If you play on consoles Xbox One or Xbox Series X|S You are probably interested in the subscription services that Microsoft offers, but you may get lost among the different ones that it offers thanks to the similarity of their names. Here I will explain what is the difference between Xbox Live Gold, Xbox Game Pass and Xbox Game Pass Ultimate, as well as their advantages and disadvantages.
To start you must know xbox live gold, the subscription service that has been around since the Xbox 360 generation and that is used to play online, which is why it is necessary to play with friends over the Internet, except with free-to-play games like Fortnite or Apex Legends . The Xbox Live Gold subscription also offers discounts in the Microsoft store and has the benefit of Free Play days, which allows you to play a selection of video games without restrictions from Thursday to Sunday of each week.
The following subscription service is xbox game pass, which offers us access to a huge catalog of video games on Xbox One and Xbox Series X | S consoles. Microsoft adds new games to the catalog every month, plus they offer all of their first party games, so you can play franchises like Halo, Forza, Gears of War, DOOM, Fallout, Minecraft, and more.
The “Xbox Game Pass” service is only available on Xbox One and Xbox Series X|S consoles, but PC gamers can get its equivalent, PC GamePass. This service also offers a huge catalog of video games, with the majority being those from the console catalog along with a few additions that can only be found on PC. The PC Game Pass service also includes that of EA Play, the Electronic Arts subscription service that lets us play most of its catalog.
So far we have Xbox Live Gold, Xbox Game Pass and PC Game Pass, but we also have the option to contract Xbox Game Pass Ultimate and get them all at once, along with access to Xbox Cloud Gaming or cloud gaming. With Xbox Game Pass Ultimate you can play the entire Game Pass catalog on consoles and PC, in addition to giving us access to Xbox Cloud Gaming for cloud-compatible games, which allows us to play them from browsers or mobile devices.
Advantages and disadvantages:
The advantages it offers us xbox live gold It is that it is the lowest cost service, since its main function is to allow us to access the online functions of our video games. This service has three main benefits: Offers in the Microsoft store, the aforementioned Free Play Days and Games With Gold, a selection of video games that you can add to your library and that will be available while you are subscribed to the service. The downside is that Games With Gold’s selection of titles isn’t always great, and Free Play Days only let us play their selection of video games for four days (Thursday through Sunday).
The advantages of xbox game pass for console are its huge catalog of video games and the fact that we can buy the games in this catalog with a 20% discount in the Microsoft store as long as we are subscribed. Games from companies outside of Microsoft are added and removed every month, but Xbox 1st party exclusives will always be available, making for a huge catalog of classic games. Xbox Game Pass is a great option for constantly playing new games, but the downside is that you need to purchase the Xbox Live Gold service if you want to play Game Pass titles online.
The advantage of PC GamePass about the console version is that it is a little cheaper and includes the EA Play service, which increases its catalog a bit. On PC you don’t need to pay to be able to play online, so PC Game Pass doesn’t require an additional subscription for its online games, but its downside is that the video game catalog is a bit smaller than its counterpart for consoles.
Last we have Xbox Game Pass Ultimate, whose advantage is that it offers you all the aforementioned services so that you can play without restrictions on any device in the Xbox ecosystem, including PC, Xbox One consoles, Xbox Series X | S and even mobile devices thanks to Xbox Cloud Gaming. The Xbox Game Pass Ultimate service also offers the EA Play service on consoles (as well as PC), in addition to offering benefits each month that range from in-game items to non-game services (like 3 free months of Apple TV that currently give away).
The only downside to Xbox Game Pass Ultimate, aside from costing more than the other services, is that it offers too much and you may not get the full benefit of it. If you only play on consoles you don’t need to have access to the service on PC or Xbox Cloud Gamingwhile on the other hand, if you only play on PC I wouldn’t say it’s worth paying for the Ultimate plan just to get access to cloud gaming.
