Xbox Reiterates Every First Party Title Is Coming To Game Pass 'Day One'

For me if Xbox in whatever shape or form wish to keep me. I have series x and GP until May 2025 they have to release day one all first party games like they said they would.

It’s been a tough week and a sad one really and now they have to move forward and delight and keep existing Xbox gamers and some how get new ones. Be it GP or consoles buyers.

If they go back on day one on GP it will another nail in a potential coffin.

I used to think Xbox can be amazing and have been there since day one original Xbox, but even I’m giving up on those thoughts. And if their next batch of studio games, Avowed, Indy etc are average then I don’t think Xbox have anything left for me in an amazing way anymore.

Price hike inbound. Up your subs now.

I just don't care enough about COD for it to influence my position on GamePass. However, if Microsoft's main/sole focus will be only on big blockbuster franchises (as Matt stated) at the cost of indie, experimental and AA projects than I'll likely no longer be a subscriber. I have already let my PS Plus Essential expire and not renew, will do the same with GPU.

Nice clear messaging from Microsoft, something they aren’t typically renowned for.The Verge had this totally wrong then - remember that the next time something is ‘rumoured’ by them.

People need to stop believing rumours 😂 remember other month or whenever it was when people were Appa selling their xboxs over rumours that wernt true 🤣

@Feffster technically nice clear messaging would have been just saying "yes" instead of "it was titles from across the whole slate", but good enough
CoD won't really influence my decision though, as I've never purchased one or played for over an hour. But HiFi Rush sequel could have

She’s said this before but tbh I don’t believe Xbox half the time. What they say and do and 2 totally different things

@Cikajovazmaj I was thinking the same thing when reading this. So easy to just say yes or no instead of speaking in riddles. Looking forward to see what they do with CoD but they have backed themselves into a bit of a lose-lose situation with it.

Typical news cycle where one negative xbox story leads to endless speculation and piling on with incorrect info. June can't come soon enough so they can flip the script with the upcoming games excitement.

"Day One" is an utter lie. Games will only be available Day One for those who spend 30 quid extra for the Premium Edition. Everyone else will get it Day Five or whatever and I would expect more of this sort of stuff to continue. I've no doubt they will stick to the idea that every title in some form or another is released on Game Pass but I fully expect this to more and more resemble a 'base' version, encouraging subscribers to pay more to add on missing content.

It is crystal clear that Game Pass just ain't working for Microsoft so they desperately need to encourage users to spend more than just the basic monthly sub.

Yet another "Rumour" debunked, as I keep saying "The Xbox Showcase is less than 4 weeks away" there is also a interview with Phil Spencer afterwards, ignore the clickbait and wait for the real facts.

Day one first party games is the selling point for Game Pass. It would be a wrong move for Microsoft to change their tactics.

Call of Duty coming on Game Pass won't hurt sales for Microsoft. Most of the game revenue is coming from microtransactions which will be available on Game Pass. Futhermore, you can have the choice to either buy at a full price of 70$ or have a yearly subcription on Game Pass, which is more money spent for the same game.

Most people who play exclusively Call of Duty every year without playing other games, they have no reason to have a yearly subscription on Game Pass because it's cheaper to actually buy the games at a full price. But many people who just want to try the game, it would be a great addition on Game Pass library.

Also, we shouldn't forget that Call of Duty is making more that 1$ billion in revenue on PS5 platform. This is another reason for XBOX to become a third party company and have multiplatform games sold at a full price for the extra cash along with the Game Pass subs growth.

XBOX knows that console market is stagnant and has no growth. The most consumer spending is going on mobile games, live service and PC, which is a growing market. Microsoft will create the next evolution of Game Pass, which will be cloud based sub service that will be available through xbox mobile store and handheld device. You could play AAA games like Halo and Hellblade in your tv box or handheld device via cloud.

This is the future of gaming. Game Pass is the future of gaming. Console sales and exclusivity is a dying market, which is not sustainable anymore. Even Sony is having troubles with low profit margin even tho it has succesfull exclusives games. Helldivers 2 is the first succesfull Sony live service, and it's the most profitable game at the moment for her. Multiplatform is the future.

