With Game Pass, does a physical Xbox still make sense?

With Game Pass

The last few years have been decidedly peculiar for the entire gaming industry, undoubtedly far more surprising than we would have expected. On the one hand, Nintendo has shown that it knows how to deal with the Wii U crisis with the release of the Switch, on the other we have witnessed the fall of a giant of the caliber of Google. Even more unexpected was the dawn of the cloud gaming era, now more than ever an important additional option for modern services.

First NVIDIA and then Google, up to Microsoft, which more than Any other company makes cloud gaming an essential element for Xbox Game Pass, like the catalogs for consoles and PCs, we have witnessed a slow but progressive spread of this method of using the medium. The Redmond company has shown that it truly believes in enhancing the Game Pass as a system of interconnection between consoles, PCs and the cloud: every time titles are added to the service, there are always more for each of these three categories, which gives credit to the attention that Microsoft places on the differentiation of the line-up by platforms.

The word "platforms" is the foundation of the Xbox Game Pass reason for existence. In the past we had talked about what identified us as "Xbox players", recognizing in the subscription service the element that varied the response. Recently, however, a very curious event has made us think even more about this question: a Japanese retailer has decided to stop selling Xbox Series X and Series S due to the presence of Game Pass, which would allow you to play Xbox titles even without a real console.

The retailer's stance has left us stunned, because although on the one hand the answer may be obvious, on the other it may not be, after all. "Of course, there will always be someone who wants the physical console," and that's absolutely true. However, even we who blew into the PS1 controller slot increasingly found ourselves playing via the cloud, now because we are away from our TV or PC monitor, now to avoid waiting a long time filling the SSDs. Whichever way you see it, the cloud gaming offering is absolutely concrete, especially thanks to Microsoft despite being the company that least of all had a reason to propose it as an option.

After all, let's be honest, the The goal of the Redmond house is to sell both the software and the hardware, and Xbox Series X and Series S are still a very important source of income for the company. To answer the question “does it make sense to buy an Xbox console despite the presence of Xbox Cloud Gaming?”, We could simply tell you that it depends on your habits. Among the many things that Xbox Game Pass succeeds in, there is certainly the ability to adapt to all sorts of gamers and allow them to subscribe regardless of the platforms they own.

However, the substantial difference is that now the the intermediary between the user and the product is not the platform (be it a console or the PC), but the service, represented by Game Pass. Having a predefined price, which varies according to the duration of the subscription, the variable answers to the justification of buying a console depend above all on the economic factor. Microsoft is extremely good in this regard, and to prove it is Xbox Series S even more than Series X, because it represents the real strategic platform on the next-gen scenario (now definable as current-gen).

Access to Xbox titles and services - and their quality - depends above all on how much you are willing to spend: do you want maximum graphics and the best possible frame rate? Then the PC might be the best choice; Do you prefer to play on your TV without spending too much for a high-end PC? There's Xbox Series X; do you want to upgrade to the new generation at a reasonable cost and can't even find a PS5? Series S will save you on any occasion. The last option is the most interesting: you are not interested in an Xbox console but want to try its games without having to buy one? Here is Xbox Game Streaming.

Buying Xbox Series X or Series S only makes sense if you really care about it, and Microsoft - unlike some other companies - doesn't make you feel the morbid need to buy the hardware. After all, that's not his only way to profit in the gaming industry. We believe that, in any case, the best choice is the one in favor of games: it does not matter how, where or when you spend time with your favorite works or how you discover other great titles, as long as you find the best way to have fun. Of course, let us know by commenting at the bottom what you think of our thoughts!

On Amazon you can buy an Xbox Series S or an Xbox Game Pass subscription for 1 month or 3 months.