It’s been an awfully long time since we’ve had a great Contra game. Judging by what we’ve seen from E3 and Konami’s impending Contra: Rogue Corps (yes, the ones with the armed panda in it), we’ll be waiting a while for a great Contra game yet.

An interview with the president of Square Enix, Yosuke Matsuda, revealed that the publisher is thinking about a potential subscription model for their catalogue.

If there’s one other thing that tickled me though, it was the announcement of Game Pass for PC. Microsoft’s Game Pass is the existing service on console that allows subscribers to download and play any game from a library of hundreds of games. It’s exceptionally good value, especially because it comes with Microsoft’s first party games included on their date of release.

First ‘leaked’ earlier in the week and even months before, the rumours are now official: Microsoft is rolling out a discless Xbox One console and a new tier of Game Pass for anyone who wants to centralise their subscriptions into one convenient setup.

In the month of love, Xbox Game Pass is about to get even better. While Crackdown 3 is the biggest release of the month for Xbox Game Pass, it’s not the only high-profile game arriving. The second and fourth-best Batman games respectively, Batman: Arkham Asylum and Batman: Akrham City, are also on the way, with Square Enix’s Shadow of the Tomb Raider rounding out the new releases.

When Xbox introduced their Game Pass service in 2017, it was…it was alright I’d say. A few big games, plenty of medium-budget titles and a price tag that made it affordable enough to make it a worthy substitute for allowing your children to be looked after by the warm glow of an LED TV screen. Fast forward to 2019, and …

Microsoft’s Game Pass is astounding value, especially now that it’s home to game like the incomparable Forza Horizon 4, and also other first party games like Sea of thieves and State of Decay 2. PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds has now been added toom, and soon it’ll see Ori, Void Bastard, and the incredibly impactful Hellblade added to the rotating library of over a hundred games. For the R159 a month it costs, it’s worth every cent. For a limited time, a one-month subscription is available for R5. Yes, Five Rand.

Gaming subscription services have really started taking off – and there’s a good reason for that. Games – which are a luxury item – cost a heck of a lot of money, so capped subscription services make a lot of sense. It’s more economically feasible for many to pay a single monthly fee that offers a smorgasbord of games than it is to buy new games all the time. And with services like Microsoft’s Game Pass and EA’s Access ones, those subscriptions even net you the newest games from those publishers.