Xbox Game Pass Ultimate Samsung smart-TV partnership
Xbox Game Pass Ultimate Samsung smart-TV partnership
On June 30th 2022, Xbox announced that it was bringing the Xbox app to Samsung 2022 smart TVs. Hundreds of games from the Xbox Game Pass Ultimate library, and Fortnite were to become available for the new Samsung smart-TV owners without the need for a subscription. Parent company Microsoft has positioned playing Xbox games on Samsung’s 2022 smart TVs as “a seamless experience – it will be similar to using any other streaming app on your TV”. As a result, Samsung smart-TV owners can access the Xbox app from the Samsung Gaming Hub or Media Hub and log into their existing Microsoft account using their preferred Bluetooth controller.
This significantly expands Xbox’s addressable market and dilutes the importance of expensive games-dedicated hardware ownership. Enabling Game Pass Ultimate subscribers to stream games that they already own outside of Xbox hardware means that they do not need to have the games downloaded or installed. This a significant improvement in the user experience for gamers – with implications on a small handful of publishers that own some of the largest titles in terms of file size (some of these also happen to be among the most popular games). Microsoft thus weakened strategic positioning of top titles with the largest files – they will no longer pose as much of a barrier to entry and deter / slow down consumers from trying and playing other games. This is a clear win for gamers who will no longer have to painfully prioritise or spend hours installing, deleting, and reinstalling titles because of finite storage space.
For smart-TV operators, this partnership represents the shape of things to come as games streaming meets cloud solutions and the emerging entertainment hub dynamic of the smart TV. Fortunately for Samsung’s competitors, the Xbox Game Pass Ultimate partnership is non-exclusive, opening opportunities for competitors keen to monetise their own higher spending smart-TV owning gamer consumer bases.
Roles
This report is relevant to the following roles:
Product Strategy