Support NeoGAF

[Murdoch]

Can someone legitimately answer the question...

If gamespass is 'bad business' why would square enix/people can fly launch their game onto Gamespass? Are Microsoft forcing them? Why don't you just buy a cheap PC or Xbox to get gamespass instead of wasting hours upon hours of your life debating how shit something is that you're not subscribed to?

 

[Zeroing]

You're in a thread where the core concept is "Physical sales of a game in a country where its almost impossible to go out and buy physical games proves Game Pass kills purchases".

"Every subscriber is an extra tenner a month and there's a tipping point where that is profitable" doesn't seem like a bad presumption to make, all considering.

Still no numbers, I am not concerned about it but if people are going to use that as ammunition to write stuff, might as well not be “in theory” territory and be on “facts”

just pointing out!

 

[Reality Czar]

Wait a minute, how is this game "free"? Don't people have to pay for Game Piss?

 

[johnjohn]

Don't be so sure. ( hint : there is an available demo for this game).



Devs backed that up for Xbox, not PS platform, nor Switch. LOL

Xbox Game Pass 'quadrupled' Descenders sales says developer Mike Rose

That was unexpected.

www.windowscentral.com

Xbox fans are trying to spin every single fuckin crap

Try again lol. They say that Steam sales tripled because of Game Pass.

 

[FrankWza]

Seems some ppl like to prop up Game Pass a lil too much. Its good for what it offers, but its not effecting Sony users to buy the game on Playstation when it launched at the same time.

It is. It’s day one games for free since gold is mandatory and the majority of the gp users upgraded for $1. Imagine...giving away a game people are willing to pay for. Desperate times call for desperate measures.

Microsoft desperately wants to get out of the HW market and into streaming it’s hilarious.

They can’t wait for Game “I’ll suck your dick for a cheese burger” Pass and streaming to become viable so they can stop the need to make hardware and exclusives

It’s literally Microsoft’s last ditch effort to do something with Xbox because they haven’t been winning on content.

 

[Nikana]

Can someone legitimately answer the question...

If gamespass is 'bad business' why would square enix/people can fly launch their game onto Gamespass? Are Microsoft forcing them? Why don't you just buy a cheap PC or Xbox to get gamespass instead of wasting hours upon hours of your life debating how shit something is that you're not subscribed to?

 

[Zeroing]

Can someone legitimately answer the question...

If gamespass is 'bad business' why would square enix/people can fly launch their game onto Gamespass? Are Microsoft forcing them? Why don't you just buy a cheap PC or Xbox to get gamespass instead of wasting hours upon hours of your life debating how shit something is that you're not subscribed to?

People didn’t realized that square Enix is having financial problems, they even released a cookbook with Lara Croft! They will take anything!

the rest I can’t answer because people here are not rational! In both sides!

I am just here for the fun!

 

[Mmnow]

Still no numbers, I am not concerned about it but if people are going to use that as ammunition to write stuff, might as well not be “in theory” territory and be on “facts”

just pointing out!

You're right, it's always worth trying to do the maths and part of that is always going to be guess work. We don't have pertinent data to give an exact number.

But £10.99 times 30m subscribers is £330m every single month, without any additional game sales, dlc or services. Times that by 12 for the year.

That's $450m every single month from subscribers alone, almost the equivalent revenue of God of War every 31 days. Or a bit less than $5b a year.

We don't know how all this scales, we don't know what deals MS is striking and we don't know how much profit is in that. But a fairly modest subscriber count - 30m paying regularly shouldn't be a paticularly controversial target at this point - is equivalent to a quarter's revenue for PlayStation as a whole. I would expect 30m this year and many more than that in the future.

If Fallout 5 sells 10m copies on top of this, plus DLC, you start to see how insane the profit margins are going to be on these first party title.

 

[Corgi1985]

Lol getting mad at xbox when nintendo still isn't up to basic features from 2007.

 

[geary]

It's impressive how this thread in 1 day has almost the same number of replies as the thread dedicated to the game. This is a drama forum, not a gaming forum.

