In the wake of Xbox Game Pass' ever-increasing popularity, Xbox Live’s Games with Gold program continues to emphasize its redundancy problem. Not only is Xbox Game Pass the main marketing push for Microsoft, but the offering of “free games” there is far more enticing compared to what’s been offered with Xbox Live’s Games with Gold. Those with Xbox Game Pass Ultimate still get both regardless, but even with Games with Gold offering games “free-to-own,” the game selection is comparatively weaker. Even compared to similar program like PS Plus, Games with Gold still pales in comparison to what PlayStation, and evenXboxitself, is already doing.
Xbox Game Pass Steals Games with Gold’s Thunder
The most obvious reason as to why Games with Gold could end is how it compares to the Xbox Game Pass library. Even comparingthe evolution of the Game Pass libraryto Games with Gold’s month-to-month offering since 2017 (Game Pass launched in June 2017), the two services don’t even compare. To be fair, up until April of 2019, Xbox Game Pass and Xbox Live Gold used to be separate services that each had their own perks and subscription rates. However, when Xbox Game Pass Ultimate bundled Xbox Live Gold and Game Pass together, that’s when Games with Gold started to develop issues of redundancy and, more recently, irrelevance.
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The Games with Gold Selection is Comparatively Lacking to Game Pass
This also leads to another big problem with Games with Gold, now that Xbox Game Pass is the main focus: the game selection is comparatively lacking most of the time. While January’s Games with Gold actually brought some incredible games likeDead RisingandLittle Nightmares,rarely is Games with Gold as good as that. That’s not to say that the games themselves are bad, but compared to the sheer number of critically-acclaimed titles on Game Pass, and it really pales in comparison. Even PlayStation Plus offers a better selection of games each month, even if it’s only two/three games compared to the usual four on Xbox Live’s Games with Gold.
At this point, there’s no way that Microsoft is likely to end the Games with Gold program. January is certainly indicative of it sticking around, despite Xbox’s marketing arm placing Game Pass front and center. The Games with Gold update videos, that Xbox itself publishes, has also been mentioning Xbox Game Pass Ultimate since last February, soit’s clear Xbox wants both programs to exist in harmony. Perhaps January’s surprisingly good Games with Gold selection is a reflection of a renewed focus on the program, which many times throughout 2020 received disappointment and backlash from Xbox fans.
