Xbox Game Pass - GUIDE TO BEST DEAL IN FIRST POST

[Mortis]

Yeah you won’t be saying that by 20 minutes in

[Harrisown]

Well it’s been an hour and a bit so far.

[Stanley]

2 hours ago, the_debaser said:

Darksiders 3. You’re welcome. 

 

[Don Wiskerando]

1 hour ago, Mortis said:

Yeah you won’t be saying that by 20 minutes in

Why? What's wrong with it?

 

I'm enjoying it after a couple of hours and seem to be making some slow progress.

[Mortis]

Each to their own - I hope you enjoy. 

[rafaqat]

It’s funny seeing people complaining that they’re being told to lower their expectations for game pass and on the other hand we have another bunch of people having a go at people for enjoying games on game pass that they’re not.    It’s almost like different people get different things out of the games on game pass. 
 

I need to try Quake. Been a long time. As a busy 40+ mum I’m absolutely adoring game pass for letting me pick and choose from a fairly big library and trying out stuff I wouldn’t have touched due to needing to take a

Punt and paying upfront. I hope you all find at least two games a year that you enjoy on the service.  Doesn’t matter whether they’re indie/AA or AAA. 

 

[Mortis]

For me the great thing about gamepass is that I can play 12 minutes and think it’s an absolute stinker but someone else will adore it. 
 I played last stop and loved the entire experience - others hated it. 
In the end we all win. 

[skondo]

Just upgraded to Gamepass. When did they start converting Gold to Gamepass at 1:1?

[moosegrinder]

50 minutes ago, skondo said:

Just upgraded to Gamepass. When did they start converting Gold to Gamepass at 1:1?

 

Forever. They technically don't do years of gold any more so whatever stock is out there should be finite now. Did you top up to 3 years before you converted?

[HarryBizzle]

15 hours ago, JPL said:

 

Yeah, but have you tried 12 Minutes yet? Same question to you as well, @bradigor

 

I think for me, it's important that MS try to shake the 'perfect for gamepass' image, which I think will be detrimental to the service in the long term, especially if they keep promoting under par games.

 

I've said it before but I'll say it again, they really need to start delivering some top quality games now. We've all been more than patient.

I think you’re probably the only person in this thread who thinks they’ve had to be patient with Game Pass. 
 

To me, “perfect for game pass” doesn’t mean a subpar game, it means something I wouldn’t have played if it wasn’t on Game Pass and had a great time with, and there have been loads of them. 
 

 

On a slightly related note, my brother in law has bought a PS5 for his kids thinking they’d be pleased. They come over to ours and only play the Series S. They turned the PS5 on once and couldn’t care less because my digital and PS+ collection just doesn’t match Game Pass. I’m trying to convince him to take the PS5 back or sell it and get them a Series S and Game Pass. 

[Stanley]

20 minutes ago, HarryBizzle said:

I think you’re probably the only person in this thread who thinks they’ve had to be patient with Game Pass. 
 

To me, “perfect for game pass” doesn’t mean a subpar game, it means something I wouldn’t have played if it wasn’t on Game Pass and had a great time with, and there have been loads of them. 
 

 

On a slightly related note, my brother in law has bought a PS5 for his kids thinking they’d be pleased. They come over to ours and only play the Series S. They turned the PS5 on once and couldn’t care less because my digital and PS+ collection just doesn’t match Game Pass. I’m trying to convince him to take the PS5 back or sell it and get them a Series S and Game Pass. 

He could always get PS Now, often overlooked but it has a pretty good selection, and much bigger than Gamepass. 

[HarryBizzle]

Just now, Stanley said:

He could always get PS Now, often overlooked but it has a pretty good selection, and much bigger than Gamepass. 

The fact that I completely forgot it even exists speaks volumes. Thanks for that, that’s super helpful.

[Stanley]

Yeah I don’t know why Sony don’t push it more.

[MikeBeaver]

6 minutes ago, Stanley said:

Yeah I don’t know why Sony don’t push it more.

You only push it if it's real good

[Dudley]

14 hours ago, 5R7 said:

I love that  there seems to be a bunch of really salty people about so many games on GP being "7/10" indies ...thats good, 7/10 is good! (5 is average, 6 above, 7 good, 8 great, 9 a classic of the genre, 10 truly genre/gaming defining)...unless your sole comparison is OPM, where anything less that 84% is so bad it should be buried in the desert...

 

"And lo it shall pass that the reviewer can't get off level one.

And he shall not care for the game or want to play it for more than 20 minutes.

But lo, he shall be fearful of the software company dropping advertising and missing him off the free crate of beer list at Christmas, and he shall tremble and quake mightily as all rival mags have given it a high score.

