You’re probably familiar with going to Valve’s Steam service to download a variety of PC, Linux, Mac, and even the latest Xbox Game Studios games. At the same time, however, Microsoft also has its own Xbox app on Windows that lets you install your own games and other PC games like Destiny 2.
The two services compete with each other, but, according to interviews seen on PC Gamer, it’s possible that Microsoft and Valve will put the PC version of Xbox Game Pass on the Steam store together.
It’s just a rumor at the moment and it hasn’t been confirmed, but Valve’s Gave Newell is apparently very open to the idea. When asked by PC Gamer about Steam launching its own subscription service, or Xbox Game Pass games, Newell had the following to say, praising Game Pass.
“I don’t think it’s something we think we need to do ourselves, build a subscription service at this time. But it’s obviously a welcome option for their customers and we’d be more than happy to work with them on Steam access to this service”.
Xbox Game Pass may indeed be a bargain, but Steam is by far the most popular service for PC gamers and gamers in general. Last reported in 2021, Steam had 120 million monthly active users, with 62.6 million using the service every day. And Xbox Game Pass has 25 million subscribers.
It’ll be interesting to see the two companies come together, as Microsoft does when it puts its games on Steam in 2020. That could help sell more Xbox Game Pass subscriptions, or even hardware like the Steam Deck, which will get Windows -optimized.
Of course, rumors are just rumors, but this partnership has been around before. Back in 2020, EA Play was added to Steam. So I hope there will be more development in the future.