As for Nintendo, it feels okay not to be a market leader while having her own fanbase, which can sale full price games that doesn't have the production cost of a typical AAA games. Nintendo has her own philosophy not to following hardware trend and prefer to make cheaper games on previous gen hardware, which can make more sales with better profit margin.

@lacerz Price increases should have always been expected the day this deal was announced. Can't drop 70 billion and not have a GP price increase. They do need to get games in faster than 1 in the first 6 months of ownership.

Of course, gamepass could be a different beast in the near future.

As has been mentioned, a price hike. But what about the possibility of a new tier? A super-elite tier which would include titles not on the others and obviously more expensive.

That way the promise of day one on gamepass is met...

I still kind of doubt this year's call of duty is gamepass day 1. Playstations deal supposedly covered this one as the last one. That might hold this one off of gamepass initially, might even be holding up the back catalog too.

@themightyant - I guess we’ll never know as none of us are privy to internal discussions at Microsoft (I’m making the assumption that no one on this forum actually works for Microsoft at the Xbox division). The point I’m making is that this was all conjecture, speculation and innuendo - there’s no shortage of that around Xbox at the moment and plent of it is absolute BS. I get that sometimes MS brings it on itself. What struck me from yesterday’s report on this website (re The Verge) was the “I’m told this”, “It is my understanding that” line of journalism that is all too commonplace (and often inaccurate) without actually quoting a verified source.

Maybe it was a discussion, maybe it wasn’t (it also seems likely they had these discussions way before even making the ABK offer, or during the acquisition process). Maybe they discussed the weather or what to have for lunch or what their next acquisition target might be - none of which we actually know without being privy to those internal discussions. That’s the main point I was seeking to make in my comment above.

So much copium in the Xbox comments today...Bond is a pro at Non-Answers. Expect a price-hike or second tier of GP to offset everything.

Xbox is looking to be the Embracer Group 2.0. Far too much investment for the sake of consolidation, with no clear financial plan. This is gonna crumble like a Jenga tower.

If anything of late has taught us about Xbox its until it actually lands on day one, take nothing for granted.

@Xbox_Dashboard if Microsoft needs to save money, they could simply offer less in Ultimate Gamepass but still offer more than Sonys weak PS Plus Premium.eg Drop EA Play, don't give Play Anywhere titles etc.
Or what about Force people to take out a subscription just to have cloud saves like Sony do on PS5, or they could even lock you into their Digital Store by not allowing you to buy full Digital games and subscriptions cheaper from 3rd parties just as Sony do. Etc etc.

@Sifi Here's the problem. They aren't doing any of that. Instead they are wholesale cutting developers, GOTY award developers. Something they formerly stated would never happen. This is worse than Embracer Group who over-extended themselves with no financial backing. Microsoft is CHOOSING to cut costs despite being the single most valuable corporation in the world. And it's only going to get worse.

@Feffster Sadly, people repeat the rumours as if they were true while ignoring the official statements completely. Logic reversed.

@themightyant - I’m not here to pick a fight, just expressing an opinion.

My opinion is that plenty of the journalistic speculation around gaming turns out to be inaccurate. Just because multiple sources state that something may or may not be happening doesn’t make it true - groupthink isn’t necessarily a good way to come to an outcome and often results in poor decisions and conclusions.

Anyway, let’s agree to disagree on this point 🤓

@Banjo- thanks, and you said it much better than I did! 👍

@Phil-Spencer-Gate Right, every Call of Duty fan play the latest game until the next one is available, so whether they subscribe to Game Pass or buy the game for Xbox and PC, it's a win-win for Microsoft. Even sales on Steam and PS are a win-win for Microsoft, because some will try to stick to those ecosystems and Microsoft will earn 70% of the sale of software and DLC there. In any case, this will benefit Game Pass, because Game Pass will be more popular with Call of Duty than without Call of Duty. Besides, since the PC market is much more important than the console market, it will make Game Pass for PC more popular. No matter how you look at it, it's a win-win for Microsoft and also for the gamers that will be able to choose the platform to play Call of Duty on.

Inb4 a cod pre-order nets you a month early access 😂

@themightyant - I appreciate that, thanks. And I agree we’ve seen plenty of evidence of reports/rumour being exaggerated or misinterpreted by the gaming community over recent months.

