xboxgamepass

The video game industry has come a long way since its first inception, almost 60 years ago. Now, with so many games hitting the market on an almost daily basis, it’s impossible to play everything. Even if you had the time available, who has that kind of money.

Today, Microsoft announced Xbox Game Pass, which offers a new way to get access to games on the Xbox platform. This program, much like a hybrid of Netflix and EA Access, will allow you, for $9.99/month, to download and play a rotating assortment of over 100 titles from the Xbox One and Xbox 360. One significant difference between this program and other offerings is that games will be available to play offline.

Mike Ybarra, Corporate Vice President – Xbox & Windows gaming platform at Microsoft, quickly quelled concerns that the Xbox Game Pass would replace Games with Gold.

Xbox Game Pass is set to launch “later this spring,” with titles including Halo 5: Guardians, Mad Max, Gears Ultimate Edition, Saints Row IV, Payday 2 and Soul Calibur II, just to name a few. Also coming is a new memberships tab showing you your current subscriptions. Once that new tab appears, any game included with Xbox Game Pass will no longer be listed under your ready to install games. Instead, you will find it under the membership pass name. This will also take effect for pass based programs like EA Access.

Members of the Xbox Insider program in the Alpha ring already have access to some of the Xbox Game Pass titles to help test the service.

Aaron Greenberg, Head of Xbox Games marketing at Microsoft, clarified that Xbox Game Pass will work similar to Xbox Live with Home Sharing.

At this time Xbox Game Pass is only available for Xbox One (though many of the games are backward compatible Xbox 360 games). For a full FAQ on Xbox Game Pass check here.