Xbox floats free Game Pass with ads idea

NME

Microsoft has spoken about the idea of adding a free tier to Xbox Game Pass.

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During the Wells Fargo TMT Summit, Xbox CFO Tim Stuart spoke about the idea (via TweakTown): “For models like India, Southeast Asia, maybe places that aren’t console-first, you can say, ‘hey, do you want to watch 30 seconds of an ad and then get two hours of game streaming? […] 50% of [Africa’s] population is 23 years old of younger with a growing disposable income base, all with cell phones and mobile devices, not a lot of high-end disposable income, generally speaking.”

In July of this year, Xbox also announced a new Xbox Game Pass tier called “Xbox Game Pass Core” which launched in September. This replaced the Xbox Live Gold service, giving players access to a selection of Xbox Game Pass games at a lower price than the standard Xbox Game Pass subscription.

Xbox earlier this year completely stopped offering a popular £1 month long trial period, with the disappearance appearing to be related to the release of the then-upcoming Bethesda Role-Playing Game, Starfield, due to the proximity between the two events.

NME reviewed Starfield, with our writer calling the game a “dizzying adventure that shoots for the moon”.

“Starfield promises so much but comes up short of perfection. Despite lacking the thoroughness of Bethesda’s prior open-world games, a wealth of gripping stories and role-playing potential will likely keep players hooked for years,” NME‘s Andy Brown wrote.

In other gaming news, Grand Theft Auto 6 fans may have to wait a while for the game to release on PC. Elsewhere, The Day Before developer Fntastic has shut down, despite only just releasing a game.

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