Xbox Game Pass for Console, PC, and Android

So I signed up for this and discovered that it has its own launcher, which is nice because finding the stuff you own on the MS store is a disaster.

That said, should we expect another wailing and gnashing of teeth about "another launcher" and "I won't play it if its not on Steam"?

I sure hope so.

Not from me! Its pretty interesting that Microsoft is both embracing Steam (see Halo coming to Steam) and competing with it at the same time.

I signed up for a dollar and have at least 8 games I want to try immediately and another dozen I'm at least a little interested in. Im ok with it taking a few months to decide.

For Microsoft the game is already won. I installed some massive Windows update that's doing who knows what with my data and the Xbox app. Anything I spend is icing on top.

I loaded up a ton of stuff in it last night that I am looking forward to trying out tonight. Got to try out Void Bastards some last night and am especially looking forward to getting back to that.

Being new to Xbox on PC, is cloud saving a thing? What about PC to PC streaming?

Can someone post a link to sign up instructions?

Many thanks. I think I'll get one for me and one for my oldest boy.

Sign up for what?? the deal right now is $1 a month for Ultimate (which is all 3 services for eventually $14.99).. I do not believe there is a specific deal for just Xbox Game Pass for PC... thats $4.99.

But if you have Gold or existing GamePass and you follow that $1 deal all your remaining months are converted to Ultimate. I found the deal on my Xbox's home screen.

If you want just the PC side specifically go here

https://www.xbox.com/en-US/xbox-game...

Make sure you are on the latest Windows 10 Release.. you can update manually here.

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/soft...

By using the Assistant.

Then download the new Beta App using the above link.

polypusher wrote:

Not from me! Its pretty interesting that Microsoft is both embracing Steam (see Halo coming to Steam) and competing with it at the same time.

Yeah, time will tell, but Microsoft seems to be handling that aspect of it quite well so far.

Also, the Windows (Micorsoft?) Store was overhauled over the weekend and now looks exactly like the Xbox store.

TheGameguru wrote:

Sign up for what?? the deal right now is $1 a month for Ultimate (which is all 3 services for eventually $14.99).. I do not believe there is a specific deal for just Xbox Game Pass for PC... thats $4.99.

But if you have Gold or existing GamePass and you follow that $1 deal all your remaining months are converted to Ultimate. I found the deal on my Xbox's home screen.

If you want just the PC side specifically go here

https://www.xbox.com/en-US/xbox-game...

Make sure you are on the latest Windows 10 Release.. you can update manually here.

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/soft...

By using the Assistant.

Then download the new Beta App using the above link.

Thanks that's what I was looking for. Appreciate it.

I finished Void Bastards last night. I liked it so much that I did a couple more runs afterward. I was disappointed not to find any “new games plus” modes. If they patch that in I will be all over it. I would even pay for DLC at this point.

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As far as the business model for GPU, Microsoft has several months of data accrued with GP and several years of data from GwG. They aren’t going into this blindly.

I also see it as a sort of collective bargaining business model for mid-sized dev studios. After playing a few of these mid-sized games, I’m realizing that they hit the sweet spot for my gaming habits. On top of that, the payment model lets me try lots of these games pain free. There is no way I would have paid $25 for Void Bastards. Not because I don’t have the money. But because I have been burned too many times by buying a $25 dollar game that looked interesting but turned out to be crappy.

I also think the business model of Microsoft releasing their games on other platforms is interesting. As was pointed out earlier, they are sort of competing with themselves. But then I think about the newest Spider-Man game, which continues to be a PS exclusive. I don’t own a PS and probably never will. There has to be about a million potential customers like me, who would buy the Spider-Man game at full price if it was on Xbox. That’s a lot of money left sitting on the table. I have to wonder if that was fair to the dev studio that made the game. I have to wonder how the Disney execs feel about those millions of dollars that were lost on sales. But anyway, Microsoft’s model is almost the opposite of Sony’s hyper-exclusive model. In today’s market, exclusivity might be outdated. And games like Fortnite and Path of Exile have shown that the classic model of $60.00 blockbuster releases are not the only way to be successful in the games industry. It will be interesting to see how everything shakes out in a few years.

Bought and redeemed some Live Gold codes and now I'm paid up on Ultimate. Best $1 I can remember spending.

$14.99 every month, next charge on 5/17/2022

As far as I can tell, the Xbox PC app has no option to stream to another PC on your network. Steam does and you can add games to your steam library and stream them, so 'no problem' I thought, I'll just add Sea of Thieves or Wizard of Legend to the Steam Library and go!