 

[ResilientBanana]

I'm fairly certain Microsoft pays the developer based on usage.

 

[Interfectum]

It's impressive how this thread in 1 day has almost the same number of replies as the thread dedicated to the game. This is a drama forum, not a gaming forum.

We are at a point of change for the industry and the current market leader is not paving the way. There's a lot of tension and tears as a result.

I think the MLB on Game Pass news and Outriders day/date GP launch will be remembered as a couple of the big pivot points in the current gen console wars.

 

[Zoro7]

I'm fairly certain Microsoft pays the developer based on usage.

Do we have any proof of this?

 

[Interfectum]

Do we have any proof of this?

No, Phil said himself there are a variety of ways the publisher/dev gets paid.

 

[Zeroing]

You're right, it's always worth trying to do the maths and part of that is always going to be guess work. We don't have pertinent data to give an exact number.

But £10.99 times 30m subscribers is £330m every single month, without any additional game sales, dlc or services. Times that by 12 for the year.

That's $450m every single month from subscribers alone, almost the equivalent revenue of God of War every 31 days. Or a bit less than $5b a year.

We don't know how all this scales, we don't know what deals MS is striking and we don't know how much profit is in that. But a fairly modest subscriber count - 30m paying regularly shouldn't be a paticularly controversial target at this point - is equivalent to a quarter's revenue for PlayStation as a whole. I would expect 30m this year and many more than that in the future.

If Fallout 5 sells 10m copies on top of this, plus DLC, you start to see how insane the profit margins are going to be on these first party title.

What about the deals to make the games being on the service? The cost increases the bigger the game is. Marketing costs? Etc...

 

[Zeroing]

Do we have any proof of this?

Nobody does, everyone is just talking in theory. Why would in theory a big AAA game be on day one on the service when costs of development is greater than to develop an indie game... so on... so many possibilities yet everyone is just talking about theory!
Nobody knows data, sales, costs etc.

Both sides here are just making war about something no side had actually proof to it. So everyone will continue talking and it will never end!

 

[saintjules]

Wait a minute, how is this game "free"? Don't people have to pay for Game Piss?

It's paying the $14.99 (plus tax) each month to get games 'free' in that context lol.

 

[Aguero9320]

How could anyone see this as a win for PlayStation fans?

More of them had to go out and pay full-price on this game versus Xbox players who got it in their subscription.

They are quite something. They are single minded in their focus - this is a win because it sold more. It sold more because they had no better option than paying full price. Whatever happens on Playstation is the default best, so paying full price is best. It does not matter if more people are playing it on Xbox because the deal is 'bad for the industry' even though two industry giants made the deal willingly. They do not know the terms of the deal, but if you keep talking authoritatively like you do, then it becomes true for them.

Ad infinitum.

 

[On Demand]

Xbox peeps in overdrive mode.

Player number stats are meaningless. gamepass doesn’t mean there will always be more “players” because of it.

“Players” mean anybody who tried out the game. Any way you can access it. Including different accounts. It is not a unique concurrent numbers.

All we know for a fact from this data is gamepass does not mean more sales as people kept saying it does. Yes it doesn’t include digital but neither does the PS sales. With digital the PS sales will be even higher. Which means PS will actually have more players than Xbox.

gamepass isn’t this special savior service it’s made out to be. Sorry.

 

[sainraja]

Can someone legitimately answer the question...

If gamespass is 'bad business' why would square enix/people can fly launch their game onto Gamespass? Are Microsoft forcing them? Why don't you just buy a cheap PC or Xbox to get gamespass instead of wasting hours upon hours of your life debating how shit something is that you're not subscribed to?

Why does anyone do anything? Why, why, why.

Asking why is easy.

But who is that question directed at? People YOU imagine to be against Game Pass or people who might just be wondering how long any of this will last? I think it is a valid question. As for game pass, I do hope it continues and we see others adopt a similar policy BUT only as an additional option. My only concern is, could this lead to a future where subscription is the only way? That is not something I want and I don't think that is the direction we are headed with Microsoft or Sony.

