Microsoft has confirmed that paying subscribers to the Core and Standard tiers of its Game Pass subscription service may not be able to play titles from its first-party studios “for up to 12 months or more” after launch.
Clarifying the substantial changes it made to its Xbox Game Pass service last month, Microsoft confirmed in a recent Xbox Wire post that only the $12/m PC tier and $20/m Ultimate tier will benefit from EA Play membership and access to Xbox “day one titles.”
Instead, subscribers to the Core plan ($10/m) and the upcoming Standard plan ($15/m) will get a curated catalog of 25 “high-quality console games” and “hundreds of high-quality console games,” respectively.
All console tiers will get online console membership, and all four tiers will receive “member offers and discounts.”
Until this point, it was unclear how long Standard and Core subscribers would have to wait to play the “day one” first-party releases that used to be included in Game Pass.
“Some games coming to Game Pass Ultimate (day one games or other game entries) will not be immediately available with Game Pass Standard and may be added to the library at a future date (this could be up to 12 months or more and will vary by title),” Xbox Game Pass Senior Community Lead Megan Spurr wrote.
“We'll continue to share with all Game Pass members when games are added and available to play on each plan.”
Microsoft has yet to confirm when its new standard Game Pass tier will be available.