Microsoft does bizarre things with permissions on the Xbox app and the apps it installs. To start with you can't even NAVIGATE the 'WindowsApp' folder (I'm a user with full admin rights on this PC) Once you resolve that with some security hokey pokey you find you still can't directly launch an app. This is where Steam falls down too.

You also can't just put the Xbox app on Steam and try that. It fails similarly. There are some apparently working workarounds for the old Xbox app but those don't seem to work for the new one yet. So using Steam Streaming with these games will have to wait.

polypusher wrote:

As far as I can tell, the Xbox PC app has no option to stream to another PC on your network. Steam does and you can add games to your steam library and stream them, so 'no problem' I thought, I'll just add Sea of Thieves or Wizard of Legend to the Steam Library and go!

Microsoft does bizarre things with permissions on the Xbox app and the apps it installs. To start with you can't even NAVIGATE the 'WindowsApp' folder (I'm a user with full admin rights on this PC) Once you resolve that with some security hokey pokey you find you still can't directly launch an app. This is where Steam falls down too.

You also can't just put the Xbox app on Steam and try that. It fails similarly. There are some apparently working workarounds for the old Xbox app but those don't seem to work for the new one yet. So using Steam Streaming with these games will have to wait.

I haven’t tried Moonlight streaming with Windows Store apps before. Maybe that works. I think GeForce Experience has to detect it as a supported game tho.

With this deal where you can convert your current Gold and Game Pass subscriptions to Ultimate for $1 for however many months you have left on each subscription, does anyone know whether you're able to extend your current subscription now and then convert to ultimate? Right now, my Game Pass expires in July and Gold in September, so as I understand it, converting to Ultimate would only leave me paid up through October. But if I pay $40-60 for a code for another 12 months of gold, redeem the code, and then pay the dollar to convert to ultimate, am I effectively getting another 12 months of ultimate for that $40-60? Has anyone tried anything like this?

Jumped on the PC Game Pass bandwagon last night for $1 to try it out and I like enough to stay for awhile at least. Is there a way for two computers to share an account so both my kids can play their own games at the same time?

Fredrik_S wrote:

Jumped on the PC Game Pass bandwagon last night for $1 to try it out and I like enough to stay for awhile at least. Is there a way for two computers to share an account so both my kids can play their own games at the same time?

Not that I'm aware of.. they did away with family plans some time ago.. you can create a family under a live account and add child accounts to it but its sole function is to set monitor and time limits on devices etc..

Now you can sign in at the same time on multiple PC's (I do this myself) but being only one person I've never tried to launch 2 games at the same time on separate PC's.. If I had to guess it wont work.

mrlogical wrote:

With this deal where you can convert your current Gold and Game Pass subscriptions to Ultimate for $1 for however many months you have left on each subscription, does anyone know whether you're able to extend your current subscription now and then convert to ultimate? Right now, my Game Pass expires in July and Gold in September, so as I understand it, converting to Ultimate would only leave me paid up through October. But if I pay $40-60 for a code for another 12 months of gold, redeem the code, and then pay the dollar to convert to ultimate, am I effectively getting another 12 months of ultimate for that $40-60? Has anyone tried anything like this?

I believe that is exactly what LeapingGnome did above. I was so excited to lock in GPU through July of next year (when my Live sub runs out) that I didn't think about extending it 2 years first (to take advantage of the full 36 months of conversion available).

Yes that is what I did. I had two months left on both Game Pass and Live Gold. I bought some Live digital codes (Costco has 12 months for $55 was the best non-shady one I found right now) and extended my Live subscription to 2022. I did not extend Game Pass. Then I did the upgrade offer for $1 and I have Ultimate to 2022.

LeapingGnome wrote:

Yes that is what I did. I had two months left on both Game Pass and Live Gold. I bought some Live digital codes (Costco has 12 months for $55 was the best non-shady one I found right now) and extended my Live subscription to 2022. I did not extend Game Pass. Then I did the upgrade offer for $1 and I have Ultimate to 2022.

I did the same. Only I wasn’t smart enough to buy more than one, so I’m only out to May 2021.

Yeah, thanks all, I figured this out. I bought codes for 2 years of Live from CD Keys for like $108 and then converted to Ultimate and I'm now subbed through January 2022. I did drain that $108 out of the little pot of money I have set aside for new console purchases, but I think it'll be worth it.

Seems the Xbox PC beta also does not support cloud saving :/ I could swear it said something to the effect that it does, but my Hollow Knight progress from home is nowhere to be seen on my other PC.

Edit; Some games show 'Xbox Live Cloud Saves' in the Capabilities section. I guess that's required to make it happen.

syncing files is so basic and easy, I wish this were universal. I can tell Im going to have to hook up Google Drive and symbolic links again. Its sort of a hassle but it works.

