Discord (Ed: what abou Datcord?) and Xbox have taken their existing partnership to a new level: as of today, Discord Nitro subscribers get a bundled tier of Xbox Game Pass at no extra charge. The new Game Pass Starter Edition, announced today alongside Discord’s Nitro Rewards program, includes access to more than 50 PC and Xbox games plus 10 hours of monthly cloud gaming, all rolled into the standard $9.99 per month Nitro subscription.
The game library included with the Starter Edition covers a solid cross-section of titles, including Fallout 4, Stardew Valley, DayZ, Deep Rock Galactic, Grounded, and Overcooked 2, according to GameSpot’s coverage of the announcement. Notably, console players on the Starter Edition won’t have access to online multiplayer on Xbox hardware, though PC players are unaffected by that restriction. The Starter Edition is available to full Nitro ($9.99/month) subscribers; Nitro Basic ($2.99/month) users will need to upgrade to unlock it.
Beyond Game Pass, Nitro Rewards also includes rotating hardware discounts of 15% to 30% from Logitech G, SteelSeries, and KontrolFreek. Discord plans to add more partner offers over time. On the Xbox side of the equation, Game Pass subscribers will receive 250 Discord Orbs per month, a 1.2x multiplier on Orbs earned through Discord Quests, and automatic discounts in the Discord Shop, starting later in May.
Having a rotating library of 50+ games bundled into a voice chat subscription is interesting, even if the Starter Edition isn’t the full Game Pass Ultimate experience. As Discord’s co-founder and CTO Stanislav Vishnevskiy told TechCrunch, Nitro Rewards is designed to double down on subscriber value without restricting the base platform for free users.
With new Xbox CEO Asha Sharma steering the ship and Game Pass pricing sitting at $9.99 for Essential, $19.99 for PC Game Pass, and $30/month for Ultimate, offering a “starter” tier through Discord at no added cost is a smart way to get new players into the ecosystem. Whether it converts Nitro subscribers into paying Game Pass users remains to be seen, but as a value-add it is hard to argue with. For the enthusiast who already has Nitro for the server boosts and high-quality video, this is just a nice bonus showing up in your subscriptions.