By CCN.com: Microsoft is seeking to explore their avenues for monetizing older titles, ranging from Xbox One all the way back to their first and second-gen consoles. Players have been exposed to thousands of titles, but the Xbox Game Pass Service only holds around 300 titles as of this writing.
Western Digital has collaborated with Microsoft to create a 12TB HDD which can hold all of Xbox Game Pass in one place. Compared to the storage provided by consoles one decade ago, this is not a massive uptick in terms of space availability. Approximately 250GB was allocated to consoles with the 2009 collaboration between Infinity Ward and Microsoft.
Dubbed ‘D10. the HDD is pretty cool, though not exactly record-breaking. Game Pass Offerings, however, leave something to be desired. Their competition, PS Now, has already accrued over 800 titles and continues to grow by the day.
It is worth noting that Game Pass will include several launch-day AAA titles, such as the upcoming Halo, Forza, and more.
Microsoft’s streaming service contains approximately 300 games, not all titles are the size of full-fledged AAA games, however, so this storage space will extend beyond AAA title counts. Game Pass will fit entirely within the 12TB hard drive at this stage.
Twelve Terabytes is a moderate amount of space in the modern environment. One Modern Call of Duty title occupies around 80 GB. The 12 TB D10 collaboration hard drive will hold the equivalent of 150 modern AAA titles, provided they are the same size as Call of Duty: WWII. This is equivalent to 6,000 hours of HD video. Xbox Game Pass contains less than that.
Game Pass will likely contain a large number of indie titles and older games. This could be both a blessing and a curse for subscribers, who may not have their desired games available. Some AAA titles, such as Halo and Forza will be available on launch day through Xbox Game Pass. Despite this, players have little assurance that this is more than just a marketing push to drive subscriptions for the service.