How Many People Have Friends on Xbox?

Xbox Game Pass and Microsoft’s moves in the gaming market in India dominate the discussion on this episode of Transition as games editor Rishi Alwani and friend of the podcast Mikhail Madnani join host Pranay Parab. We also talk about Sea of Thieves beta, Xbox One X, Rainbow Six Siege, Monster Hunter World, and more games.

Xbox Game Pass (0:46)

• What it is


• How this is affecting retailers


• Why Microsoft is chasing this


• How much it costs


• Is Game Pass good value for money


• The caveats of Game Pass


• How many subscriptions do you need?


• Microsoft’s ecosystem play


• Microsoft moving away from physical copies of games


• The bandwidth cost


• Licensing issues and games leaving the vault

Sea of Thieves beta (20:46)

• Our first impressions


• The problems with the beta


• No handholding


• How we expect the game to play out


• What the game is about


• Comparisons with No Man’s Sky


• The future of Rare

Xbox One X India response (27:45)

• Interview with Xbox India head


• Offline retail


• Reliance Jio effect


• Sony’s India strategy for games


• Limited edition Xbox consoles coming to India


• Xbox One X stock situation in India


• PC hardware pricing in India

Rainbow Six Siege (33:30)

• Ubisoft’s updates to the game


• Gamer backlash over the new edition


• Loot boxes in the game


• Games as a service

Games we’ve been playing this week (37:26)

• Yakuza 0


• Monster Hunter World


• Sea of Thieves


• Dragonball Fighterz

Music: Popular Potpourri and Path Complete from PPPPPP by Magnus “Souleye” Pålsson.