Still, it does not mean it can't happen.

Given the type of games being added to game pass and how aggressive MS is being in pushing it, game pass is hard to pass if you happen to be a multi-platform gamer. I am subscribed to it simply to check out titles that I otherwise wouldn't have; so far, I like to purchase titles that I have a high interest in, but anything outside of that, I'll look on game pass first (though Destiny 2 has kinda made that hard.)

Anyway, no one is saying game pass is bad. They are only questioning the business aspect of it, which is fair to question. If you don't want to be part of the debate that you find is 'wasting hours', why are you trying to insert yourself in it? You can ignore them and enjoy spending time on game pass.

I am not taking part in that argument (although I like to comment on it every now and then but I also understand that others might have something to say to that), I am just going to see how things play out. You can do the same if it really bothers you that much and keeps you away from game pass.

 

[Elios83]

Can someone legitimately answer the question...

If gamespass is 'bad business' why would square enix/people can fly launch their game onto Gamespass? Are Microsoft forcing them? Why don't you just buy a cheap PC or Xbox to get gamespass instead of wasting hours upon hours of your life debating how shit something is that you're not subscribed to?

They launched on Gamepass because Microsoft is willing to hand huge checks to get more contents and right now they're in a phase where to have further growth old games are not enough, they need to get some day one launches on it, there are only a limited amount of people who find good value in playing with old stuff.
A new, unproven IP that can be classified like AA is probably an easy target.
Square Enix got paid really well by MS as part of a bigger deal, MS even paid them to do a specific Octopath Travelers port and put other japanese titles on the service
It's a whole packet they got offered for supporting Gamepass so they got a lot of cash from MS, just like they got lot of cash from Sony to release FFXVI, Project Athia and FF7R only on PS5, they're happy.

What this thread is about is more about the long term impact of Microsoft killing their traditional full priced software sales, something that has been clearly happening looking at their percentages of sales in multiplatform sales charts shrinking and shrinking.
And quite frankly I think that with so many unknown variables at this stage ( if MS will be able to grow their userbase as quickly as they hope, how many years they're planning to keep the service as a money sinking black hole until they try to recoup costs by increasing prices like Netflix/Amazon and others all did, what the competition is going to do to slow them down, if big publishers decide it's more profitable to create their own alternatives and become competion down the line instead of content providers and so on) it's impossible to give a honest answer.

You're right, it's always worth trying to do the maths and part of that is always going to be guess work. We don't have pertinent data to give an exact number.

But £10.99 times 30m subscribers is £330m every single month, without any additional game sales, dlc or services. Times that by 12 for the year.

That's $450m every single month from subscribers alone, almost the equivalent revenue of God of War every 31 days. Or a bit less than $5b a year.

We don't know how all this scales, we don't know what deals MS is striking and we don't know how much profit is in that. But a fairly modest subscriber count - 30m paying regularly shouldn't be a paticularly controversial target at this point - is equivalent to a quarter's revenue for PlayStation as a whole. I would expect 30m this year and many more than that in the future.

If Fallout 5 sells 10m copies on top of this, plus DLC, you start to see how insane the profit margins are going to be on these first party title.

No one is even paying 10$ each month at this stage.
Tons of crazy deals have been around and if you plan to stay subscribed long term you don't renew at the 1-month subscription price.
Plus you need to factor all the development costs that won't be recouped from traditional full priced software (see what's gonna happen with Halo Infinite later this year) , marketing costs, all the deals to pay other companies to release games day one on the service and so on.
At this point even Netflix with over 200m users, subscriptions that have been price increased close to 20$ if you want 4K is barely making profits.

 

[ResilientBanana]

Do we have any proof of this?

Yes, it's been said multiple times in these very threads through various articles.

Here's one with a quick google search. It's based on whatever deal is set up between Microsoft / Developer.
Xbox chief reveals more about how developers earn money through Game Pass | PC Gamer

"[In] certain cases, we’ll pay for the full production cost of the game. Then they get all the retail opportunity on top of Game Pass. They can go sell it on PlayStation, on Steam, and on Xbox, and on Switch. [...] Sometimes the developer’s more done with the game and it’s more just a transaction of, 'Hey, we’ll put it in Game Pass if you’ll pay us this amount of money.'"