I was able to get this running with no issues. There were a few games I didnt have so that was good plus I didnt know there were some PC versions of some Xbox games. I think I got my money's worth. The games they add and the frequency - especially new titles will dictate if is worth $15 a month. I'll give them a year, just like EA and we'll see how it all plays out. EA has definitely been worth the purchase - so I have high hopes for the MS service.

TheGameguru wrote:
Fredrik_S wrote:

Jumped on the PC Game Pass bandwagon last night for $1 to try it out and I like enough to stay for awhile at least. Is there a way for two computers to share an account so both my kids can play their own games at the same time?

Not that I'm aware of.. they did away with family plans some time ago.. you can create a family under a live account and add child accounts to it but its sole function is to set monitor and time limits on devices etc..

Now you can sign in at the same time on multiple PC's (I do this myself) but being only one person I've never tried to launch 2 games at the same time on separate PC's.. If I had to guess it wont work.

Cool. Thanks for letting me know. They'll just have to take turns then.

SpyNavy wrote:

EA has definitely been worth the purchase - so I have high hopes for the MS service.

Off topic for this thread, but I'm wondering what folks are thinking about the Ubisoft service? I think the E service has been great, but I'm not sure if Ubisoft's deal is as relevant for us My wife does love her some AC games, but I'm not sure we play enough to be worth diving in.

EA works for me, because I am going to buy at least two EA sports games a year, maybe three, and get 10% off. I play the yearly FIFA's for free, as well as some of their other games. Plus, I do like the early access for all new titles, which means I get some time with every EA release.

Are folks as excited for Ubisoft?

edit: Just looked it up. Didn't realize it was for PC only. That ends any interest I might have had.

Hmmm. I wonder if I can extend the GPU out by adding Xbox Live length post upgrade? It may be worth the cost of the Live to check...

Thought I would cross-post from the trading thread in case anyone is interested before they upgrade.

I have an extra 6 month XBox Live Gold digital code, I wasn't able to redeem it because I hit the 36 month limit. Will sell for $33 paypal, just PM me if you would like it.

polypusher wrote:

Microsoft does bizarre things with permissions on the Xbox app and the apps it installs. To start with you can't even NAVIGATE the 'WindowsApp' folder (I'm a user with full admin rights on this PC) Once you resolve that with some security hokey pokey you find you still can't directly launch an app. This is where Steam falls down too.

You also can't just put the Xbox app on Steam and try that. It fails similarly. There are some apparently working workarounds for the old Xbox app but those don't seem to work for the new one yet. So using Steam Streaming with these games will have to wait.

I ran into the same walls futzing around with it as you did. I wound up figuring out a hacky as hell workaround that is heavily dependent on physical setup and hardware ownership:

Setup:
Host PC is in the basement toward the rear of the house. Living room TV is on the first floor, toward the front of the house. Hardware required is Steam Link, XBOne controller with bluetooth, USB bluetooth dongle, USB extension cable, Steam Controller (though any mouse attached to the Steam Link will do).
1) Connect BT dongle to PC via USB extension cable.
2) Pair XBOne controller to PC via BT.
3) String extension cable as far toward front of the house as you can (to reduce the range between controller and dongle).
4) Bring controller to living room.
5) Use Steam Controller (or other) to start Steam Link and begin streaming from host PC.
6) Use Steam Controller (or other/mouse) to exit big picture mode.
7) Use Steam Controller (or mouse) to open Xbox app and launch game.
8) Use XBOne controller talking directly to PC via BT to control game.
9) When finished, use Steam Controller to kill stream.

Basically gets around Steam being unable to launch native Windows games directly or pass controller inputs through, and treating the Link as a fancy HDMI cable. But I'd love if there was a neater solution.

Well, I finally bought in. Excited to try the service. Question, though: if I'm playing a game and it gets removed from Game Pass, can I buy the game and continue on with my prior save? Or do I have to start over. I worry about starting something like Fallout 4 and never being able to finish it.

Hangdog wrote:

Well, I finally bought in. Excited to try the service. Question, though: if I'm playing a game and it gets removed from Game Pass, can I buy the game and continue on with my prior save? Or do I have to start over. I worry about starting something like Fallout 4 and never being able to finish it.

Your saves will continue.

I did the ultimate upgrade and got 33 months for my $1. Best deal in gaming.

Having used “Xbox anywhere” games before I’ve been spoiled by the fact that my cloud saves are shared between Xbox and pc so I can swap back and forth and continue my game. Unfortunately that doesn’t appear to be true of game pass pc games that are not Xbox anywhere. Xbox and pc versions do not share saves. I was really hoping to continue my Metro Exodus campaign on pc.