Got the opportunity to plug in and play an XBOX series X, yesterday. Spent several hours with a new Hogwarts Legacy character. I’ve played many dozens of hours on Nintendo Switch and Switch 2. I was surprised that there is so much more visual detail and terrain detail, comparing between platforms. I knew the Nintendo port required almost an additional year, but now I know why.

Then I thought I’d check out Minecraft. I bought the stand-alone game because I wanted to ensure that it didn’t fall out of availability from Game Pass.

But then, I wanted to play my Minecraft Realm world. And even though I’ve had a Realm for years and haven’t needed Game Pass to connect from my Nintendo Switch or my Windows PC, I had to subscribe to Game Pass for the ability to connect the XBOX. The option is visible but you can’t use it until the subscription is live. So I do have Game Pass for the moment, but grudgingly. At the base level, I don’t know that I need cloud game play, but 5 hours per month seems ludicrously low.

Maybe Microsoft’s practices are the reason I got my current unit the way I did. The console’s capabilities are impressive, coming from the Nintendo universe, but I don’t know that Microsoft has endeared me the way that Apple and Nintendo have.