14 DAY TRIAL // Microsoft has been talking a lot about its plan to make the Xbox One a more interesting gaming platform during 2016. It thus seems that the first concrete move from the company is to announce two new bundles that are designed to allow players to get the platform as well as some of the best gaming experiences from the past year.
The most interesting of the two is the one the company is talking about the least. Thus Name Your Game package allows players to get a 500 GB version of the device as well as one of the titles they are interested in, choosing from Rise of the Tomb Raider, Rare Replay, Gears of War: Ultimate and Forza Motorsport 6, all very solid experiences.
The new Xbox One bundle will be offered only in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Brazil, Germany, Australia, Ireland, Mexico and New Zeeland, and retailers in some countries will have it on January 12 while other potential customers will have to wait until the end of the month.
Name Your Game is available for 349 dollars or Euros, depending on the country, and comes up with some excellent value for those interested in getting both a new home console and a solid game to play on it immediately.
For gamers who are rather keen on a team driven multiplayer experience, Microsoft is also planning to deliver a Rainbow Six Siege bundle that includes a 1 TB hard drive console as well as the new game from Ubisoft, with players also able to play digitally distributed versions of the two Vegas titles in the franchise.
This package will be available in all territories where the Xbox One is offered, apart from Belgium, France, the Netherlands, Japan and China, for the price of 399 dollars or Euro.
The Microsoft home console will rely on exclusives this year
The official announcement on the blog of Larry Hryb, aka Major Nelson, adds, "This year, we’re looking forward to offering more updates and features, hundreds of additional titles coming to Xbox One Backward Compatibility and more games in the greatest games lineup in Xbox history. Stay tuned - 2016 is shaping up to be another great year for gamers."
Microsoft has been talking about delivering more exclusive titles for players, announcing that it is planning to offer a beta period for Gears of War 4 during the spring before a full launch in the fall.
The company also says that both Halo Wars 2, created by The Creative Assembly, and ReCode are coming this year on both the Xbox One and PCs powered by Windows 10.
At the same time, Scalebound, which is created by Platinum Games, has been pushed back to 2017 to improve quality.
Rumors have been talking about the delivery of a new Xbox One version in 2016 and a permanent price cut, but it seems Microsoft is at the moment more interested in introducing more value via bundles that can boost sales and the audience for some of its video games.