Xbox Series X: With Bethesda and Game Pass, Microsoft is playing a different game

In past generations of consoles, you tended to think of Microsoft, Sony, and Nintendo in pretty concrete terms.

Nintendo was the outlier, forging its own strange path with consoles like the Wii, 3DS, and Switch. It was consoles less about grunt processing and more on selecting unique touch experiences.

Microsoft and Sony, on the other hand, felt more like mirror images competing in the world’s longest gazing contest. Other than the key exclusives, the games were the same. For the most part, the processing power was the same, the control pads were the same. Sometimes even the components they were similar. Choosing a PlayStation or Xbox, for the most part, was like deciding which refrigerator to buy. At the end of the day, everyone does pretty much the same thing.

This generation, however, feels different. Monday’s announcement that Microsoft has bought Bethesda for a whopping $ 7.5 billion reflects that.

After a slow start with the Xbox One, Microsoft slowly found its feet in the next generation, and in the process, the console (and Xbox as a brand) began to properly forge its own path.

This is where the previously synchronized strategies of Sony and Microsoft seem to diverge.

Sony has its own exclusives. Nintendo has the console that poured into the hollows of your busy life. Xbox has Game Pass, a service with more than 100 games available for a monthly fee.

Game pass is the Netflix-style gaming service that is sure to become the main selling point for the Xbox Series X when it launches in November. A subscription model that allows players to download and play a vast library of games for $ 15 a month, Game Pass Ultimate is the best value proposition in games. And it’s not even close.

While Sony is eager to keep going at the same pace, selling consoles and making money off blockbuster exclusives like God of War and The last of us part 2Microsoft is diversifying in a different direction: consoles are now another means of building that Game Pass subscriber base, a base that has grown 50% in the last six months. There are now 15 million Game Pass subscribers.

That’s a lot and you can expect it to grow exponentially in the next few years.

Every move Microsoft is making in the console space seems to be very focused on growing the Game Pass subscriber base. The recently announced Xbox Series S, a smaller, cheaper, and less powerful version of the Xbox Series X without a disc drive, is essentially a Game Pass machine.

Microsoft is even committed to broader subscription models, such as mobile phones, that eliminate the need to initially deposit money into a console. For a lesser amount of cash per month, players will have access not only to Game Pass, but to Xbox itself. That is something new.

Even the giant plays, like buying Bethesda for $ 7.5 billion, are inspired by Game Pass. After Monday’s announcement, Microsoft revealed that, yes, upcoming barn burners like Starfield will be available at launch, essentially for free, as part of Game Pass. Starfield could They end up being available on the PS5 (we don’t know yet if Microsoft will retain upcoming Bethesda games as exclusives) but if you want to play a Bethesda game on a Sony console, you’ll probably have to pay $ 69.99 for the privilege.

That won’t be the case if you own an Xbox with a Game Pass subscription.

The times they Are a changing. This generation, the PS5 and Xbox Series X could be comparable inside, but that’s where the similarities end. They are two very different consoles. Even the designs seem to represent the different strategies of Sony and Microsoft.

The PlayStation 5: a gigantic piece of hyper-engineered technology created to announce your presence. It is a difficult object to ignore. The Xbox Series S and Series X, on the other hand, are consoles designed to disappear. The Xbox Series X is a large unit, but low-key. In comparison, the PS5 looks like a spaceship.

This generation, the success of Sony and Microsoft will be measured by different criteria. Sony, he suspects, will continue to focus on the number of consoles shipped, the number of games sold. Microsoft cares about building its subscriber base, and absolutely everything – console sales, exclusive titles, even wildcards like the upcoming Project xCloud cloud gaming service – is directly focused on that singular goal. Time will tell which strategy will work best. In the end, both may, in their own way, be successful plays.

But this generation, for the first time in decades, Sony and Microsoft is playing very different games.

Playing now:
See this:

PS5 vs. Xbox Series X: Complete Comparison

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