I still don't know what their path is on CoD because if they exclude it, they break their day 1 promise they sold it on. If they include, they hemorrhage a chunk of cash of what the whole ABK buyout represents, and if they raise prices they lose a lot of subs they had and may or may not get to get dragged back in to FTC whom they promised they wouldn't raise prices due to CoD, and already raised prices once with a "it's not about CoD" excuse, and could get hit with a breach of terms.

Part of me wondering if Bond's going scorched earth against corporate on this one and doubling down on "old Xbox" to box them in. I'd like to see that. Have Phil and Sarah go all in on promising their vision to the public and force corporate to out themselves as the Grinch who Stole Xbox publicly by reversing course and dumping them. If you're going to go down, might as well do it with style.

Either that or it's riddle speak for "Day one games will be available in our new Game Pass Elite tier for $39.99/mo."

Personally I don't care about day 1, I just want the games. If you go PC you know you're not getting half of games until Year Two anyway. And frankly why would anyone subject themselves to "Day One" of modern gaming which is more like "Day One of the Six Month Beta." If GP promises "all games" I could do without Day one. If they separate it into tiers of Day 1 vs "all games a year later after Todd adds 60fps after insisting his 'vision' forbids it" I'd pay more for that latter one.

@Cherip-the-Ripper Yes, also this. Every game is Day 1, but you get it sooner if you pay more. So Day 1 is met, if the day it hits the service is considered day 1 but the people who pay retail get it on day -4.

This is so much the problem with current XB everything they say is a riddle where the result is some legal department aligned monkeys paw of what they sold your interest on. You still get an ok value, but you feel empty when you get it.

Meanwhile Sony and Nintendo tell you up front they're going to mug you, and that's exactly what they do.

PC stands ahead by offering more more realistic product, policy and value, but it's locked behind a multi-thousand dollar paywall and you have to make everything work manually.

Is it now that we should just decide mobile gaming is awesome and buy an iPad ?

Being someone who only plays campaigns on CoD, being in GP is a win for me. The few CoD games I own I waited to buy at hella reduced prices. I like GP specifically because I'm not stuck with a game if it sucks, but I still get to try it out. Considering the price of games are going up, a price hike on GP would still be worth it.

@NEStalgia I think they'll approach it that the yearly CoD releases from now on are just paid DLC for Warzone (like what Ubisoft does with Just Dance). That voids the whole day 1 on Game Pass argument considering Game Pass doesn't get Forza expansions, Starfield Shattered Space, etc.

@Grumblevolcano Yeah that would definitely make a lot of sense, and it was much too late for this year's game to make that kind of change.

Not putting CoD on GP day one doesn't make sense to me, because, as far as I understand it, they're not one and done games. People don't play CoD for the campaign. So wouldn't you want them to stay subscribed to Game Pass for months or years on end in order to play this game?

For CoD games, perhaps they look at the amount of copies sold on Xbox alone and figured "well, to play those games on our platforms, they need to pay for the subscription anyways, why include it?" Maybe the growth in potential subscribers isn't predicted to be enough.

As for me, I probably got the really hot take that Xbox shouldn't approach day one the way they are at the moment. It feels like they do it without much consideration to the scale and profitability of doing such a thing for specific games, and while it certainly is better for the consumer, it can be hurtful for the developer. And when it's hurtful for the developer, it can be hurtful for the consumer. So good for the consumer in the short term, but bad in the long term. Not that I'm an industry specialist, they're doing what they believe is the best in the long term for their own brand, but I don't like when they drag down others for it. She mentioned that the quality keeps rising but in terms of AAA titles I just can't agree - Forza (both Horizon and Motorsport) and Halo got worse while Starfield is just there. Oftentimes it can feel like certain games are "fodder" and that they push the titles out to meet a quota. So I really just desire they'd get more considerate about which titles to release day one and which not rather than just "this Xbox, this day one" especially with how much they try pushing their smaller AA game divisions.

I don't really care about CoD though, that one's gonna make a profit either way.

@Swetzie I think that that's not because of Game Pass but the hands-off approach, that might change in this new period. I think so because even Halo Infinite had all the money in the world and yet suffered from a long and troubled development and needed external assistance late in the development cycle, until it became the great game that eventually was. Add to that other examples as The Initiative or Arkane and the conclusion is that Game Pass is not the culprit of the mixed results, but the lack of proper hierarchy, management and leadership.