Xbox and Discord have announced a new partnership that involves updates made to the latter’s subscription service – Discord Nitro. This update involves bringing in a Game Pass Starter subscription to Nitro. Along with this, the Discord application has gotten updates with the goal of boosting game discoverability that tie in with Game Pass.
The companies have also confirmed that, in the future, Game Pass subscribers will also get Discord Nitro benefits as part of the partnership. These benefits include 250 Discord Orbs every month, 1.2x extra Orbs when completing Quests, and automatically-applied Discord Shop discounts.
“For years, Xbox and Discord have worked together to make it easier to connect, chat, and play together across devices. From bringing Discord voice to Xbox consoles to enabling live streaming directly to your Discord friends, we’ve been focused on meeting players where they already are and making gaming more social along the way,” wrote Xbox in its announcement.
“We’re teaming up again as we continue to make Game Pass more flexible for players, bringing new benefits to both Xbox Game Pass and Discord communities.”
Interestingly, the idea of bundling Game Pass benefits with other subscription services is far from a new one. Back in March, Netflix co-CEO Greg Peters had spoken about his conversations with Xbox CEO Asha Sharma and how this could lead to a potential partnership between the two companies. While no official announcement has been made, Peters hinted that we could see Game Pass benefits bundled in with a Netflix subscription, and vice versa.
“You would have to do it in a way that works for the consumer and works for both companies, and frankly, I think Microsoft’s still trying to figure out how to make the Game Pass bundle work for Microsoft,” said Peters. “But what I like about Asha’s thinking is, it’s all about, ‘How do we do more?’ And it’s already been exciting to watch.”
In the meantime, rumors have also been going around of a potential new Game Pass subscription tier that would only include first-party games published under the Xbox Game Studios label. Dataminers had discovered references to this tier, codenamed Triton, along with a list of games that includes DOOM 64, Psychonauts, Retro Classics, DOOM Eternal, Dishonored 2, Fable Anniversary, Fallout 4, Fallout 76, Gears 5, Halo 5: Guardians, Halo Wars 2, Hellblade, Ori and the Blind Forest, State of Decay 2, and The Elder Scrolls Online.
Sharma had also spoken about the value offered by Game Pass and how its price is too high. “Game Pass is central to gaming value on Xbox,” reads an internal memo penned by Sharma. “It’s also clear that the current model isn’t the final one. Short term, Game Pass has become too expensive for players, so we need a better value equation. Long term, we will evolve Game Pass into a more flexible system, which will take time to test and learn around.”
More recent reports have also indicated that we might see a “Pick Your Own Plan” system coming to Game Pass subscriptions, giving users more options to opt in and out of benefits that they don’t use.
