Microsoft has officially announced February 2022's Xbox Games with Gold, giving us a look at four more games we'll be able to play at no extra charge with our Gold memberships next month.
In case you missed it, the games are Xbox One titles Broken Sword 5: The Serpent's Curse and Aerial_Knight's Never Yield, along with Xbox 360 (backwards compatible) games Hydrophobia and Band of Bugs.
The first games will be made available early next week, so we want to know how you feel about next month's selection, as well as which title you're most looking forward to below. Happy with the choice on offer for February?
Comments 40
People probably get Gold for playing online or because it's included with Game Pass Ultimate. Otherwise they'd only subscribe when they like a game. Games with Gold is great for Xbox and Xbox 360 games because you literally own them and some are great. Games with Gold is another benefit.
I will take Never Yield. Band of Bugs was awesome on XBLA… in 2007.
Honestly it's marginally better than usual.
I really enjoyed Broken Sword 5, and Aerial Knights is an OK.
Hydrophobia was fun but short back in the day.
...NGL never heard of Band of Bugs.
The trouble is if you have Game Pass these are all worse than most games on GP. I can't see many prioritising these.
For heavens sake take Games with Gold behind the barn and put it out of it's misery. With compassion of course....
Man reason I’m happy with this is because I actually don’t own any of these for a change. But it might be about time to put the nail on the coffin of GWG. Come up with some sort of lower tier online only service and GamePass. I don’t think titles like these are giving MS any positive press. GamePass is.
@Medic_Alert And if you want to play any online games (except free-to-play) you don't get Gold with Game Pass to do so, only with Ultimate.
@awp69 Game Pass Gold (without Games with Gold, just online) and Game Pass Ultimate 😁.
@Alduin they gave darksiders 3 last summer
@awp69
I was thinking that. Just do a cheaper no frills Online-only subscription and maybe nudge a few more people towards GP
I’ve never even heard of any of these.
Honestly with GPU, I don't think GwG is necessary anymore.
I think GWG is a good thing bc it gets titles that would otherwise get zero exposure to a fresh audience. Problem is that most people want what is current, whether it’s garbage or not. If Battlefield 2042 were offered for February this would be a “huge get” for quite a lot of people, even though that game is butt cheeks.
🤷♂️
There’s probably holes in my logic somewhere up there.
I personally didn’t recognize any of these titles. I can’t really say I’m happy with them or unhappy with them. More indifferent if you will. I know games with gold isn’t what Xbox is focusing on. Their big focus is Xbox gamepass. If every month, games with gold was awesome, it would be competing with gamepass. Yes, on a much smaller scale, but ultimately still competing with it. So I just look at games with gold as “it is what it is” at this point.
@Dusk_Actual That only works if the games are games people have heard about or seen - great games that they missed out on. If they had one game that few had actually heard about, then it might get some attention and exposure but when they are all 'meh', then what incentive is there to even bother.
I used to add the 'weaker' games, but never bothered playing them and now I know not to bother next month either. I know you can 'keep' the 360 games indefinitely, but I have several 'hundred' Games with Gold games that I haven't played so I stopped adding games unless there is something of 'interest' on at least 1 game that fortnight. If I am adding 'one', then sometimes I'll add the other - unless its that bad I don't want it in my 'available to download' list...
I'm not as disappointed with this month's selection as others have been, but I still feel Microsoft should discontinue Games for Gold to put more into Game Pass (or to prevent a price-hike on Game Pass). If some kind of product really needs to be tied to Xbox Gold then something along the lines of unique add-ons for a relatively simple game (Doom, Quake, etc.) or smaller indie games that are otherwise unavailable through the store would be far more appealing IMHO, and I bet it would be less costly on Microsoft's side.
They're terrible no matter what anyone else tries to tell you..
They could ditch Gold and Games with Gold and make all Game Pass tiers include online gaming so it would be:
Nothing: you only get free-to-play online gaming (like now).
Game Pass: console games and online services (same price as current Game Pass),
Game Pass Ultimate: console, Cloud and PC games and online services (same price as current Game Pass Ultimate),
Game Pass for PC: PC games and online services (same as it is now).
The Xbox One titles are decent enough and wouldn't have even know of them if it weren't for being on GWG. So I'm fine with these additions.
The backwards compatible games not so much.
Remember when they were going to double the price of Gold to make it look like a terrible value so people felt compelled to switch to GPU?
Yep, they found a better way to make Gold look like a terrible value so people feel compelled to switch to GPU....
On the other hand, PS+ is only slightly better with a big (but commercial failure) economy sim that had previously been on Game Pass plus a decade old DLC that they already gave out once before as part of a full bundle and in a prior month. Both are terrible, PS+ has been consistently less terrible and on occasion actually good.
@NEStalgia Could it be because of the upcoming PlaystationNowPass? 😂
@Banjo- Realistically I doubt it even involves that. Mostly I think they saw that Gold went downhill and didn't affect subs even with Game Pass, and Nintendo can get subs by offering nothing of value at all, so there was no reason for them to worry about subs being affected by offering junk. Pure spreadsheet business. Why spend money on customers if they'll pay you if you don't according to the data?
