Open the Microsoft Store on a new Windows PC and there’s a fair chance the Xbox app is already pinned to the taskbar, quietly waiting. Most people ignore it. That’s a shame, because for a lot of Australian gamers it’s now a genuinely cheaper way into a decent-sized library than buying games one at a time ever was. It’s also more confusing than it needs to be, with at least three different subscription tiers and a habit of installing things in places you didn’t expect. We get asked about this constantly, so let’s sort out what the Xbox app and Game Pass actually do on a Windows machine, what they cost here, and where we reckon Microsoft still gets it wrong.
What the Xbox app actually is
The Xbox app on Windows is Microsoft’s storefront, library manager and social layer rolled into one. You install it from the Microsoft Store, sign in with a Microsoft account, and it becomes the front door to anything you’ve bought on Xbox, any Game Pass titles you’re entitled to, and your friends list, achievements and party chat if you use any of that.
It is not, strictly, an emulator or a streaming client by default. Most Game Pass PC titles download and install natively on your machine, just like a Steam game would, using the same graphics drivers and the same hard drive. The cloud streaming option exists too, through Xbox Cloud Gaming, but on PC that’s mostly useful if your laptop is underpowered or you’re on someone else’s computer, not the main way most people play.
One thing that trips people up: Xbox PC games often install using a different underlying packaging system than games bought through Steam or GOG. That’s improved a lot over the past couple of years, modding support in particular, but it’s still worth knowing if you’ve previously had trouble with Xbox PC versions of certain games not supporting the same mods or save file locations as their Steam equivalents.
Game Pass tiers, explained without the marketing gloss
Microsoft currently runs a few different Game Pass tiers, and the naming has shifted more than once, so don’t be surprised if what you remember from a year or two ago has changed. Broadly there’s a PC-only tier, a console tier, and an Ultimate tier that bundles PC, console and cloud streaming together along with some extra perks like included EA Play access. Pricing sits somewhere in the realm of $15 to $25 a month depending on tier at the time of writing, and Microsoft’s own Xbox Game Pass page is the only place to check current Australian pricing, because it moves more often than people expect.
The pitch is simple: pay monthly, get a rotating library of a few hundred games, including first-party Microsoft titles on their launch day. The catch, and we think it’s a real one, is the word “rotating”. Games do leave Game Pass, sometimes with only a few weeks’ notice, and if you’ve sunk forty hours into something and it disappears before you finish, that’s a genuine frustration, not a hypothetical one.
Is it good value in Australia right now?
Our honest take: for someone who plays three or four different games a year and likes trying new things, yes, it stacks up well against buying each title individually at Australian retail prices. For someone who buys two games a year and plays them for three hundred hours each, you’re probably better off just buying those two games outright and skipping the subscription altogether. Do the maths on your own habits before you sign up, not after your card’s already been charged twice.
Does it run worse than Steam? The frame rate question
This is the bit gamers actually argue about, and fairly so. In our experience, Game Pass PC versions of most titles perform close to parity with their Steam counterparts on identical hardware, assuming your graphics drivers are current and you’ve given the game its own entry in Windows’ graphics settings to force high-performance GPU use. Where things have historically gone sideways is frame pacing in a handful of titles, and some older Game Pass PC ports lacking the same graphics options, ultrawide support or uncapped frame rate sliders, that a Steam version shipped with on day one.
That gap has narrowed. Big first-party titles, the Halo and Forza games in particular, generally ship with full feature parity now. Third-party publishers are more of a mixed bag, and we’d still recommend checking a store page or community forum for known issues before assuming the Game Pass version will run identically to Steam. It’s a bit like buying a car with the same engine but a slightly different trim level; usually it’s fine, occasionally you notice the missing feature the other version had.
Xbox app versus Steam: do you need both?
Most PC gamers we talk to end up running both, and that’s fine. Steam remains the better storefront for permanent ownership, regular sales, mod support via Steam Workshop, and the broadest compatibility with older hardware. Valve’s decision to roll out proper Australian dollar pricing on Steam also made it easier to budget for, without the mental exchange-rate maths games used to require. The Xbox app is better if you’re already paying for Game Pass Ultimate or you’re a console player migrating some of your time to a desktop and want cross-save progress with your Xbox console.
Our mildly contrarian view, and we’ll actually argue it: we don’t think Game Pass is a replacement for owning a library, and we’re sceptical of anyone who tells you it is. Games you don’t own can be pulled. Games you own on Steam, GOG or as a physical disc stay yours until the servers for that specific title shut down, which is a separate and much rarer problem. Game Pass is brilliant as a discovery engine and a genuine value play for casual-to-moderate players. It’s a rental, not a collection, and treating it as the latter is how people end up annoyed when a favourite disappears in March without warning.
What hardware you actually need
You don’t need a gaming rig costing thousands to get real use out of Game Pass on PC. A mid-range machine with a reasonably current graphics card will run the large majority of the catalogue at 1080p with acceptable frame rates, and Xbox Cloud Gaming exists precisely for the days your laptop can’t keep up with something demanding. If you’re shopping for a new machine specifically for this, our guide to budget laptops in Australia covers which specs matter and which are marketing padding, and we’d point PC builders towards our piece on budget PC gaming upgrades before spending big on a GPU you don’t actually need for most of the Game Pass library.
Storage is the other thing people underestimate. Game Pass titles are full downloads, not light clients, and a modern AAA game can easily eat 80 to 150 gigabytes. If your PC’s main drive is getting tight, that’s worth sorting before you start downloading six games in excitement on day one of a new subscription. We’ve watched more than one reader fill a 512GB drive in a single weekend chasing the “ooh, that’s included too” feeling.
Account security, family settings and the stuff nobody reads
Because the Xbox app runs on a Microsoft account, the same account that might also handle your email, OneDrive and Windows sign-in, it’s worth treating it with the same care as your banking logins. Turn on two-factor authentication through your Microsoft account settings, and if you’re setting this up for a kid, Microsoft’s family safety tools let you cap spending, restrict content ratings and set playtime limits per child profile. Given the eSafety Commissioner’s ongoing guidance around young people and online platforms, and the social media minimum age rules that came into force in December 2025, it’s a sensible five minutes of setup rather than an afterthought. A properly configured password manager helps here too, and our comparison of password managers for Australians is worth a look if your family’s logins are scattered across sticky notes and browser autofill.
If you’re ever unsure whether an email claiming to be about your Xbox subscription is legitimate, the same scepticism that applies to any unexpected billing message applies here. Phishing and billing scams remain a persistent problem according to the ACCC’s Scamwatch, and gaming subscription scams are a known pattern worth watching for. Our piece on scam calls and robocalls in Australia covers the broader tactics worth knowing, several of which turn up in gaming-adjacent phishing too.
So, are the Xbox app and Game Pass worth setting up?
If you already own a Windows PC that can run current games reasonably well, installing the Xbox app costs nothing and the only real decision is whether a subscription tier is worth it for how you actually play. Our honest read: try a single month of the mid-tier before committing to Ultimate, work out whether you’re actually finishing games or just collecting them, and keep an eye on the leaving-soon list in the app so nothing vanishes on you mid-playthrough. It’s not a dramatic verdict, but it’s an honest one. Game Pass on PC is a genuinely good deal for the right kind of player, and a quiet way to waste money for the wrong kind. Work out which one you are before you hand over your card details.
Featured image: AI-generated illustration.
