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A lot of M.E.N.A (Middle East, North Africa) and elsewhere representation. Good for folks who live in these regions.

PC Game Pass Preview is Available for Insiders in 40 New Countries - Xbox Wire

We’re excited to welcome new community members from around the world to PC Game Pass as the service expands.

news.xbox.com

Beginning on February 28, gamers in these new markets can sign up for PC Game Pass Preview program giving them immediate access to a library of hundreds of high-quality PC games on Windows including new Xbox Game Studios releases on day one, iconic Bethesda games, an EA Play membership, and member-only benefits in Riot Games. It only takes a few minutes to download the Xbox Insider Hub app and sign up to join the Insider Program. Once registered, players can join the preview of PC Game Pass for a special testing price for the first month.

In the coming months, PC Game Pass will launch in these countries for all players to experience. This means that Game Pass community members from 86 countries around the world can play hundreds of games together with their friends and family.

Country list:

• Albania
• Algeria
• Bahrain
• Bolivia
• Bosnia and Herzegovina
• Bulgaria
• Costa Rica
• Croatia
• Cyprus
• Ecuador
• Egypt
• El Salvador
• Estonia
• Georgia
• Guatemala
• Honduras
• Iceland
• Kuwait
• Latvia
• Libya
• Liechtenstein
• Lithuania
• Luxembourg
• Malta
• Moldova
• Montenegro
• Morocco
• Nicaragua
• North Macedonia
• Oman
• Panama
• Paraguay
• Peru
• Qatar
• Romania
• Serbia
• Slovenia
• Tunisia
• Ukraine
• Uruguay

 

[Daneel Elijah]

A lot of those countries basically do not have the high speed internet needed for Gamepass.
But for the customers there it will be better than using VPN ( if that even worked?). Thanks for the info!

 

[amigastar]

Good, make it successful.

 

[pasterpl]

A lot of those countries basically do not have the high speed internet needed for Gamepass.
But for the customers there it will be better than using VPN ( if that even worked?). Thanks for the info!

How do they play any modern games then, where most of them require big day 1 patches and regular, big updates? Just a reminder - Gamepass is not only xcloud.

 

[Daneel Elijah]

How do they play any modern games then, where most of them require big day 1 patches and regular, big updates? Just a reminder - Gamepass is not only xcloud.

Depends of the country, and of the games. Some continue to play older consoles like the PS3 and having slower internet means that they simply needs more time to load a game, but can still do it. Think of it that way:
you have probably fiber optic and aroud or over 100 Mb speeds.
poorer and or/ less well placed people are stuck with ADSL and have around 20 Mb I think ?
In those countries there will be 2 Mb offers, and the cost make it hard to have for most families, so the connection will be shared with the whole building basically, for the few who do have it. And the service is shit comparatively to what we have in Europe and USA. Some of those countries do not have water all the time after all. But the capital will be comparable to a remote region in a richer country so there still is consumers to find. Good point for Microsoft. And a certain numbers of those countries are touristic, so it will help them in that too, for the country attractivity and the benefits of the tourists.

 

[DenchDeckard]

Good to see its rolling out in more countries.

 

[MOTM]

A lot of those countries basically do not have the high speed internet needed for Gamepass.
But for the customers there it will be better than using VPN ( if that even worked?). Thanks for the info!

Come on, most of the middle class people in those countries have internet that is more than fast enough for modern gaming.

Neogaf acts like 10 people on this planet have high speed internet.

 

[geary]

I am in one of those countries and I have 1GB connections of internet. What can I say, some of these countries are more advanced in the internet than some believes.

 

[Daneel Elijah]

Come on, most of the middle class people in those countries have internet that is more than fast enough for modern gaming.

Neogaf acts like 10 people on this planet have high speed internet.

I am in one of those countries and I have 1GB connections of internet. What can I say, some of these countries are more advanced in the internet than some believes.

Happy to hear that. And love it honestly. But outside of the capitals... Depends of the country of course.

 

[fersnake]

I live in Guatemala and i have fiber but just 50mb, going to upgrade to 300mb in a couple of months tho, of course its not comparable like you guys but its something right? btw you can play anygame with the lowest connection, now if you wanna download a game in the other hand is gonna take a while.

ps. i preaviously tried gamepass but with a code from a ryzen cpu that i bought so.. i think the only way to purchase it was with an xbox console but dont quote me on that.