Though, the two absolute worst things PS+ has had, the $8 DLC they already gave out with a full game bundle, and the demo of the half dead GaaS, are both from Gearbox. Maybe Randy just knows how to pull a fast one on Jim. It may involve a bottle of scotch. Or a thumbdrive. Who can say?
I'm just happy the BackCompat titles aren't ones I already own. I've been buying up everything on sale recently to fill out my BC library. That said, absolute trash this upcoming month. I found out what PlayStation's month looks like just before this news... I said to myself, "well, Xbox probably won." How wrong I was.
@NEStalgia The funny thing about Nintendo is that fans hate their very poor service with just a few features and a few online games with Nintendo DS kind of match-making and reliability but apparently the subscribers number isn't that bad. I guess people pay for Plus and Gold for online gaming, mostly.
@Banjo- Well no ***** they only get gold to play multiplayer games online haha, is that not why you have it? The free games with gold used to have a hitter every now and then like 5 years ago. But since Game Pass was created, the Game with Gold have gone to trash that would be 10 cents at Game Stop haha.
@Banjo- No offense to Phils shopping spree, but as Call of Duty and Candy Crush tells us, the general public has less than zero taste when it comes to video games and telling good from bad...... thus nobody in the masses minds Nintendo's services. I doubt they even need the retro games, or MS or Sony even needs the freebies. People will pay just because it's a paywall to online. shrug
Truly, though Game Pass does replace GwG's utility. The idea used to be you "instantly" get games to play by subscribing. Some still argue they prefer games they can 'keep" versus time limited rentals. But ultimately it's a rental either way. GwG you subscribe and can access, only so long as you subscribe, any game that was one of 4 a month added only as long as you were subscribing. With GP you get 150+ games to access at any time, but it's always changing what's available. Either way, it's a rental library, the only difference is how what's in the library is determined. People seem to not really see that for some reason.
But with GwG/+ you'd need to subscribe for 3 years just to have as many titles as are available on Now and Plus, and they'd all be bargain basement bottom of the barrel stuff rather than a revolving door of big stuff + little stuff. I understand people's argument in THEORY, but in practice, the argument just isn't holding. (Same goes for PS Now, which is even cheaper than Game Pass, has more games, and certainly more good ones than PS+ offers, even before it's replaced with Sparticus.) GP and Now (once it moved to allow downloads) really did replace the utility of Gold/Plus games....and Gold/Plus doesn't grant you more ownership than renting with GP/Now does anyway. It's just that the games don't rotate out of the library once they're in.
I've heard that Hydrophobia is a good game so I'm looking forward to trying that.
@NEStalgia You keep the 360 games, though. They have become freebies. They're nice but they are limited, even more considering licencing. I think that most people pay for Plus and Gold for online gaming. That's what I think that online services should be added to Game Pass for free. They can ditch Games with Gold since the Xbox One games are rented and you don't choose them unlike on Game Pass. The only difference is, as you said, Gold is unlimited rental. Game Pass is the successor. Online should be added to Game Pass and then just finish Gold.
@Banjo- Are 360 games still subscription-less once you get them? I thought that was changed with the Series launch?
The only real problem with eliminating Gold is that Game Pass is still much more expensive than Gold, so for someone that doesn't want the rental games they'd be forced to rent games they don't want to play just to satisfy the paywall for online gaming. Or on the other side, if they drop the paywall for online gaming, then they're losing money they were previously getting. Less of a big deal for MS than Sony, I'm sure, due to GP being the more popular option at the moment, but still significant for both of them.
Realistically they can't get rid of gold, but have to make it looks like a terrible value next to Game Pass. Either making Gold too expensive, or making what it gives you worthless are really the only ways to do that.
Things look worse on the Sony side mainly because without a Game Pass, their paltry freebies just look sad, but most of that is on their marketing, because the + freebies look sad even next to their own Now, which is cheaper than Game Pass, partially because half of the time the are from the Now library....
@NEStalgia With Games with Gold yes, you still own the Xbox 360 and original Xbox games forever.
If they make Gold too expensive, it's the same problem as paying more for Game Pass Ultimate. Yes, they might keep Gold indefinitely, who knows... I think it makes more sent for it to become part of Game Pass. The cheap Game Pass is not that expensive. It's Ultimate what's a bit pricey but, at the same time, best value because it includes Gold, PC and Cloud. Without the Gold perk, Ultimate will still be expensive but not as necessary.
@Banjo- GP is still double the price of Gold, though. I could see that not going down well with people that just want to play online and aren't interested in (or can't use) the actual game library. Ultimate is pricy if you're not buying gold, it's the same price as buying both together.....so in a way Gold is also necessary to justify Ultimate's pricing.