So he shall give it a score low enough to dissuade potential buyers, yet high enough to pacify the software people.

And that score shall be the NUMBER OF THE BEAST, and it shall be 73 per cent."

[Stanley]

4 minutes ago, MikeBeaver said:

You only push it if it's real good

That’s the thing though, there is loads of good stuff on there, people’s perception of it is that it’s not as good as Gamepass, but bar first party releases they’re really very similar in terms of content. 

[Gabzy]

9 minutes ago, MikeBeaver said:

You only push it if it's real good

🧂&🫑

[5R7]

1 hour ago, Stanley said:

Yeah I don’t know why Sony don’t push it more.

 

anything that isn't downloaded is streamed, they dont have the number of server blades needed to really push it.

 

But yeah you would think they would offer a sort of PS plus...plus service which included both

[rafaqat]

1 hour ago, Stanley said:

That’s the thing though, there is loads of good stuff on there, people’s perception of it is that it’s not as good as Gamepass, but bar first party releases they’re really very similar in terms of content. 

 

Hey. If Sony barely advertise it and there's not much that's going to draw me to it.   Plus Sony has been about their first party stuff for quite awhile. That's been their big focus. If they're not going to put those onto their service then it's automatically seen as a negative.  I'd subscribe like a shot if they put new first party stuff no regularly like MS do. But they clearly don't need to, so PS Now is just this other subscription servce that might have similar games but none of us will ever really be reminded of it.

 

[JPL]

11 hours ago, rafaqat said:

It’s funny seeing people complaining that they’re being told to lower their expectations for game pass and on the other hand we have another bunch of people having a go at people for enjoying games on game pass that they’re not.    It’s almost like different people get different things out of the games on game pass. 

This is correct as well. I find it a bit weird that it turns personal for some people and they start telling others they’re wrong. As you say, different people like different things. That’s great and definitely a plus for Gamepass that there’s the variety on there to cater for most people.

 

What I’m trying to say, while unintentionally riling some folk, is that I’d like some more AAA games on there, that show off how capable the Series consoles are, to go along with the current excellent library.

 

I know I might seem a bit down on the service, but I’m really not, I just want them to really flex their muscles now.
 

I know Halo Infinite and Forza Horizon 5 are pretty imminent and they’ve got Rare, The Initiative, Ninja Theory, Bethesda and a load of others I’ve probably forgotten about, so I suppose I’m just being impatient!

[Jamie John]

One thing that I've found with Game Pass, although this extends to all streaming platforms, including for films, TV and music, too, is that I value the games on it far less than if I'd actually paid for them. I'm a lot quicker to abandon a Game Pass game, for example, than one I've bought outright, because it's 'free'.

 

My sub is good for another couple of years, so it's a moot point for the time being, but after it runs out I'm going to seriously consider whether I renew it or not for this reason. It was the same with PS Plus, and was a big part of why I cancelled that; I found myself 'ticking off' my PS Plus games, completing and enjoying some, but uninstalling the majority of them after less than an hour's play. I was playing them because I felt obliged to, because they were sat there in my library, rather than because I wanted to. The same is true of Game Pass, a lot of the time (although, admittedly, the hit to shit ratio is a lot better than it was with PS Plus).

 

This is probably a wider topic about 'free' content and perceived value, but I've recently started buying 4K and regular Blu-Rays again, despite subscribing to Netflix 4K, Prime Video and Disney Plus, and I'm finding I value the discs I buy and enjoy the films I watch a lot more than if they were just on a streaming service. I'm also actually watching the films, too, enjoying the ritual of setting aside a couple of hours to give them my full attention, whereas before I was hardly ever watching films, despite having access to thousands of them through the aforementioned streaming services.

 

I was talking to my dad about this the other day as well. His favourite hobby is listening to music, and for the past five years he's done so almost exclusively from buying vinyl. He cancelled his Spotify sub years ago because he found that he wasn't really listening to the music on there properly, whereas now, because a record costs at least £15 each time and he can only afford to buy a few each month, he'll take the time to sit and listen to it properly and get his money's worth, valuing it a lot more. There are also lots of albums he's learnt to like after repeated listens that he would have just dismissed if he'd listened to them on Spotify and decided after one hearing that he didn't like them.

 

I think the same is true of games. I uninstalled The Ascent after about 30 minutes because I couldn't be done with waiting for it to get good, but if I'd paid for it then I may have tolerated its flaws a lot more. All the best games I've played so far this year have been ones I've paid for. In fact, I've completed 22 games since the start of 2021 and only two of those have been Game Pass games. I don't know if there's any significance to this, and I'm aware I'm rambling, but it's something which occurs to me quite frequently.

