Xbox Game Pass Is Officially Coming To PC

Life is about to get very good for PC gamers, as Microsoft announced today that Xbox Game Pass is finally making its way over to PC (for real this time), offering players there an instant collection of games for a low monthly fee.

Microsoft's Phil Spencer shared the news in a blog post on Xbox Wire.

"Xbox Game Pass for PC will give players unlimited access to a curated library of over 100 high-quality PC games on Windows 10, from well-known PC game developers and publishers such as Bethesda, Deep Silver, Devolver Digital, Paradox Interactive, SEGA, and more," Spencer said. "And just as we committed on the console, it is our intent to include new games from Xbox Game Studios in Xbox Game Pass for PC the same day as their global release, including titles from newly acquired studios like Obsidian and inXile."

On that last point — does Spencer mean existing titles from those studios, such as Pillars of Eternity and Wasteland 2? Or is there a chance we might see Outer Worlds and Wasteland 3 launch into Game Pass? That would be a pretty huge deal. We'll keep an eye out for news on that front.

Otherwise, it appears Game Pass will work on PC just as it does on console. Microsoft will start out by offering over 100 games from a slew of developers and publishers, and each month, older games will leave as newer games are shuffled in. We don't have a definitive list of what's coming yet — Microsoft plans to share that information at E3 — but you can expect many of the company's first-party titles to show up in Game Pass on day one. In fact, most already do. If you're an Xbox Game Pass subscriber on console now, your Game Pass subscription already gives you access to the PC versions of games like Sea of Thieves and Gears of War 4 (thanks to Play Anywhere).

But there is one other question we've yet to have answered, and it's this: will an Xbox Game Pass subscription work universally? That is, if you're already subscribed on your Xbox One, will you also gain access to the full Game Pass library on PC? Or will the service be divided between the two platforms? If Microsoft manages to offer Game Pass everywhere for the standard $10 a month, it would be tough to turn down. But it would be somewhat understandable if the company couldn't swing that financially.

Microsoft also announced that a number of its games are coming to Steam in the future, including Gears 5 and Age of Empires. And on top of that, the company is moving to make the Microsoft Store less restrictive by allowing Win32 games to be sold there for the first time. It seems Microsoft is ready to tear down the arbitrary walls it's been trying to build over the past decade or so, and that can only be good for the games and services the company has to offer.

Now how about Ori on the Nintendo Switch?

Microsoft's E3 press conference is scheduled for Sunday, June 9 at 4 p.m. ET.