The Games with Gold service has been a longstanding staple of Xbox Live since 2013, being one of the main perks for an Xbox Live Gold membership for a very long time. While Games with Gold has always been a welcome benefit to Xbox Live membership, it's inexorably becoming more antiquated as the industry adapts and evolves.
An indicator of the reduced need for the Games with Gold service comes with the removal of Xbox 360 games from the monthly roster, halving the amount of titles that are provided for players each month. With this decision only compounding what many consider to be a recent pattern of reduced quality within the service, the future of Games with Gold looks increasingly bleak.
The Highs and Lows of Xbox Games With Gold
When the Games with Gold service launched in 2013, it was an extremely popular aspect of an Xbox Live Gold membership for a multitude of subscribers. Upon its initial introduction for the Xbox 360, Games with Gold would offer players two games per month from the 360 catalog, giving subscribers the opportunity to download, own, and play two new titles every month, often comprised of older but well-received games that many newer players may have missed out on.
This monthly selection was doubled in 2014 with the release of the Xbox One, with the service then offering players two titles from the 360 era and two from the Xbox One era every month. While Games with Gold offered a brilliant benefit to an active and sustained Xbox Live Gold membership, it has inexorably waned in popularity over the years for a multitude of reasons.
Recently, Microsoft announced that Games with Gold will stop offering Xbox 360 titles as from October, and it is quite understandable as to why. Having offered two unique 360 titles a month for almost a decade, Microsoft cite a practical exhaustion of the 360 game catalog as the main driving reason behind the decision to stop offering seventh-generation titles. It has to be said that many fans have been vocally disapproving of the growingly lackluster selection of games offered via Games with Gold, so this announcement does not come as a huge surprise.
With Games with Gold titles set to be permanently reduced to just two games per month, it can sadly be said with some degree of certainty that the service will only wane further as time passes. The Xbox One titles offered through the service will eventually face the same fate as the 360 games and, while it could be argued that the service could simply offer more recent games to fill the stop-gap, the palpable success of another Xbox subscription service may be the killing blow for Games with Gold.
The Huge Success of Xbox Game Pass
The coveted Xbox Game Pass is undoubtedly the most popular Xbox-based subscription service available to gamers. For a fairly affordable monthly fee, players are given access to hundreds of titles that can be downloaded and played at no extra cost, among a slew of other benefits.
To conceptualize just how successful the service has been since its implementation in 2017, it has been reported that Xbox Game Pass has over 30 million active subscribers, effectively conveying just how popular and lucrative the service is contemporarily. At its very core, the Game Pass service makes Games with Gold obsolete due to the massive array of titles that the former offers to its subscribers.
Not only are these constantly-cycled games numerous and attractive, they are also often day-one releases, with many of the most high-profile upcoming Xbox titles releasing as day-one Game Pass selections. By offering more games of a higher comparable quality, the Game Pass service has clearly overshadowed the older Games with Gold system in quite a sustained and significant way.
On top of this, the popular Ultimate tier of Xbox Game Pass doubles up as an active Xbox Live subscription, while also allowing players access to instantaneous cloud gaming for selected titles, and membership to other services such as EA Play. With the extreme value that Game Pass is offering to many Xbox players, even the most long-term fans of Games with Gold are understandably starting to overlook the older service.
What's Next For Games With Gold
Given the latest negative news regarding the upcoming restriction to the Games with Gold service, combined with the ever-increasing popularity of the newer Game Pass system, the future fate of Games with Gold seems to be clear. It is likely that Games with Gold will soon be wound down even further to the point where it is quietly discontinued.
The only way to potentially counteract this seemingly inexorable fate for Games with Gold would be to thrust it back to the forefront of Xbox discourse by combining it with the Game Pass service. While still of course keeping its availability to Gold subscribers who are not subscribed to Game Pass, Microsoft could advertise new Games with Gold titles directly alongside new Game Pass additions, or even add games that are being removed from Game Pass to the Games with Gold roster.
While this may boost the already impressive longevity of Games with Gold, it remains to be seen whether or not Microsoft will exert this effort to sustain it, given how much of its focus is on the more successful Xbox Game Pass. Even if the Games with Gold service is to be phased out in the near future, it will surely be remembered as an iconic part of the Xbox experience.