Gamers interested sharing the love can invite up to four friends to join in
Everything’s a subscription these days — like Microsoft’s Xbox Game Pass service, which crossed 25 million subscriptions earlier this year, and shows no signs of slowing down. The gaming offering has so far held its own against the likes of Playstation Plus and cloud service Google Stadia, thanks to its wide variety of indie games and AAA titles. With Sony revamping Playstation Plus, Microsoft is also looking to shake things up, and is starting a test that allows users to share Game Pass Ultimate benefits with their friends and family.
Microsoft is giving Xbox Insiders in Colombia and Ireland the option to sign up for this test, which will allow them to share Game Pass Ultimate with up to four friends (via Chrome Unboxed). That gives them all access to Game Pass games across their PCs, consoles, and the cloud, while effectively bringing the pe-user cost down to just a few dollars a month.
Of course, there are a few big caveats here, and even in this early testing Microsoft has a lot of rules about just how this will work. The plan holder and any other users must all reside in the same country, for one. Subscribers looking to get involved in this test can convert their accounts to the new plan while getting credit for their existing one, but there are a lot of restrictions on how many people can join the group, and how often, so check out Microsoft’s full FAQ for the specifics.
If the testing phase passes muster, hopefully we’ll see this friends and family plan open to wider availability in the near future. With Sony and Nintendo ahead in the gaming subscription race, Microsoft needs to step things up, and this might be just the boost it needs.
