In the wake of Marvel's Avengers continually misfiring, Square Enix's next effort, Outriders -- another live service title focused on grinding for loot -- didn't seem like a strong proposition. However, between the demo and the community reception to Outriders, there was reason to be cautiously optimistic. Now that the game has launched officially, Square Enix should be thrilled. With over one hundred thousand concurrent players at launch on Steam, the game is an early success. A lot of that success, though, could be tied to Outriders being effectively free for Xbox Game Pass owners.
Microsoft has been making aggressive plays on the Game Pass front, but securing Outriders is easily one of its most important. The scope of Microsoft's Bethesda acquisition and its impact on PlayStation is huge. However, having Bethesda games on the service is less remarkable than Outriders, as Microsoft bought Bethesda outright. Xbox Game Studios titles on Game Pass are exciting, but AAA third-party titles on Game Pass are invaluable.
After all, having Xbox Games Studios titles for free through the service on day one largely benefits Xbox fans. Ultimately, if a PlayStation or Nintendo fan doesn't have interest in Halo Infinite, having access to the game effectively for free through a subscription isn't going to move the needle much. This is still a wonderfully consumer-friendly move on Microsoft's behalf in a landscape where companies such as Nintendo overcharge for underwhelming releases. However, from the outside looking in, third-party titles in multiple ecosystems offered through Game Pass creates a much more tantalizing incentive to play on Xbox.
If Xbox is offering a title like Outriders for the price of a monthly subscription, there is little reason to purchase the game on another system, assuming the player has access to both an Xbox and something else. It's a simple value proposition: either pay full price for the game on PlayStation 5 or put down a small sum each month that gives access to Outriders, as well as countless other titles.
There are concerns about game ownership to consider, but as the industry moves toward an all-digital future, the shift away from ownership is inevitable. Considering that a game such as Outriders has full cross-play, the question of where a player's friends are no longer factors into the equation. Bearing all these elements in mind, playing on Xbox is incredibly compelling.
Even if a gamer doesn't have access to an Xbox, as Microsoft keeps making deals like Outriders, the overall value of the system will be too great to overlook. Already, from Cyber Shadow to Outriders, Xbox is poaching key 2021 releases through Game Pass that both add value to Xbox and highlight the shortcomings of its competitors. Regardless of whether or not Xbox's mounting value can truly draw non-Xbox players away from their platforms of choice, Microsoft wins an optical victory. Services like PlayStation Now begin to look stuffier and stuffier with each move Microsoft makes. In turn, each full-price sum a player drops on a game like Outriders elsewhere stings more and more compared to Xbox's ecosystem.
At a certain point, commentary about Xbox Game Pass starts to become cliché. There was little debate that Game Pass was a juggernaut months ago, but now there's barely any ground for the dissenting side to stand on. Each deal applies a greater amount of pressure to the competition while asserting Microsoft's focus on the consumer. This is an exemplary service that continues to prove and reinvent its worth.
Outriders is just the latest example of the Game Pass march to the forefront of the industry. Securing third-party AAA exclusives is the next frontier for the service, a goal which Phil Spencer has affirmed in the past and is beginning to pay dividends now. Not only does Game Pass's dominance positively impact Xbox players, the pressure it puts on rivals directly benefits the audience as well. It's hard to imagine a landscape where Sony gives away so many titles through its Play At Home initiative without this tacit competition from Microsoft. Regardless of what lens Microsoft's strategy is viewed through, the company is pushing the industry to be better.
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