While South Africa has already agreed to Microsoft’s $68.7 billion deal to acquire Activision Blizzard King, remember that no game will remain stable on the system for years, except for those from Microsoft-owned studios…

Sarah Bond, corporate vice president of Xbox, spoke to Rolling Stone about the value of the Redmond company’s monthly subscription service: “We’ve been very clear about our commitment to having our first-party portfolio shipping to Game Pass day and date. We understand that people value that, but it’s also about the diversity of content. It’s not really about any one acquisition. It’s about the depth and breadth of the portfolio all up, from big triple-A games to indie titles to hidden gems. That’s actually what makes Game Pass valuable.”

In the meantime, Microsoft has canceled its $/€1 promotion, which gave new users a month to try out the subscription service’s games for a good deal. In return, there’s the family and friends bundle, but what could significantly push the Game Pass bandwagon would be support for third-party publishers…

Bond also talked about how Game Pass influences game development: “Game Pass is an option for developers. One thing that we talk a lot about internally, but I’ve been striving to share more externally, is the business model associated with a game has an en

demic link to the nature of the gameplay. We invest a lot of time in introducing more business model diversity and creating more options. We talked a lot about Game Pass because the subscription is the latest option we scaled: you have pay-to-play, then there was free-to-play, and then we introduced Game Pass. We’ve talked about how we’re experimenting with other models, like what it means for advertising in games which is more prevalent in mobile – are there models that work well in PC and console? Are there other models where you might have timed slices of games and stuff like that? Providing creators with options and choice enables them to experiment and do what they like, and create more immersive and creative experiences without fitting into a mold.”

Obsidian’s Pentiment is a case in point: it would never have happened without Game Pass and Microsoft’s help. In the interview, Bond said that the surprise release of Hi-Fi Rush was a unique decision and won’t happen again anytime soon. She also believes that artificial intelligence can fundamentally democratize game development.

Source: WCCFTech