Xbox Game Pass is a subscription service that provides access to a sizable game library for both Xbox consoles and Windows PCs. For a monthly fee, you can play hundreds of titles on your platform of choice. It's an appealing service that becomes even more tempting the more you’re willing to pay, with its flagship Xbox Game Pass Ultimate membership tier providing incredible value and numerous benefits, including cloud-based game streaming across multiple devices. That's enough to earn Xbox Game Pass Ultimate our Editors' Choice award for gaming streaming services.

Prices: The Best Game Pass Plan Is Now $10 More Expensive

Xbox Game Pass has four tiers, three of which include games for Xbox Series X/S, Xbox One, and Windows. More importantly, two tiers recently received price hikes: Xbox Game Pass Ultimate and Xbox Game Pass PC. Below, I break down the games and features included with each plan.

The Essential base plan ($9.99 per month) comes with more than 50 games and lets you stream select titles to compatible devices. The Premium tier ($14.99 per month) includes more than 200 games, and you can play recent Microsoft-published games within 12 months of their release. It also features shorter queue wait times when cloud gaming. The Ultimate tier (now $29.99 per month, up from $19.99 per month) features more than 500 games, including EA Play and Ubisoft+ Classics titles.

In addition, you'll enjoy Microsoft releases on day one, plus the best game streaming quality. These three tiers enable online multiplayer on Xbox consoles (online gaming on PC is, as always, free), and include discounts on individual game purchases.

(Credit: Xbox Game Studios)

The Essential and Premium memberships are priced the same as the Essential and Extra memberships for PlayStation Plus, but the included game streaming puts them a step ahead of Sony's subscription service. Xbox Game Pass Ultimate is significantly more expensive than PlayStation Plus Premium ($17.99 per month), and unlike Sony, Xbox doesn't give you a discount for three-month or 12-month subscriptions.

The fourth plan is the PC-only Game Pass (now $16.49 per month, up from $11.99 per month). It'll get you most of the PC games available on the Ultimate subscription, including Microsoft-published day-one games and the EA Play library. Streaming isn't part of the package, however.

Nintendo Switch and Switch 2 owners can sign up for Nintendo Switch Online ($19.99 per year, $49.99 per year with the Expansion Pass). However, that service doesn't include recently released games. On the upside, it features retro titles from several handheld and console eras, including the Game Boy, Game Boy Advance, NES, SNES, and N64 (and if you have a Switch 2, GameCube games).

(Credit: Xbox Game Studio/PCMag)

Game Library: Many Cool Titles Spread Across Multiple Tiers

More than anything else, the Xbox Game Pass library will determine the value the service holds for you. It has hundreds of games for both Xbox and Windows, but more than half are exclusive to the Ultimate or PC tiers. To check any given game, visit Xbox Game Pass' website or browse the listings on your Xbox or the Xbox app for Windows. You'll also need to check whether the game you want to play is available on Xbox or Windows, as some are exclusive to one platform or the other.

Want to play Blue Prince, Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, Doom: The Dark Ages, The Outer Worlds 2, or Silksong? You need Xbox Game Pass PC or Ultimate.

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III, Forza Horizon 5, Hogwarts Legacy, No Man's Sky, or Palworld? Premium or PC.

Control Ultimate Edition, Doom Eternal, Psychonauts 2, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder's Revenge? Essential or PC.

It's a study in contrasts, but the PC and Ultimate plans are needed if you want to play recently released major games without purchasing them directly. On the other hand, neither Sony nor Nintendo has an equivalent feature set. Expect to wait a while for the biggest Sony-published games to hit PlayStation Plus, and Nintendo doesn't add its tentpole releases to Nintendo Switch Online unless they're at least 20 years old (as in, GameCube at the newest).

Xbox Cloud Gaming: Smooth Streaming With Little Lag

Microsoft's game streaming service, Xbox Cloud Gaming, has exited beta after being available on Xbox Game Pass Ultimate for years. Removing the beta tag doesn't change much, as the service continues to work as well as before. It lets you play any title available through your subscription tier, or certain games you've individually purchased on the Xbox store, on remote hardware. The games run on Microsoft's servers, with all graphics, sound, and inputs streaming to and from those servers to your system.

Xbox Cloud Gaming is accessible through the Xbox Game Pass app on Android phones, most recent Samsung and LG TVs, Amazon Fire TV media streamers with Wi-Fi 6 (including the Fire TV Stick 4K and Fire TV Cube), Meta Quest VR headsets, and Windows PCs. You can also access Xbox Cloud Gaming via a web browser, making it usable on iPads, iPhones, and Macs. On iOS and iPadOS, the relevant web page provides helpful instructions on saving the page as an icon to your device's home screen, which allows it to behave exactly like the app does on Android.

To play Xbox games on your chosen system, you need a compatible controller. You can simply pair an Xbox Wireless Controller over Bluetooth, or for your phone, use one of the various gamepads designed specifically for Xbox cloud gaming, such as the Backbone or Razer Kishi.

Most importantly, you need a fast internet connection. Microsoft recommends a 5GHz Wi-Fi connection or an LTE/5G mobile connection capable of at least 10Mbps downstream. Decent upstream speed will also help keep your inputs feeling responsive. And, as always, the faster the connection, the better. Unless you have mmWave 5G and are in an exceptional signal location, 5GHz Wi-Fi (or 6GHz, if you have a device with Wi-Fi 6E or Wi-Fi 7) will likely be your best option.

I streamed Xbox Game Pass gamed on an iPhone 12 and a Google Pixel 8 with a Backbone controller. I connected to my home cable network via 5GHz Wi-Fi, which showed consistent speeds of 740 Mbps down and 38 Mbps up.

Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, Guilty Gear Strive, Forza Horizon 5, and Hollow Knight all play surprisingly well on the service. In testing, the games were very responsive, letting me meet the tight timing demands in the various titles. Their save files carried over to their local Xbox and PC counterparts, preserving my progress between playing on a phone and other hardware.