The best digital gifts to send your friends and family

If someone you know is getting a shiny new video game console for the holidays, or spends a ton of time with their current kit, gifting them subscriptions like Nintendo Switch Online, PlayStation Plus or Xbox Game Pass can make the gaming experience a lot more fun and convenient.

A $17/month Xbox Game Pass subscription offers more than 100 games that can be played on the Xbox or PC, and they can be streamed to phones and tablets as well. It also includes EA Play, which opens up access to even more games. Perhaps the best part of Xbox Game Pass, though, is that it offers access to first-party Xbox Game Studios titles the day they’re released, like Starfield and Forza Motorsport.

Sony revamped PlayStation Plus in 2022, combining basics like online play, cloud storage for saves and two free monthly games with a large catalog of games that can be either streamed or downloaded to your console as long as your subscription is active. There are three different tiers, all with different perks, but the middle “Extra” option ($135 / year) is probably best for most gamers. It includes access to around 400 PS4 and PS5 games, including some of the PlayStation’s best, like Horizon Forbidden West, Ghost of Tsushima, Deathloop, Spider-Man: Miles Morales and Returnal. If you know someone who loves older games though, the “Premium” tier ($160 / year) adds a bunch of titles from the PS1, PS2 and PS3 catalogs as well as perks like game trials and recently-announced PS5 game streaming from the cloud.

Finally, Nintendo has two tiers of its Switch Online plan. The basic $20 / year plan unlocks online play, more than 100 Game Boy, NES and Super NES games and cloud backups of your saved games as well as the occasional special offers. The $50 “expansion pack” adds a collection of N64, Game Boy Advance and Sega Genesis games as well as some DLC for games like Mario Kart 8, Animal Crossing: New Horizons and Splatoon 2. — N.I.