[Plissken]

20 minutes ago, JPL said:

What I’m trying to say, while unintentionally riling some folk, is that I’d like some more AAA games on there, that show off how capable the Series consoles are

 

Serious question - What do you mean by "capable".

[Stanley]

19 minutes ago, JPL said:

This is correct as well. I find it a bit weird that it turns personal for some people and they start telling others they’re wrong. As you say, different people like different things. That’s great and definitely a plus for Gamepass that there’s the variety on there to cater for most people.

 

What I’m trying to say, while unintentionally riling some folk, is that I’d like some more AAA games on there, that show off how capable the Series consoles are, to go along with the current excellent library.

 

I know I might seem a bit down on the service, but I’m really not, I just want them to really flex their muscles now.
 

I know Halo Infinite and Forza Horizon 5 are pretty imminent and they’ve got Rare, The Initiative, Ninja Theory, Bethesda and a load of others I’ve probably forgotten about, so I suppose I’m just being impatient!

There’s hardly any “AAA” stuff out on anything right now, in fact the last big one I can think of is actually Flight Simulator, and if that doesn’t demonstrate how capable the Series consoles are then I don’t know what does. 

[Plissken]

I know I'm going to end up in an argument here, but if you can only find value and enjoyment out of something because you've paid money for it then I would suggest that it your problem and not the particular item in question because it hasn't changed, merely your relationship to it has.

 

I've bounced off several GP games but they are still on the hard drive because I'm conscious enough to realise that the problem with it not clicking was me and my frame of mind at the time and not the game.  I'm not running around downloading everything like a kid in a sweet shop and then going "well, that was complete crap" because I know that certain games I'm never going to get on with and that's my problem and not the game.

[Harrisown]

2 hours ago, Stanley said:

That’s the thing though, there is loads of good stuff on there, people’s perception of it is that it’s not as good as Gamepass, but bar first party releases they’re really very similar in terms of content. 

It is and was conceived as a streaming service. Eventually they allowed downloads.

When I was on the beta the plan was you would purchase the games individually so it’s come quite a long way since launch. 
 

It obvious to everyone that it’ll be rolled into some ps plus plus service in the near future.

 

Also Sony hasn’t done what Microsoft have done to get around Apples policies 

[footle]

42 minutes ago, Stanley said:

There’s hardly any “AAA” stuff out on anything right now, in fact the last big one I can think of is actually Flight Simulator, and if that doesn’t demonstrate how capable the Series consoles are then I don’t know what does. 

 

And that was all of... three weeks ago. 😄

[Jamie John]

22 minutes ago, Plissken said:

I know I'm going to end up in an argument here, but if you can only find value and enjoyment out of something because you've paid money for it then I would suggest that it your problem and not the particular item in question because it hasn't changed, merely your relationship to it has.

 

Yes, I agree with you - that's sort of the point I was making: the item itself hasn't changed but your (or my) perception of it, and the value that's placed on it, changes depending on whether or not it's on Game Pass. I guess I'm just more susceptible to this than others, but regardless of the psychology around it, it's still something that affects the way I consume these games, all the same.

 

This is part of a bigger thing with me, though, where I'm trying to get through entire backlog so that I get to a point where I'm excited about a game, I buy it and then play it, as opposed to getting excited about a game, buying it and then not playing it for months and months, by which time I'm no longer excited about it. It's probably never going to happen, especially when I'm ignoring everything else to just replay Hades constantly.

[Stanley]

7 minutes ago, footle said:

 

And that was all of... three weeks ago. 😄

These aren’t the games you’re looking for ..

[JPL]

44 minutes ago, Stanley said:

There’s hardly any “AAA” stuff out on anything right now, in fact the last big one I can think of is actually Flight Simulator, and if that doesn’t demonstrate how capable the Series consoles are then I don’t know what does. 

That’s just one game though, if you can even really call it that. I know, I know, I’m just being impatient, but I feel like I’ve been waiting an eternity. First world problems and all that.

[Transient Curse]

Just now, JPL said:

That’s just one game though, if you can even really call it that. I know, I know, I’m just being impatient, but I feel like I’ve been waiting an eternity. First world problems and all that.

There just aren't any games that are written to take advantage of these machines,  that's it. 

 

I think there'll be a couple of impressive looking games this year, but unless halo and forza do it for you, I don't think they'll be on gamepass. 

 

You might have to put your hand in your pocket and buy Call Of Duty this year if you want maximum bells and whistles on Series X. I gather the buzz is that it's the best looking console game ever.