize that Game Pass does have some plan tiers to choose from, but if you want to have XBLG service included, then you have to go with the ‘Game Pass Ultimate’ plan — of course it’s the most expensive plan and the ONLY plan that offers any kind of XBLG benefits. generic levaquin
If this is what Microsoft has in mind after all, of choosing to get rid of XBLG in favor of Game Pass and xCloud, then I think it will be a huge and rather stupid mistake. It’s because of XBL that I’ve amassed over 200 games over the years, and I cherish the idea of being able to play my games online whenever and however I want. Plus, XBLG offers (or now offered.m) the greatest value to gamers with its 1-year subscription deal, which is what I’ve been going with ever since I first joined what seems like ages ago.
Now don’t get me misconstrued here. I’m not saying that Game Pass is a totally horrible service or anything like that. It’s perfect for the gamers out there who don’t have very many games or any games at all, so now they have access to a growing list of titles that they can play. For folks like myself, though, that prefer to purchase games to keep, if I really want to just rent a game, I’ll go to GameFly or Redbox — for me personally, Game Pass would be about as useless as having a Kinect; it just doesn’t fit my gaming needs.
So then what about those of us who are perfectly content with XBLG and don’t wish to go the Game Pass route? What if we would much rather prefer to pay for it yearly, instead of every month or every three months? And then what happens to our collections of games that we’ve purchased, should XBLG in fact end up being removed altogether?
Maybe I’m jumping the gun here and overreacting a bit, but I can’t help but feel that Microsoft has some explaining to do. I certainly hope that it’s something that we can all agree to as a whole Xbox community, instead of possibly feeling like we’re being forced into something that we may not want. And should they decide to revamp XBLG later on instead, then I say why not follow Nintendo’s lead and continue to offer a yearly plan, with Game Pass integrated in it.
Or….OR….how about this for an idea?
If it ain’t broke, then don’t try to fix it.
Sean ‘Toonboy’ Boley
Xbox Editor
