Fair warning’s coming
Xbox Game Pass is set to enter its second month of existence, and the program came out swingin’. The Netflix-like (but not really) subscription service launched with more than 100 games and it added to that tally yesterday. Microsoft has said that it’ll add a minimum of five titles every month.
But, Xbox Game Pass isn’t going to grow indefinitely. Eventually games will leave the service as new ones are swapped in. When that happens, players will want to know so that they can try to finish something before it disappears. Fortunately, Microsoft has a reasonable plan in place.
We asked Microsoft how it intends to handle this inevitable scenario, and we were told that people will get a heads-up before it happens. “When a game rotates out of Xbox Game Pass, fans will be notified a few weeks in advance before it is removed from the catalog,” a representative said.
We also inquired as to when the first delisting is scheduled. We were told that “Current games in the Xbox Game Pass catalog won’t leave until November.” That means the shortest lease Microsoft has right now is five months long. That’s subject to change as new contracts are negotiated with publishers, but it seems like anything less than three months wouldn’t be worth adding to the program.
When November rolls around and games are delisted, it’s probably safe to assume that it won’t be too many at once. Microsoft’s main marketing push around Xbox Game Pass is that it features more than 100 titles. It can’t really ever drop below that number. But, some stuff will go away because that’s the nature of the beast. At least we’ll get fair warning before it happens.
