In conjunction with the official launch of the PC Game Pass subscription for the Malaysian market, I had the opportunity to interview Jeremy Hinton, Director and Head of Business of Xbox Asia recently to talk about this latest offering from Microsoft.
Since the first Xbox console was launched 20 years ago in 2002, gamers in Malaysia have been cheering and wanting it to be officially offered in the country. Surprisingly, although Microsoft has been established in Malaysia for decades with offerings for perhaps 80-90 per cent of their product offerings in the country, the official presence of the Microsoft Xbox console and Xbox Live service has yet to be offered for this market.
A few weeks ago, Microsoft was seen to have started testing their PC Game Pass subscriptions in five countries in the Southeast Asian region, including Malaysia. During the testing phase, Microsoft Malaysia showed a first month subscription offer priced at 50 sen, where the subscription for subsequent months is RM15.
Last week, the PC Game Pass subscription offer was officially introduced which offers a subscription of RM5 for the first three months at once and also RM15 for the following months. Microsoft is now seen offering over 100 computer games from their studios as well as other publishing companies.
This PC Game Pass subscription can be seen to be very worthwhile as it is included along with the free EA Play subscription as well which allows you to play a large number of their released computer games for free.
But turning to an interview with Jeremy Hinton, we asked him what prompted Microsoft to finally offer this subscription for the region, he said that the high demand for PC Game Pass subscriptions, along with the very large gaming PC market are two a key aspect of why it is finally offered in this market.
When asked about the prices set for PC Game Pass subscriptions in Malaysia, Jeremy Hinton said that the prices for their subscriptions, including Office 365, Xbox Game Pass, PC Game Pass and so on are set from region to region and not just according to currency exchange rates. USD to ensure people can enjoy the computer games offered at affordable prices.
Southeast Asia is technically among the world’s largest markets for the (first) mobile gaming market and when asked about Microsoft’s plans for the first platform, the Windows 11 operating system comes with support for built-in Android apps.
It's no surprise that the Amazon Appstore, which hosts Android applications so far, will also come with a number of debuts that can be played through computers with the Windows 11 operating system.
But the question that remains unanswered until now is when the Xbox gaming console will be officially offered in Malaysia. As we said in the first few paragraphs, the console was introduced since 2002 and to date, it has not yet been officially sold in the local market.
Technically, it can be purchased at video game stores around Malaysia, and even Xbox physical game discs are easily available, but without official confirmation by Microsoft, any warranty is limited to stores sold only, and subscription services such as Xbox Game Passes can only be subscribed using VPN services.
For now, Jeremy can’t give a final word on whether Microsoft will introduce official support for their video game consoles as well as the Xbox Game Pass subscription that comes with the Xbox Cloud Gaming game streaming service which we’re also sure is eagerly awaited by those who don’t have powerful computers to run a number of games offered through PC Game Pass.
Speaking about Xbox Cloud Gaming, Jeremy Hinton also said that the Xbox Game Pass Ultimate offering is limited to certain markets in particular because Xbox Cloud Gaming requires certain infrastructure that needs to be developed by Microsoft to promise a good gaming experience.
Xbox Cloud Gaming can stream all of the games offered at Full HD resolution and a refresh rate of 60FPS, and while this doesn't necessarily require high internet speeds (10Mbps via app, 20Mbps via computer), latency is a more difficult because it will affect the input as well as the output of the players when they play the game in streaming.
Aspects like these are seen to have an impact on why Microsoft is still not ready to offer Xbox Game Pass subscriptions, especially Ultimate to this market for now.
But Jeremy also said that it is not impossible that Xbox Game Pass subscriptions could be offered in Malaysia in the future as the infrastructure becomes more suitable to introduce the service and possibly even the Xbox console in Malaysia officially.
For us, this was a good first step from Microsoft in particular as they finally realized that there was demand in countries other than first world locations like America, Europe, Australia, even Singapore.
The very affordable PC Game Pass offer is also a great thing as it means more people can try different types of computer games without having to buy them, and if the game doesn’t fit the soul, customers just have to delete the game and try the game. another.
Interestingly, Microsoft is now also seen buying various video game studios, the largest of which is Activision-Blizzard. The acquisition is seen to change how game subscription services can be offered to users, particularly for games that require additional subscriptions like World of Warcraft.
For now, Microsoft’s gaming focus for the region is to ensure PC Game Pass can be enjoyed by as many as possible. It is seen that Microsoft will introduce PC Game Pass passes that can be physically purchased at convenience stores like 7-11, as well as joint promotions of local computer stores for those who may not be able to pay for subscriptions online.
If the number of subscriptions in the Southeast Asian region is seen as encouraging, perhaps Microsoft will be happy to add official support to countries other than Singapore.