Microsoft’s GDC 2019 schedule shows that the company plans to expand its Xbox Games Pass business in a very big way. There are plans afoot to take the service to iOS, Android and Nintendo Switch in the future. This would open up the market and allow gamers to play Xbox Game Pass games that they wouldn’t normally be able to play.
It is likely that this move will be possible due to cloud gaming services, probably Microsoft’s Project xCloud Xbox streaming service, which will allow games to be played on devices that wouldn’t normally be able to handle such games. Xbox bought the PlayFab company in 2018 and it is they who are likely to provide the back end tools to make this venture possible.
Below is a quote from Microsoft’s GDC schedule page, this has since been removed by the company:
“Xbox Live is one of the largest, most engaged gaming communities on the planet with decades of experience providing managed game services to developers that save you time and unlock all of the social and engagement features that players love.
Now Xbox Live is about to get MUCH bigger. Xbox Live is expanding from 400M gaming devices and a reach to over 68M active players to over 2B devices with the release of our new cross-platform XDK.
Get a first look at the SDK to enable game developers to connect players between iOS, Android, and Switch in addition to Xbox and any game in the Microsoft Store on Windows PCs.”