It's an interesting pricing triangle that even MS is having a hard time untangling without shooting themselves in the foot, I think. I think attaching cloud to Ultimate is a mistake they'll have to rectify eventually, though. It raises the paywall highest to the mobilie/smartTV market that's going to get the least out of the package. The mobile/TV customer just wants to access streamed games. Ultimate customers get streamed, console, PC, and console online gameplay. Ideally streaming-only should be the cheapest tier (that's one place maybe Sparticus will challenge MS by making the streaming tier the cheapest). BUT then the catch is that would create an end-run around gold, you could stream games and get online without gold/ultimate.
There's definitely pricing conundrums with MS's model where any change will anger someone.
@NEStalgia Gold is £6.99 per month, Game Pass is just £7.99 per month so it would be just one more pound/euro/dollar per month. That's why I'm saying to include Gold with Game Pass and everybody will move to Game Pass. Game Pass Ultimate is £10.99 and would add, as it does now, PC and Cloud.
It would be interesting to offer a casual tier for streaming, though, even if it's the same price as Game Pass. For instance, Game Pass Cloud for £7.99 includes Cloud but not Console nor PC, no downloads. It would be used on mobile devices and browsers.
@Banjo- Oh, the UK doesn't exist, there's only America in the world
Your pricing is actually quite different. I didn't know that. Here, Gold is ~$5/mo (if you buy $59.99for 1/yr, it's $9.99 if you only buy monthly though, they REALLY don't want you buying Gold monthly)), and Game Pass is $9.99/mo. Ultimate is $14.99/mo.
No Wonder Brits on Push are going on about MS giving away the games....over there, they really are!
So in the US, GP is double the price of Gold, and GPU is triple the price. So it's a massive difference to force people upward even if the price is still super low for what you get, if you're not using the library of games.
So MS Actually converts prices for lb/usd equivalence, while Sony just copies the USD number and pastes it in pounds. That makes me really wonder why Sony is so popular over there.
@NEStalgia "So in the US, GP is double the price of Gold, and GPU is triple the price".
In EU (easier to compare to dollars), Gold is €6.99/month, Game Pass is €9.99/month and Ultimate is €12.99/month. You can get 3 months of Gold for €19.99 but annual plans aren't sold anymore. I just checked on the US website and I see that you don't have annual plans either! I checked Amazon and there are Gold annual cards worldwide so you can get one month of Gold for $€5. On the website, Gold is either $9.99 for one month (same price as Gold!) or $24.99 for 3 months. Game Pass is just 20% more expensive than Gold in US unless you get annual pre-paid cards (as long as they are available).
It's like this:
GOLD: $9.99; €6.99; £6.99
GOLD (3 months): $8.33/month; €6.66/month; £6.00/month
GOLD (pre-paid 1-year card): $5/month; €5/month; £4.17/month
GAME PASS: $9.99; €9.99; £7.99
GAME PASS ULTIMATE: $14.99; €12.99; £10.99
The cheapest (considering currencies) Ultimate is in EU.
The cheapest Game Pass is in US.
Gold depends on the period, 1 month and 3 months is cheapest in EU but the 12-month card is cheapest in US (but those cards might disappear).
I’m fine with all of these. To me it’s games I don’t own to try out. I already pay for my game pass with my reward points so it’s all “free” gaming. I see a lot of criticism but at least their is a method to it and a standard. If you are on the one you get these, s series you get them and x series. If they are 360 games you keep them.
@Banjo- Yeah 12 month Gold is still available at $59.99, it's just that you have to buy it from a retailer (digital or physical card) and can't auto subscribe at the 1yr rate through Windows Store. Amazon, GameStop, best buy etc all sell it digitally. They tried to end it but it didn't go over well, so they kept it.
9.99 for Gold is an absolute joke imo.... But. The prices are identical to PS+, so that's probably the real point. It's weird that they got rid of the annual sub on the windows store but Sony still has theirs on PSN store, tough. They did that early in the game pass era.
Gold on its own is no longer good value (the recurring billing in particular) but you can convert Gold to Ultimate a second time according to this thread. I haven't tried a second time because I still have Ultimate.
https://www.purexbox.com/forums/px_general/xbox_gold_to_ultimate_deal
Gold has been largely worthless as far as these games with gold is concerned. If it wasn't for the online features I would only have Gamepass these days.
Broken sword is fine alone. Great value. Great game
For me it's obvious that the higher value games will be given away through the gamepass rather than the gold service, that's just business. The games for gold service is inevitably going to come second to the subscription service and that means it's unlikely to be as good as it was before that became an option.
I don't particularly care what the games for gold are anymore, but it's a nice surprise when something comes up that I can look forward to. That being said, I feel like games for gold should be used to help lesser known titles and developers get a wider audience instead, while larger developers can benefit from the gamepass give aways, smaller developers can achieve those same benefits through games with gold.
It would be naive to sit around complaining because you didn't receive a free triple A title this month, or every month for that matter. These comments are always full of people who just expect the best free hand outs, and if that was the case it wouldn't be long before both gold and gamepass are reduced to sub par services with very little to offer anyway. Be realistic in your expectations at least.
Broken Sword's a good one. I played it on the PS4 and enjoyed it - the rest I can take or leave, though. GamePass to the rescue!
Show Comments
Leave A Comment
Hold on there, you need to login to post a comment...