"Others want [agreements] more based on usage and monetization in whether it’s a store monetization that gets created through transactions, or usage. We’re open [to] experimenting with many different partners, because we don’t think we have it figured out. When we started, we had a model that was all based on usage. Most of the partners said, 'Yeah, yeah, we understand that, but we don’t believe it, so just give us the money upfront.'"

 

[Interfectum]

Anyway, no one is saying game pass is bad. They are only questioning the business aspect of it, which is fair to question. If you don't want to be part of the debate that you find is 'wasting hours', why are you trying to insert yourself in it? You can ignore them and enjoy spending time on game pass.

There are plenty of people saying Game Pass is bad.

Also, it's hard to debate the business aspect of it when literally no one but MS or the publisher know how much money they made from these deals.

The people questioning the business aspect and the long term prospects of the service are not coming at it from an unbiased view. Check out Elios83 above me. Known Sony fanboy, fearmongering about Game Pass. Imagine that.

 

[Matt_Fox]

1. Xbox gamers didn't get it for free.
2. You're assuming the OP claiming "victory"
3. Not sure why you are so sure that game "rentals" for something like Gamepass is all around better for the overall health of the industry, than solid sales numbers.

1. Both PS and Xbox gamers pay an equal monthly subscription to play online - Outriders is an online game. Most Xbox gamers paid an additional $1 to convert that to Game Pass.

2. His use of the word "ouch" for one thing.

3. Even if you bought Outriders as a physical copy you'd still need to pay the monthly subscription to play it on either console. So in this case 'ownership' means being a paid subscriber. Your PS+ subscription runs out and you just have a useless disc, so this twisted use of the word 'rental' applies to both consoles.

 

[Mmnow]

What about the deals to make the games being on the service? The cost increases the bigger the game is. Marketing costs? Etc...

I don't like to guess, but if MS can't make the service work with $5b every year - again, a quarter of PlayStation entire revenue - then that's on them.

With that said, nobody ever asks whether the likes of making FF7 exclusive is sustainable, and I'd be amazed if it was particularly profitable. I'd say Game Pass day one is cheaper than blocking off entire othee consoles and PC, and MS isn't buying up AAA timed exclusives either.

Also, I personally think people overestimate the cost of getting games on Game Pass, but have no direct evidence of that. Developers want to be in the service. Outriders searches spiked twice - once with the demo and once with the Gamepass announcement. The latter was half the first, but that in itself goes to show.

Square is probably happy with a flat yearly fee for their games, plus MS taking a reduced cut of actual sales of games and DLC.

But all of that is speculation and, like I say, I didn't really want to start guessing considering how this conversation began.

 

[Monkeygourmet]

The facts are:

1. At the moment Game Pass is a decent deal.

2. In the future it (the model) will be bad for the industry and especially consumers.

By accepting 1.; the “good deal” you end up creating the second outcome so enjoy but don’t whine 4 years down the line when Xbox is streaming only and you don’t own any content.

Don’t try and dress it up as anything other than this

 

[Interfectum]

The facts are:

1. At the moment Game Pass is a decent deal.

2. In the future it (the model) will be bad for the industry and especially consumers.

By accepting 1.; the “good deal” you end up creating the second outcome so enjoy but don’t whine 4 years down the line when Xbox is streaming only and you don’t own any content.

Don’t try and dress it up as anything other than this

 

[Zoro7]

Yes, it's been said multiple times in these very threads through various articles.

Here's one with a quick google search. It's based on whatever deal is set up between Microsoft / Developer.
Xbox chief reveals more about how developers earn money through Game Pass | PC Gamer

So there are multiple ways not just based on usage like you initially said.

 

[sainraja]

There are plenty of people saying Game Pass is bad.

Also, it's hard to debate the business aspect of it when literally no one but MS or the publisher know how much money they made from these deals.

