A new year brings new improvements to the Microsoft Rewards program, and specifically for Xbox Game Pass Quests! Xbox is announcing an overhaul today for Quests that should ultimately result in players earning more points this year.
Firstly, there are a bunch of new Xbox Game Pass Quests being added. The majority of these are focused around the ability to earn streaks, with weekly streaks even allowing you to unlock multipliers for being particularly consistent.
Here's an overview of the new Xbox Game Pass Quests on the way (via Xbox Wire):
- Daily Play – Earn 10 points a day by playing any game from the Game Pass catalog for at least 15 minutes.
- Weekly Streaks – Play for at least five days a week to complete your streak. The more days you play, the more points you earn. Now comes the challenge: maintain your streak week over week to unlock bigger point multipliers. A 2-week streak will earn 2x the base streak points, a 3-week streak will earn 3x the base streak points, and anything beyond a 4-week streak will earn 4x the base streak points.
- Monthly 4-Pack – Explore the Game Pass catalog by playing four different games (for at least 15 minutes each) every month.
- Monthly 8-Pack – Push your gaming further and play eight different games (for at least 15 minutes each) every calendar month. Don’t worry, the 4 games from your 4-Pack count towards the 8-Pack, too.
Microsoft has announced that as part of these changes, the Daily PC Play Quest will be "rebalanced" to 10 points and the Weekly Console Bonus will become 150 points, but a new PC Weekly Bonus will allow players to earn an extra 150 points moving forward - obviously via PC alone though!
In addition, Xbox Game Pass Quests will be available to PC Game Pass members as of January 7th (they were previously exclusive to Game Pass Ultimate), and the new rewards will apparently be launching in Japan as well.
The only other thing to mention is that anyone earning Microsoft Rewards points via gameplay will need to be 18 or older as of today. Microsoft says this is to "ensure our continued commitment to foster positive, age-appropriate gaming experiences for our players to enjoy". There are still a few ways for youngsters to earn Microsoft Rewards points despite this, but the Xbox Rewards Hub will be disabled for accounts that are no longer applicable to use it.
Happy with these changes to Xbox Game Pass Quests? Let us know down in the comments below.
Comments 27
Happy New Year, @FraserG. Do you happen to know whether the 8 games on Game Pass for 15 minutes can be played on a PC with GPU, or does it have to be on a console? Thanks...
@Fiendish-Beaver Happy New Year to you too!
Not too sure about that just yet, hopefully we'll get more clarification over the next couple of days as it goes live...
I'll check this out later on my Xbox by the sounds of it I'll be earning more points yaay!
Sure would be nice if the damn thing worked at all. But MS are still flagging my very UK-based ISP as a VPN and blocking me from seeing quests at all.
(Ironically, I can access it through my PC. Because that one actually is behind a VPN. Go figure)
That's it, i'm never going on holiday again, can't break the streak! /s
To be honest this did once give me a very minor amount of anxiety in the past until I crunched the numbers they obfuscate through Microsoft points and realised it was penny's I was losing out on.
I’ll need time to properly digest these changes, but first impression is that this sounds like quite a chore. Previously you only needed to launch the game for a few seconds to count towards the daily/weekly quests, not play them for 15 whole minutes. Does the electricity cost of running XSX & LG CX for 15 mins exceed the point value? In UK it almost certainly does. Wouldn’t be an issue if they included non Game Pass games too, but I’m playing Nier Automata currently so launching a random Game Pass title for additional 15 mins each evening just for points sound unappealing.
Okay, cool. Thank you, @FraserG...
@Cakefish The electricity costs occurred to me as I often leave a game on for 15 mins just to get the weekly bonus (Little Kitty Big city was my third most played game last year for this sole reason)
From everything I could find out, at a standard tariff and assuming a series X is running at maximum wattage it costs roughly 8p per hour to run. So if you are really strict on shutting it off after the 15 minutes and did that 5 times a week it will cost you about £5.30 a year. Without the new streak system that would have netted you between 7500-9000 points per year which is most of the way towards a month of GP which is what I tend to spend my points on. I think it works out good value but ethically it isn’t brilliant for the environment.
