That’s it for the second half? Sorry, but I just can’t shake the feeling that when it comes to the amount of games in the service it’s absolutely been going down compared to definitely last year. Unless I misremember there used to be quite a few smaller titles among one or two bigger ones.
In my opinion a very disappointing end of March. Along with NNK2 it’s just three games closing out March. Compared to last year it’s a big difference and that included multiple big names too.
Microsoft took us too seriously when we said “Stop adding games, we have too many backlogs!” 
Wait… that’s it?
Ok…
last wave of this month was underwhelming? yes, but don’t forget we did received two big day one gamepass games recently, doesn’t look the gamepass has cutting budget
Yeah, not a great batch/month for me. Still have a ton to play so it’s all right, but I am starting to wonder if part of this is Sony exerting pressure on third-party devs now that they have their own service. I’m sure it’s confirmation bias/appel du vide.
Did you guys forget what was in the first half of the month? Lol
Whatever it is, things overall just have been a bit strange for the service, and especially amount wise it’s been on the smaller side. Usually there are a good amount of smaller titles added in as well. I remember the pictures of where it showed lots of pictures from games. I feel that has been going down lately.
Yeah, I’m a bit afraid of that too. If my memory serves me correct things have been changing a bit since Sony came with their service and we shouldn’t put it past them either.
Yep. Basically no real surprises, I think we knew about pretty much all of them for a while now?
I keep hoping that they add AI: The Nirvana Initiative, since the first one was added too. Can still happen. I’d love to play it but it’s one of those games I can see being added and that would suck, lol. And plenty of bigger, but much older games.
No, nothing special for me and only four games in the last batch. Two in this. That’s six games added, and 15 leaving.
Wow only eight games this month. Half of them are downloaded on my Xbox, but I kind of expected more.
I hate the word downgrade, but it kinda feels like it sometimes. That’s not to say it still isn’t great value because just one game such as Wo Long in terms of price is already way more than we pay for one month. Plus i won’t ever deny that my backlog is still so big it’s hard to keep up, but I do believe we still can be disappointed a little.
Last year had about ten games more than now for March, good stuff too. And I feel it has been the same for the last couple of months, the amount definitely seems to have decreased. And yeah, games leaving has been at a quite high number, consistently.
It actually is looking like that, haha.
The amount may be less. However, you can easily argue that 2023 has seen higher quality (and bigger) additions so far, compared to 2022 by this point of the year.
I think last year had MLB too? But Wo Long absolutely is a huge addition and day one at that too. But March last year was strong too, it had Guardians of the Galaxy and many smaller, good games too, a significant bigger amount that this month and it’s looking like that for a while now. Unless my memory is really failing me here. I’d have to look the previous months up and compare to previous years for that.
But I kinda miss the surprises too, when new additions were announced and some games I had never heard of, trying them out, always a significant amount too. It’s definitely less of that for a while now.
It’s almost like a metric ton of games have been impacted by a pandemic or a war. Have a look at a lot of the titles known to be coming to GamePass but have yet to have a date set. They were meant to be earlier, but you know, timelines have been impacted.
so xbox game pass is dying?
2022 March was indeed very solid in terms of quantity and quality. It had Tunic, MLB 22, Guardians of the Galaxy (not Day 1), Weird West, FAR: Changing Tides, Shredders, Norco (on PC), and others.
However, I would still argue that 2023 March comfortably matches that in quality. You have Wo Long, Valheim (on Xbox) and MLB 23 as higher profile Day 1 launches. Then, you include two more quality Japanese games in Ni No Kuni II (with all DLCs) and Guilty Gear: Strive. Also, it seems like Way of the Woods, a smaller Day 1 game, may have been delayed from this month.
Yeah, I understand missing the surprise announcements and all. Ultimately, beyond the initial surprise, what matters in the end is the quality of the game itself.
Yeah, that is exactly what I’m saying.
For new games, definitely. There’s thousands of games that could be added to give the slower months some oomph though.
I don’t like when Game Pass is being a bit meh, it’s the biggest thing Xbox has.
Personally, you may think it’s meh and that is absolutely fine.
Objectively though, the general opinion seems to be that March has been a great month, at least in terms of the quality of the additions.
Also Jez has mentioned previously that they have a very strict curation for adding games to Game Pass. Maybe that has had an effect, but it is ultimately a good thing for ensuring that the games being added provide better value to the subscribers than before.
This is a really great point. It’s not really anybody’s fault if the original plan was to have 5 new games per drop but they all got delayed into December.
I don’t feel confident in declaring what the objectively correct general opinion is, but I know a lot of people are asking me wtf is up with GP these past drops so there’s that.
It’s still the best deal in gaming, but I think it’s fair to complain when it slacks off a bit.