The people questioning the business aspect and the long term prospects of the service are not coming at it from an unbiased view. Check out Elios83 above me. Known Sony fanboy, fearmongering about Game Pass. Imagine that.

So the person you mentioned I should look at said the following:

What this thread is about is more about the long term impact of Microsoft killing their traditional full priced software sales, something that has been clearly happening looking at their percentages of sales in multiplatform sales charts shrinking and shrinking.
And quite frankly I think that with so many unknown variables at this stage ( if MS will be able to grow their userbase as quickly as they hope, how many years they're planning to keep the service as a money sinking black hole until they try to recoup costs by increasing prices like Netflix/Amazon and others all did, what the competition is going to do to slow them down, if big publishers decide it's more profitable to create their own alternatives and become competion down the line instead of content providers and so on) it's impossible to give a honest answer.

And this..

No one is even paying 10$ each month at this stage.
Tons of crazy deals have been around and if you plan to stay subscribed long term you don't renew at the 1-month subscription price.
Plus you need to factor all the development costs that won't be recouped from traditional full priced software (see what's gonna happen with Halo Infinite later this year) , marketing costs, all the deals to pay other companies to release games day one on the service and so on.
At this point even Netflix with over 200m users, subscriptions that have been price increased close to 20$ if you want 4K is barely making profits.

I don't know his history but he is basically questioning the business aspect of it - warranted or not, I think it is fair to ask that and discuss it with those interested. So far, I only see people getting annoyed and throwing out labels at others when something is said that they don't like. I don't think he said game pass is a bad service.

What MS does with the service later is an open question and no one can predict the future, right? But you can give your own take on it. Game Pass could go on and change things for the better or it could change things for the worse (depending on your own view of game ownership.)

What we all need to understand is, that Microsoft is in aggressive promote mode right now. They are aggressively pushing Game Pass. When that has happened and it has been established, what/how they handle it from there on is something we can all discuss.

 

[ResilientBanana]

So there are multiple ways not just based on usage like you initially said.

Apparently so. You seem upset by this.

 

[Zoro7]

Apparently so. You seem upset by this.

It makes no difference to me. But I got to call out bullshit when I see it.

 

[Mmnow]

No one is even paying 10$ each month at this stage.
Tons of crazy deals have been around and if you plan to stay subscribed long term you don't renew at the 1-month subscription price.
Plus you need to factor all the development costs that won't be recouped from traditional full priced software (see what's gonna happen with Halo Infinite later this year) , marketing costs, all the deals to pay other companies to release games day one on the service and so on.
At this point even Netflix with over 200m users, subscriptions that have been price increased close to 20$ if you want 4K is barely making profits.

We don't know any of your first points for a fact. We know it'll impact the figures, but that's why we're talking revenue and not profit.

Netflix is spending considerably more on their output than either PlayStation or Xbox are spending on their's, so the comparison doesn't really work.

 

[Elios83]

So the person you mentioned I should look at said the following:

And this..

I don't know his history but he is basically questioning the business aspect of it - warranted or not, I think it is fair to ask that and discuss it with those interested. So far, I only see people getting annoyed and throwing out labels at others when something is said that they don't like. I don't think he said game pass is a bad service.

What MS does with the service later is an open question and no one can predict the future, right? But you give your own take on it.

You're losing your time.
Some people are not capable of argumentations and like to call others fanboys as last resort when they're actually the worst fanboys
They just don't want people to discuss about the possible negative aspects of services Gamepass, only allowed things should be threads with "It's so good, MS is killing it!!" comments.

 

[EliTheIceMan]

 

[Zeroing]

I don't like to guess, but if MS can't make the service work with $5b every year - again, a quarter of PlayStation entire revenue - then that's on them.

With that said, nobody ever asks whether the likes of making FF7 exclusive is sustainable, and I'd be amazed if it was particularly profitable. I'd say Game Pass day one is cheaper than blocking off entire othee consoles and PC, and MS isn't buying up AAA timed exclusives either.

