Xbox Game Pass and its PC version are fast becoming one of the best ways to shower on games on the cheap. For £4/$5/month, you can download 372 games, including new releases (though several of them are dual editions of the same game). It's a ridiculously affordable service, but not surprisingly, it doesn't make a lot of money for Microsoft.

It's often said: "How the hell does Microsoft make money?" If I were to buy only three games like "Gears Tactics" over the next year, it would cost me £150; with Xbox Game Pass, I can play as many games as I have time for and pay less than £50 for the whole year. That's a lot of money that many people no longer give to Microsoft, despite the fact that there were 10 million subscribers in April.

On a recent episode of What's Good Games, Xbox game marketing boss Aaron Greenberg casually explained that while this is not a "big profitable play," it is a powerful marketing tool.

"It's a difference in mindset," Greenberg said. 'How do you extract more profit from each customer?' Or, vice versa, 'How do I give more value to my fans? If you do that, you create lifelong fans. And if people feel that you are over-delivering value, not only will they want to continue using your services, they will want to tell their friends about it. This is word-of-mouth marketing at its most powerful." [The strategy seems to be working; Xbox Game Pass is one of the few initiatives Microsoft has undertaken that is constantly praised. I hesitate to suggest that you get caught up in the Microsoft ecosystem forever, but I always do. Thankfully, Greenberg hopes you'll be a lifelong fan, but cancelling your subscription is easy.

Currently, the first month of Xbox Game Pass costs just £1/$1. If you haven't signed up yet, you might want to wait until Microsoft Flight Simulator launches on August 18, which would normally cost £60/$60, but this way you can fly around for at least a month with the regular version for very little money.

Cheers, Gamespot.