Proposal: Xbox Game Pass + Xbox Play Anywhere property

[Andytizer 269]

Xbox Game Pass - this is the subscription service for Xbox One + PC. PC games are currently limited but is going to grow with plenty of exclusives including the first official release of a Halo FPS since Halo 2 - Halo: Infinity.

It would be helpful to have a property so that we can build a proper list (instead of this manual one: https://pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/List_of_games_on_Xbox_Game_Pass)

 

Xbox Play Anywhere - also a property to show cross-platform Xbox purchases - so that we can standardise this notes field. This isn't 100% identical to the Windows Store property, but will have a lot of overlap. 

 

Thoughts - advantages/disadvantages?

[Mirh 103]

Both play anywhere and game pass seem like properties for windows store.

 

In turn, windows store may also intertwine/equal to UWP (of especial note if we consider it a separate OS platform), but it's OT for this thread imo.

[Andytizer 269]

Yes this makes sense to put as a Windows Store property.

Not sure about the UWP as a separate platform.

[Andytizer 269]

Rumour is that Xbox games will have a single binary that runs on Xbox/PC, making this property even more important: 

 

[Aemony 152]

Because we don't currently have a good way to handle these sorts of supplementary features, I opted to create a new template that allows setting these properties and embeds the results in a {{ii}} bullet point, with the intention of the template being used just below the availability table. The reason why I opted for this and not the Notes section of the availability table was because I believe the field can otherwise become quite lengthy in text if there's other notes that needs to be mentioned there.

That said, all that needs to be changed for the template to be compatible and used directly in the Notes field is the removal of the {{ii}} bullet point, and nothing else.

 

Preview:

Properties:

• Property:Microsoft Store Game Pass
• Property:Microsoft Store Play Anywhere

Templates:

• Template:Microsoft Store features
• Template:Microsoft Store features/Documentation

[Aemony 152]

The existence of this template and the attempt to now track Game Pass titles (a subscription service that adds and removes games in its catalog every now and then) have made me question whether we shouldn't opt for a more generic template instead that's designed to be extended for whatever supplementary feature might come up.

Something like this basically:

{{Store features
 | microsoft store game pass = true
 | microsoft store play anywhere = true
 | origin access = 
 | origin access premier = true
}}

which would then create a list like this:

{{ii}} Included in Xbox Game Pass subscription service.
{{ii}} Xbox Play Anywhere title; purchase it on either Microsoft Store on Windows 10 or Xbox, and receive copies for both platforms.
{{ii}} Included in Origin Access Premier subscription service.

If this was then used below the availability row, you'd have an easy placement where the list could grow naturally as features was determined as necessary to add to the template.

Edit:

The obvious negative downside of this is that it wouldn't allow us to include it in the Availability table unless we redesigned that entirely and added new parameters to it.

[Aemony 152]

Played around a bit in Firefox's inspector tool. If we solely plan to keep this limited to "alternative sources" of obtaining access to games right now, then I can whip up an extension to the Availability template, and add notes to boot.

 

Example mockup:

 

Base source code, so I don't forget it 😅

<tr class="template-infotable-head">
		<th scope="col" style="width: 230px;">Alternative sources</th>
		<th scope="col" style="width: 50px;"> </th>
		<th style="width: 540px;" scope="col" colspan="3">Notes</th>
	</tr><tr class="template-infotable-body">
		<th scope="row"><abbr title="asdsad">Xbox Play Anywhere</abbr></th>
		<td><div title="Native support" class="svg-icon svg-25 tickcross-true"></div> </td>
		<td colspan="3">Does not apply to the 2016 re-release.</td>
	</tr><tr class="template-infotable-body">
		
		<th scope="row"><abbr title="asdsad">Xbox Game Pass</abbr></th><td><div title="Native support" class="svg-icon svg-25 tickcross-true"></div> </td>
		<td colspan="3">Comes pre-packaged with cosmetics DLCs.</td>
	</tr><tr class="template-infotable-body">
		<th scope="row"><abbr title="asdsad">Origin Access Basic</abbr></th>
		<td><div title="Native support" class="svg-icon svg-25 tickcross-false"></div> </td>
		<td colspan="3">Limited to 10-hour trial.</td>
	</tr><tr class="template-infotable-body">
		<th scope="row"><abbr title="asdsad">Origin Access Premier</abbr></th>
		<td><div title="Native support" class="svg-icon svg-25 tickcross-true"></div> </td>
		<td colspan="3">Deluxe Edition</td>
	</tr>

[Andytizer 269]

Yes this is very interesting.. this could work especially if we have more subscription services come about - however it is very unlikely that one game would appear in multiple services at the moment.

To be more concise, ideally the info should be in the 'Notes' field of the Windows Store row - is this impossible? Same with Origin.

[Andytizer 269]

Marking this topic as completed thanks to Aemony's hard work! Tables now looking very tidy.

[Andytizer 269]

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