 

[Bojji]

Come on, most of the middle class people in those countries have internet that is more than fast enough for modern gaming.

Neogaf acts like 10 people on this planet have high speed internet.

Exactly. In poorer counties it took way more time to connect some areas to the network but whey they did they used high speed solutions.

I have 1Gb connection for like 5 or 6 years i think in 25k town in Poland and right now there are 4 or 5 different fibre internet providers in my block alone.

 

[Bo_Hazem]

Oman? You not gonna get my $1, Phil.

 

[ironmang]

Good for them. I know games can get expensive in some countries so cheaper options are always a good thing.

 

[pasterpl]

Depends of the country, and of the games. Some continue to play older consoles like the PS3 and having slower internet means that they simply needs more time to load a game, but can still do it. Think of it that way:
you have probably fiber optic and aroud or over 100 Mb speeds.
poorer and or/ less well placed people are stuck with ADSL and have around 20 Mb I think ?
In those countries there will be 2 Mb offers, and the cost make it hard to have for most families, so the connection will be shared with the whole building basically, for the few who do have it. And the service is shit comparatively to what we have in Europe and USA. Some of those countries do not have water all the time after all. But the capital will be comparable to a remote region in a richer country so there still is consumers to find. Good point for Microsoft. And a certain numbers of those countries are touristic, so it will help them in that too, for the country attractivity and the benefits of the tourists.

I live in London Uk and my avg download speed on my Xbox series x are between 400-600 mb/s - I am using 5g home broadband.
Got second home in rural Poland in Eastern Europe and use 5g home broadband there (it is limited to due to coverage) but still I get close to 100 mb/s when downloading games on Xbox there. There are lots of Eastern European countries on the list, that probably have similar situation, especially if they are part of the EU. In big cities in Poland you can easily get fibre.

Even looking at this

Countries with fastest internet speed in world 2024 | Statista

The country with the fastest internet network speed in the world in 2022 was Norway with close to 127 Mbps, while South Korea came in seventh.

www.statista.com

You have got UAE, Kuwait, Qatar, Bulgaria on the list.

Also

Average fixed broadband speed to reach 41.2 Mbps in Middle East, Africa by 2023: Cisco - Dailynewsegypt

In the Middle East and Africa, the average fixed broadband connection speed will increase to 41.2 Mbps in 2023, from 9.7 Mbps in 2018, according to the report. Average mobile connection speed in the region will increase to 24.8 Mbps, compared to 6.9 Mbps in 2018, a 3.6 times growth.

dailynewsegypt.com

Average fixed broadband speed to reach 41.2 Mbps in Middle East, Africa by 2023: Cisco

Come on, most of the middle class people in those countries have internet that is more than fast enough for modern gaming.

Neogaf acts like 10 people on this planet have high speed internet.

I am in one of those countries and I have 1GB connections of internet. What can I say, some of these countries are more advanced in the internet than some believes.

This, people needs to stop thinking that all countries outside of USA, Japan and west Europe have shit internet. It is not mid 1990 anymore.

 

[Daneel Elijah]

I live in London Uk and my avg download speed on my Xbox series x are between 400-600 mb/s - I am using 5g home broadband.
Got second home in rural Poland in Eastern Europe and use 5g home broadband there (it is limited to due to coverage) but still I get close to 100 mb/s when downloading games on Xbox there. There are lots of Eastern European countries on the list, that probably have similar situation, especially if they are part of the EU. In big cities in Poland you can easily get fibre.

Even looking at this

Countries with fastest internet speed in world 2024 | Statista

The country with the fastest internet network speed in the world in 2022 was Norway with close to 127 Mbps, while South Korea came in seventh.

www.statista.com

You have got UAE, Kuwait, Qatar, Bulgaria on the list.

Also

Average fixed broadband speed to reach 41.2 Mbps in Middle East, Africa by 2023: Cisco - Dailynewsegypt

In the Middle East and Africa, the average fixed broadband connection speed will increase to 41.2 Mbps in 2023, from 9.7 Mbps in 2018, according to the report. Average mobile connection speed in the region will increase to 24.8 Mbps, compared to 6.9 Mbps in 2018, a 3.6 times growth.

dailynewsegypt.com

This, people needs to stop thinking that all countries outside of USA, Japan and west Europe have shit internet. It is not mid 1990 anymore.

Love it! Hope it get true in the rural areas soon too!

