Microsoft’s Games with Gold program goes all Square Enix-y in January with Sleeping Dogs and Lara Croft. Xbox 360 gamers with a Gold Xbox Live subscription will be able to download Sleeping Dogs for free January 1 through 15, with Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light free from January 16 to January 31.
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17 responses to “Microsoft’s Games With Gold Program Brings Sleeping Dogs And Lara Croft”
Sleeping dogs is a great game and a no brainer if its free, honestly tho, games with gold is horrible and they need to fix that asap.
Do they? Or do gamers need to stop being spoiled brats and be happy that their getting free games at all.
Its not so much gamers being spoiled brats but a view of what their main competitor is doing.
In comparison with PS Plus, Sleeping dogs (which plus did free many months ago) and 3 year old Lara Croft game, PS plus members are getting free this month DmC, Borderlands 2, Soul Sacrifice, Blazblue and Don’t Starve.
In fairness though, PS+ users never actually “own” the games they get through that promotion, they are just basically rentals that are returned when ever the users subscription expires.
That is probably what sways publishers and Sony to be more generous with games because even if it’s a small chance and a small amount of money, there is always a chance when the subscription expires, people will go and buy the actual game. At least that’s how I justify the difference in game quality lol…. Although Sleeping dogs is definitely a step in the right direction, that’s for sure.
I used to think the same about the “rental” aspect of PS+, which is what put me off subscribing for a long time (I only started subscribing after they gave everybody a free month as part of the PSN hack/outage compensation and I decided I liked it after trying it out). But then when I thought about it, even if you subscribe for 1 year and don’t renew that means you’ll have each of those games for an AVERAGE of 6 months. How often are you still playing a game after 6 months? In my case I generally play through them in a couple of weeks then move on to something else and rarely go back. If it’s a game I really love then I might replay it, or something huge like an Elder Scrolls or an online game like Battlefield then I’ll be dipping in and out of it for a year or two. But the vast majority of games (even good ones) I’m not likely to return to after 1 or 2 months, let alone 6 or 12.
So really, even if I were to lose those games when my subscription ended, it’s unlikely I’d even notice (except maybe the last month’s games if I hadn’t fiinshed with them yet). And when you break down the $70 a year across 2-3 games a month (assuming you’re only talking about PS3, 4-6 games a month if you include Vita and PS4 as well), you’re looking at maybe $1-2 per game. Maybe double that price to $3-4 to allow for some games that you’l have already bought prior to them showing up on PS+. At that kind of price I’d find it hard to complain if I lost access to a game I was still playing and had to go fish it out of the bargain bin at EB / JB to finish it off considering the value I’d already got out of it over the year.
I’m gonna go out on a limb and say… there’s a difference between what publishers will allow Microsoft and Sony to offer — PS+ is conditional on having an ongoing subscription, else you lose access to the games. On the other hand, you add a Games With Gold game to your account and it’s yours for good, whether or not you want to renew Live once your subscription ends.
I don’t know if there are any royalties in place for either service, or if both services are approached purely from a marketing/building a fan base perspective, but I could imagine there being a difference in approach for publishers considering giving away a game as long as someone pays a continued subscription, versus giving away a game for good, irrespective of what happens beyond the current subscription period.
I think I read somewhere a while back (can’t find the link now – I think it was the developers of Just Cause 2 talking about it) that Sony generally don’t pay to have the games on PS+. The publishers tend to do it to drum up publicity for a franchise (e.g. if there’s a new game in the series coming out, as with Assassin’s Creed 3 a few months back). Often it’s also just because the game has pretty much stopped selling, but if they put it on PS+ they might give the game away for nothing but then they’ll usually have a sale on the DLC the same month the game is on PS+, so the publisher will rake in some revenue by giving the game away free then selling the DLC.
Sony usually only pay to have games on PS+ in the case of the smaller / indie games which sometimes go free on PS+ from launch.
They’re not technically free. They’re a service included in a price for a larger service. PS Plus get Borderlands during January on PS3, and Don’t Starve for PS4. Those are great games, but I can’t compare because I haven’t played these Xbox ones.
Right, because gold isn’t a shameless money grab otherwise /sarcasm.
As another user said, my comment is based off what sony are doing, i say they need to fix that because i already know a few people that leaned towards getting a ps4 purely based off ps +. So am i wrong it wanting more people to buy xbox? no. Truth is, both consoles require a subscription to play online, but Ps+ holds alot more value and even tho i think xbox live is more stable, psn is catching up and MS just need to do better to stay on top.
Sorry champ but Owning > Renting
Either way, ALL games end up being considered “old” at some point. Difference is, on XBL I own those free games forever.
With PS Plus, I don’t. I’d take old good games I own over newer good games I’m renting. Especially as an achievement/trophy whore.
I already own Guardian of Light but Sleeping Dogs is an unexpected surprise.
Although PS+ offers more exciting games I have zero will to begin a second game collection this far into the generation – it will, however, factor greatly into my choices for the next generation.
With the impending increase in trade ins for people to move up to the next generation, I would say that you wouldn’t have a better time to start up a collection. I finally decided to get a PS3 over Christmas and have bought a lot with very little cash, which will keep me entertained until the next gen consoles mature a bit and there is more of a catalog.
I loved Sleeping Dogs, but had to give up on it after a few hours because, for some unknown reason, it just gave me hideous motion sickness 🙁
That’s terribly unfortunate. It’s a fantastic game. I put 40 hours into it over about 2 weeks. I rarely have the attention span for any game to grab me like that.
Yeah, I know 🙁 I used to get really bad motion sickness from a lot of 3D games, especially first-person stuff. It’s not so bad these days, though – I’ve got no idea why Sleeping Dogs in particular affected me so badly when I had no such issues with similar games like GTA4, Saints Row 3, the Assassin’s Creeds etc. Even most first person games I’m ok with these days as long as I turn the control sensitivity right down so the screen doesn’t move around so fast (part of the reason I much prefer playing those games on console rather than on PC where the mouse control tends to mean you turn a lot faster than on console using the controller).
Let’s see here…
XBL: full dedicated server support for every game on Xbox and two free games per month.
PS+ P2P networking and rental games until Plus expires.
Sonydrones can’t justify Live, but Plus is fine? Seems about right for the Sony mob. No logic needed.