It came as a mild surprise when Microsoft announced Saturday that it was purchasing not just one but two mid-sized studios with a focus on role-playing games. But as strange as it seems on the surface, the deal makes perfect sense for all three parties.

Rocket League and Warhammer: Vermintide 2 came to Xbox Game Pass this week.

Game Pass lets you pay $10.95 a month for access to a library of over 100 Xbox games. As long as you keep your subscription active, you can download and play any of them. Game Pass was an interesting idea when Microsoft introduced it last year, but now it's great.

Xbox Game Pass is supposed to enable Xbox owners to play more games, not less. Unfortunately, over the last few days, some Xbox One owners have reported being unable to play certain games they own due to an error with Game Pass, a problem Microsoft has confirmed it's looking into.

Microsoft's $10.95 a month Xbox game subscription service just got a bit more attractive. Starting with the March 20 release of Sea of Thieves, all new Microsoft Studios games will be available on the service on launch day.

There's been a bit of movement in streaming services of late. Nintendo lifted the lid on their new offering, which turned out to be radically different from what they first announced, and the Xbox opened the doors to their Netflix-like service.

Yesterday was a big day for Xbox One owners. After a couple of years of knowing they bought an Xbox One when twice as many of their friends bought PS4s, Xbox owners got to feel vindicated in their choice as Microsoft launched the first true Netflix for digital games. Xbox Game Pass is a subscription service whereby any Xbox One owner can pay $10.95 a month to get access to over 100 games spanning the entire course of Xbox's history. That sounds incredible! Too bad most of the games are kind of crap.

If you like the idea of being able to play from a library of games for as long as you want, without having to stream them online, good news: the Xbox Game Pass is available as of today.

In this generation of console wars, the Xbox One has lagged behind the PS4 in both sales and consumer mindshare. In fact, a January report from games intelligence firm SuperData pegged Microsoft has selling half the number of consoles as Sony. To be frank, Microsoft is getting its arse kicked.