Choosing the right product type

Article
03/16/2023

It is important to choose the right product type for monetization features you are offering. All of these start with configuration in Partner Center, where the following types are supported:

Type	Summary	Examples
Bundles	A single product that includes multiple products for a single price	Season Passes, Game Compilations, Pre-orders, etc.
Consumables	Micro-transaction based products that can be re-purchased	Premium In-game currency
Durables	Add-on products that are intended to be purchased once	Expansion packs, pre-order incentive content, etc.
Subscription	A recurring transaction product that can be auto-renewed or canceled	MMO subscription

This section will go over each and the scenarios where these are used.

ProductKind index

The following table provides an index of the ProductKind value of each product type discussed in this article. The ProductKind will be used when querying the available products and the users entitlements with the XStore API's or Managing products from your services.

Product type	ProductKind value
Base Game	`Game`
Game Bundle	`Game`
Add-on Bundle	`Durable`
Season Pass	`Durable`
Store-managed Consumable	`Consumable`
Developer-managed Consumable	`UnmanagedConsumable`
Durables with a package	`Durable`
Durables without a package	`Durable`
Store-managed Subscription	`Pass`
Add-on Subscription	`Durable`

Bundles

There are three different bundle product types within the Microsoft Store that have different functionality and uses:

Type	Can add to	Can be empty	Can include game
Game Bundle	Yes	No	Yes
Add-on Bundle	Yes	No	No
Season Pass	Yes	Yes	No

Note

After a bundle is published to RETAIL included products cannot be removed from the bundle.

For additional information see Bundles and Season Passes.

Game Bundle

Contains a base game bundled with one or more add-ons or other games as different editions or to offer multiple games as a compilation. Products can be added to a bundle after publish, but not removed. Game bundles are also used to define compilation discs, which will typically include one or more games and their associated DLC.

This product type is not an add-on, but instead it is created by selecting 'Create a new bundle' from the publisher's products Overview page in Partner Center.

For more information see Using a Game Bundle with your game

Add-on bundle

Includes multiple released add-on products associated with a single title. This is a good option for providing the best content of your title at a discounted price for new users, for example, after a free-play weekend.

Season Pass

A special case of an add-on bundle that will contain products that have not yet been released and will be added to the bundle later. Upon release, at least one product is required to be included in the Season Pass however. Note, it is not necessary to brand a Season Pass product with "Season Pass" in the name. More than one Season Pass can be offered per-game as well. For more examples and information see Using a Season Pass within your game.

Consumables

Consumable products are intended to provide temporary or limited use items in-game that the user can then re-purchase and use. Most commonly an in-game premium currency is implemented through consumable products. These are also considered single-user purchases and are not shared through game licensing or sharing policies. There are two consumable product types in the Microsoft Store:

Type	Summary	Examples
Store-managed Consumable	Can be purchased multiple times before being fulfilled, balance can be tracked through Microsoft Store or your own custom service.	Most in-game currencies and consumable products are configured as this type.
Developer-managed Consumable	Can only be purchased again after the previous purchase has been reported as fulfilled to the Microsoft Store.	Consumable that is only intended to be purchased once such as an introductory in-game currency pack.

The recommendation for games is to use Microsoft Store-managed Consumables. For additional information see Consumable-based ecosystems.

Microsoft Store-managed Consumable

This type of consumable is associated with a quantity granted to the user on purchase that is added to their remaining balance of that consumable to use in-game that is tracked with the Store APIs. When the game reports an amount as fulfilled or consumed in-game the service deducts that amount from the user's remaining balance on their Microsoft account. The quantity granted on purchase is configured in the product setup. Microsoft Store-managed consumables can be purchased repeatedly without the product being reported as fulfilled or consumed.

The consumable balance can be queried and consumed using the XStore APIs or calls to the Microsoft Collections service.

For best practices and recommendations see Managing consumables.

This product type is also referenced as a "managed consumable" in some documentation. Even though this consumable is titled "Store-managed", it can be fully consumed whenever the user's balance is greater than 0 and the corresponding in-game currency managed by your own services for the user. See Managing consumable products from your service for more information.

Developer-managed Consumable

The other type of consumable, Developer-managed is a product type that can only be purchased a single time before it is fulfilled (i.e. consumed) by the client, which then makes it purchasable again. This fulfillment operation is what the game would use to assign a reward which is entirely tracked by the game.

One scenario where this might be useful is to offer a single-purchase consumable that represents a one-time reward that cannot be replenished. Simply do not fulfill the consumable and it cannot be purchased after the initial purchase. Note that this contrasts with a durable as durables need to adhere to sharing behavior where consumables are specifically per-user.

Also known as "unmanaged consumable".

Durables

Durables are intended for single-purchase items such as expansions, map packs, or other forms of downloadable content. Durables follow the sharing behavior as described in the Product sharing model for games, namely they are shared for all other accounts on a gaming device if the purchasing user is present in some way. There are two types of durable products:

Durables with a package
Durables without a package (also known as Durable add-ons)

Durables with a package

This is commonly used for offering additional content that is not part of the base game experience, such as narrative chapters, expansion modes, vehicles, environments, and character assets. After purchase, download and installation of the package will be required to properly license and mount the content.

In Partner Center this is known as a Durable with package type. Just like with the base game, a package for each gaming device supported will need to be created and submitted for each durable with package product.

The game must support being able to purchase the durable products and react to the installation of the new content without needing to restart the game. Specific APIs need to be called first to acquire a license for the package and then mount it for use.

If additional content is being split up as durable packages (i.e. DLC) as a mechanism to partition the game into parts that can be optionally installed for space-saving purposes, consider using the Features aspect of Intelligent Delivery instead.

Also known as "optional packages".

Durables without a package

Additional purchasable content can sometimes need to be part of the base game package to support online scenarios or the design of the game. A Durable type add-on can be more suitable here as no package creation and management will be necessary for both the developer and consumer.

Similar to durables with package, this type still provides a license that can be validated at runtime according to the Product sharing model for games. You must verify the license through the XStore APIs of these products to ensure access should be granted, especially when used with disc based games.

Durables can also be offered with time-limited duration, after which the user will no longer own it and will need to repurchase it.

Subscriptions

A subscription is a product that involves a recurring purchase to remain active. They can be configured with multiple tiers, e.g. monthly, yearly, etc. There are two different types of subscription products in the Microsoft Store. Developers need permissions enabled on their Partner Center accounts before these are able to be configured. For help configuring or getting access to these product types, work with your Developer Partner Manager or Microsoft contact.

Subscription Type	Description
Store-managed Subscription	Designed to be used for title-specific subscriptions, publisher level subscriptions across multiple titles, and cross-publisher subscriptions (Ex: Game Pass).
Add-on Subscription	Designed to be used only for a single title-specific subscription and is limited in features compared to a Store-managed subscription

Subscription comparison chart

Feature	Store-managed subscription	Add-on subscription
ProductKind value	`Pass`	`Durable`
Store visibility	All public storefronts	In-game UI only
Pricing models	Per-region customization	Single global price
Customer tier switching	Yes	No
Redeem codes and promotions	Yes	No

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