 

[MidGenRefresh]

A lot of those countries basically do not have the high speed internet needed for Gamepass.

Most of these countries have better internet infrastructure than USA.

 

[Chukhopops]

Finally some support for Luxembourg, to be fair PC GP always worked there but I guess you couldn’t create new accounts?

Next step is to finally bring Xcloud there and I’ll be completely satisfied.

 

[Rockondevil]

I live in Guatemala and i have fiber but just 50mb, going to upgrade to 300mb in a couple of months tho, of course its not comparable like you guys but its something right? btw you can play anygame with the lowest connection, now if you wanna download a game in the other hand is gonna take a while.

ps. i preaviously tried gamepass but with a code from a ryzen cpu that i bought so.. i think the only way to purchase it was with an xbox console but dont quote me on that.

I’m Aussie and only get 50mb. You’ll be fine with game pass. Just takes a little longer to download.

 

[The_Mike]

A lot of those countries basically do not have the high speed internet needed for Gamepass.
But for the customers there it will be better than using VPN ( if that even worked?). Thanks for the info!

Luckily you can download the games instead of streaming them.

 

[fersnake]

I’m Aussie and only get 50mb. You’ll be fine with game pass. Just takes a little longer to download.

i remember downloading cod mw2 back in the day with 128kbps so belive me im patient haha

 

[adamsapple]

I’m Aussie and only get 50mb. You’ll be fine with game pass. Just takes a little longer to download.

Before I moved to the US, the fastest internet I had in my home country was 4Mbps.

The first thing I did after getting a place of my own was get a 100Mbps Fios, shit blew my mind back in the day.

Currently on a 300Mbps connection and I look back at those 4Mbps days like man .. that sure was a time.

Oman? You not gonna get my $1, Phil.

 

[TheBreezyBB]

A lot of those countries basically do not have the high speed internet needed for Gamepass.
But for the customers there it will be better than using VPN ( if that even worked?). Thanks for the info!

One of those is Qatar, they had residential 10Gb fibre 10 years ago, and 4g+ speeds were 300Mbs in 70% of the country.

 

[Topher]

Neogaf acts like 10 people on this planet have high speed internet.

One reply equates to all of Neogaf?

 

[IndianaJack]

Microsoft Admits Game Pass Cannibalizes Sales - IGN

Xbox has admitted that titles added to its Game Pass subscription service can suffer from decreased sales.

www.ign.com

 

[adamsapple]

Microsoft Admits Game Pass Cannibalizes Sales - IGN

Xbox has admitted that titles added to its Game Pass subscription service can suffer from decreased sales.

www.ign.com

um, ok ?

 

[JLB]

A lot of those countries basically do not have the high speed internet needed for Gamepass.
But for the customers there it will be better than using VPN ( if that even worked?). Thanks for the info!

? i mean nowadays downloading 30%ish of a game is enough to start playing it. Maybe you are thinking on xcloud?
Btw some of those countries have much better avg internet service than US.

 

[BennyBlanco]

Microsoft Admits Game Pass Cannibalizes Sales - IGN

Xbox has admitted that titles added to its Game Pass subscription service can suffer from decreased sales.

www.ign.com

 

[JLB]

Depends of the country, and of the games. Some continue to play older consoles like the PS3 and having slower internet means that they simply needs more time to load a game, but can still do it. Think of it that way:
you have probably fiber optic and aroud or over 100 Mb speeds.
poorer and or/ less well placed people are stuck with ADSL and have around 20 Mb I think ?
In those countries there will be 2 Mb offers, and the cost make it hard to have for most families, so the connection will be shared with the whole building basically, for the few who do have it. And the service is shit comparatively to what we have in Europe and USA. Some of those countries do not have water all the time after all. But the capital will be comparable to a remote region in a richer country so there still is consumers to find. Good point for Microsoft. And a certain numbers of those countries are touristic, so it will help them in that too, for the country attractivity and the benefits of the tourists.

some, maybe. Other on that list are far from being the shitholes that some people think of. Go google Punta Del Este, Uruguay for example.

 

[Brucey]

Most of these countries have better internet infrastructure than USA.

What I've found is that in the US often a cable company has a monopoly deal worked out with the local town or city, so there is zero fixed line competition to improve speeds or reliability. Starting to see more options now with Starlink and wireless 4g/5g but many countries are far further along in internet infrastructure than one might assume.