It was recently claimed that XBOX is pausing, or at least slowing down, deals with third-party developers tied to the Game Pass subscription service. This latest revelation comes following a couple of weeks of bad press at XBOX, punctuated by layoffs, price increases, and difficult discussions around the future of the ecosystem.
Game Pass was one of the first things scrutinized by CEO Asha Sharma when she entered office earlier this year, and she immediately set about making the service more affordable. However, it seems that another major change might be on the horizon, based on recent discussions, and it might impact the kinds of games available on the subscription-based platform.
Is XBOX Dropping Third-Party Developers from Game Pass?
The Game Pass subscription service is great, and that’s coming from someone who has had an unbroken subscription to XBOX Live and then XBOX Game Pass Ultimate for more than 15 years. I’ve been a relatively loyal fan of the platform, and I like to think I’ve saved more than I’ve spent over the years, given how many day-one titles I’ve had through the service.
However, a major switch-up might be unfolding before our very eyes if one recent claim is to be believed.
During a recent episode of The Business of Video Games Podcast, Shams Jorjani, the CEO of Arrowhead, hosted Fernando Rizo of Caboodle Games. The pair started talking about XBOX Game Pass, and Rizo made a rather damning claim.
He stated that he recently attended a trade show, and while there, folks were chinwagging about Game Pass deals, and some volatile terms were thrown around, including ‘rug pull’, ‘kaiboshed’, and ‘on pause’.
The quote was:
I was at a trade show in Italy, had some nice lunches, some nice dinners with industry colleagues.
Word on the street was that loads of people who were in the frame for Game Pass deals.
You know, nothing was inked yet, but the deals were in advanced discussions.
Everybody got the rug pulled out from under them.
When Jorjani asked if new deals were off the table, Rizo suggested that they’re ‘on pause’, but even that was more an assumption or a touch of conjecture than anything else. Rizo admitted that statement was ‘his read’, and that it ‘seems like’ new Game Pass deals might be on hold.
We have, of course, reached out to XBOX for any further comment on this situation, to help clear things up a bit.
Do you think XBOX is slowing down Game Pass deals? Let us know your thoughts on the Insider Gaming Discord server.
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Grant has been gaming for 30+ years and in the industry for 10+. You'll probably find him playing a post-apocalyptic game or an extraction shooter somewhere.
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