*Caveat: I have no real clue about electricity pricing and this is based entirely on google searching and back of a matchbox maths.
Edit: also wanted to add that I too have an LG CX (tv twinsies 🙌) so I turn my Xbox on, load a game and then turn the tv off and the Xbox switches itself off after about 20 minutes…can’t remember the exact time I got it to auto switch off
I always view these things as "I'll get them if I'm playing that many days anyway, but I'm not chasing them". The 4 and 8 games for 15 mins thing is stupid, but it will increase engagement so I understand it at least.
When I total it up though I earn tonnes more points in bing than on Xbox
Considering there used to be pretty easy quests that didn't require Game Pass and would get you 2000+ points a month without all this streak stuff I'm not really bothering with rewards any more.
I collect points I get from the games I play already, but I'm not going to go about and play random games I'm not interested for 15 minutes.
As someone who doesn't currently have Gamepass, it sounds like the only change is the weekly console bonus going from 250 points a week to 150, which sucks. Pretty clear there is a continued effort to get people to switch to playing on PC from console.
I’ve been collection rewards points since 2015 but with this I’m out, this requires too much time and I just don’t use my Xbox that much anymore, plus it’s clearly designed to boost up console engagement metrics, Bing searches give you way more points and it’s less time consuming.
I used to chase achievements and such for full rewards points but recently stopped and just play what I want, when I want, rather than doing chores for points. I'll plan to keep on with this approach and any points will be a happy bonus to playing fun games on GP. Luke, once Avowed releases, I should get the 5 days 15 minutes without issue.
@GeeEssEff You also have to consider the energy the nice fancy OLED TV takes up, which is actually about the same as the console itself for 55”+ models!
@Cakefish Absolutely but I only turn it on to start the game and then turn the tv off. The game still runs for fifteen minutes even with the tv off. You probably have to disable the settings where your Xbox turns on/off with your tv though.
This is good timing as me and the wife both do Microsoft Rewards and mine is the only one with a Game Pass account, and last year I didn't earn much more than a non Game Pass account. I've missed the bigger bounes with the play a console/PC for 15min, my PC not the best but I could play Gear 5 five to earn it.
More ways to earn points is always welcome. Can't wait to see these roll out.
As a few others have stated, I'll play the games I want to play, but won't chase points just because.
It's the same with PlayStation Stars.
@Th3_Highlander nintendo switch counts as pc of you have one. I just let ori sit for 15 minutes handheld while doing the rest of the rewards stuff on TV.
I need someone to do the math. Are we actually getting more points this way or is this another nerf?
I’ll have to remember to just leave a Gamepass game running for 15 mins even if I’m not trying to play it per se for these rewards…I’ll actually prob set a phone reminder daily to do it so I don’t forget since there is a streak multiplier involved and I’ll inevitably forget one day otherwise lol
15 min each is too long, a lot of the times I'll find out if I like or dislike the game much faster than this. Just an artifact barrier to help them hit some KPI for giving out free money. MS Rewards are pretty cool though so not entirely lost.
This essentially wipes out all of their energy saving credibility
Well the new quests are not working for me atm. Got the 10 points for playing a game on console for 15 minutes but it didn't work for the quest, despite being a gamepass game. Are the quests working for anyone else?
i just turn on my series s, load doom e1m1 and have a 15 shutdown timer then go do something else like make tea. Probably gonna be better than trying to get easy trophies every day. Never really considered it a grind as such as i usually enjoyed what i was playing. But adult me has to adult sadly.... leaves less time for fun.
@GeeEssEff I saw a tip on Reddit where mobile cloud streaming actually works for the quests. I managed to confirm this on my iPhone today! So that eliminates 99% of the energy costs and I’ll try to maintain the streaks that way going forwards.
@Cakefish Good spot mate! Will bear this in mind thank you
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