No, we’re not talking about who had the best E3 press conference, but what kind of gamers seem to have the best package in their hands.
To be quite honest, I didn’t really like Microsoft’s E3 press conference. One of the points for improvement that the company has made is by not having a voice-over shout “World Premier” with every trailer, but for the rest it seems like a lot of things to repeat.
It turned out to be another 90 minute show in which no less than 30 games were shown and of those were some games that we hadn’t expected and a lot of games that we were pretty sure would come up.
Some of those surprises were, of course, Redfall and the new game from Avalanche (Contraband). Redfall itself looked interesting and I even had to look up the name of the latter (just to indicate what impression the game has left behind). We know it’s an open world game that can be played in co-op, but otherwise it’s pretty mysterious.
We also didn’t get to see any gameplay footage from Redfall and this gives me the suspicion that it will take a long time before these games come.
Starfield didn’t leave a very strong impression on me either. The trailer looked nice, but it certainly wasn’t gameplay what we saw and hasn’t Microsoft tried to impress too many times in the past with meaningless trailers?!
The real winner
Before I completely write this column about what can be done better at Microsoft, I want to go back to the positive thought behind this story. Microsoft has shown that Xbox Game Pass subscribers have gold in their hands and can play relatively cheaply. Okay, you don’t buy games but rent them and it doesn’t yield anything if you sell your console again, but of course it does give value for money.
You have a library of more than 100 games at your disposal at all times and recently you can also play all Xbox Game Studios games from release without paying the “full punch” for it. With a bit of ingenuity you can even get a subscription relatively cheaply, but also for the €13.99 that Microsoft asks for the Ultimate version of Xbox Game Pass, you get a lot of value for money. Especially when you consider that you also have EA Play included. It is of course questionable whether the quality of the new games (mainly the games that have yet to prove themselves) will be high, but I think the competition should still scratch its head.
Where Sony already has some kind of competition on Game Pass, Nintendo seems to see no point in this (for now). Sony is still a bit behind in quantity, but has some nice games every now and then, but I think if a Nintendo were to introduce such a service, it could open a new gap in the market.
Sony will also have to come up with a good response in the long run, because although the company seems to have the momentum at the moment, with the growing group of Xbox Game Studios developers they will still have to come up with an answer for the “Netflix of gaming”.
But until this happens, I declare the group of Xbox Game Pass subscribers as the big winner of last E3. With games like Forza Horizon 5, Motorsport, Fable, Hellblade 2, Halo Infinite and many more, you won’t be complaining about a subscription for years to come!
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