Also, I personally think people overestimate the cost of getting games on Game Pass, but have no direct evidence of that. Developers want to be in the service. Outriders searches spiked twice - once with the demo and once with the Gamepass announcement. The latter was half the first, but that in itself goes to show.

Square is probably happy with a flat yearly fee for their games, plus MS taking a reduced cut of actual sales of games and DLC.

But all of that is speculation and, like I say, I didn't really want to start guessing considering how this conversation began.

You talked about everything but the question I asked! All we are doing is talking about nothing.
that’s the conclusion, we don’t know anything without data!

 

[ResilientBanana]

It makes no difference to me. But I got to call out bullshit when I see it.

I'm sorry? Where did I spout bullshit? I literally found the information for you. It's odd how I was supposed to remember an article from November 2020 word for word.

 

[Zoro7]

I'm fairly certain Microsoft pays the developer based on usage.

I'm sorry? Where did I spout bullshit? I literally found the information for you.

The first quote is not true for all cases. The information you provided proved it.

 

[ResilientBanana]

The first quote is not true for all cases. The information you provided proved it.

The term "Fairly certain" means I'm not 100% sure. Which is true, I wasn't, then I posted everything you needed to know. Somehow that makes me full of shit? Maybe I should teach you another term? Calm your tits.

 

[Mmnow]

You talked about everything but the question I asked! All we are doing is talking about nothing.
that’s the conclusion, we don’t know anything without data!

What? No I didn't. You asked about the costs of games, and I said I didn't think it was as big as people presume - less than buying up timed exclusives which is something nobody ever discusses in terms of sustainability or profitability with the competition.

I also said Game Pass is good for marketing. That probably brings the cost down, not up.

We have to discuss what we've got. $5b is a shit ton of revenue - you'd be mad to think they're spending more than that on third parties or marketing.

 

[Interfectum]

What MS does with the service later is an open question and no one can predict the future, right? But you can give your own take on it. Game Pass could go on and change things for the better or it could change things for the worse (depending on your own view of game ownership.)

What we all need to understand is, that Microsoft is in aggressive promote mode right now. They are aggressively pushing Game Pass. When that has happened and it has been established, what/how they handle it from there on is something we can all discuss.

MS had treated game ownership far better than Sony (The BC initiative, auto HDR, auto FPS, etc) so I don't think Game Pass changes that conversation either way.

And you want to talk about the future... how far? 20 years? Shit could go bad. 5-10 years? MS is just getting started. These aggressive deals with third parties are to get gamers to hang on for MS first party which will start up around 2022. So for the immediate future it looks like MS is going all in on providing content and establishing Game Pass as the game service to beat. I would not expect that to change this generation.

I mean, looking at the current state of Playstation and Xbox right now it seems to be the fear should be placed on where the hell is Sony going? PS Now is a haphazard and confused streaming / download service, exclusives going to other platforms without any tethers back to the playstation ecosystem (no cross save, no cross buy, no trophies), little regard for legacy titles and now they charge $70 per game at launch. Sony has the brand power on lock but I don't see how anyone can deny that their current trajectory is messy.

 

[Zeroing]

What? No I didn't. You asked about the costs of games, and I said I didn't think it was as big as people presume - less than buying up timed exclusives which is something nobody ever discusses in terms of sustainability or profitability with the competition.

I also said Game Pass is good for marketing. That probably brings the cost down, not up.

We have to discuss what we've got. $5b is a shit ton of revenue - you'd be mad to think they're spending more than that on third parties or marketing.

Oh man.. we do not know anything else that was my point!

 

[Mmnow]

Oh man.. we do not know anything else that was my point!

We know the potential for revenue, and we know there's a tipping point where it becomes purely profit

Do you think if they had seven billion subscribers, it'd be losing money?

We know it was probably just about profitable at 10m subs based on Greenberg's comments from last July. Why would it now not be profitable at double the number of subscribers?

I agree with you that we can't say exactly what profit is being made here, but if you think we can't make an educated guess about how all this works you're just wrong.

 

[Zeroing]

We know the potential for revenue, and we know there's a tipping point where it becomes purely profit

Do you think if they had seven billion subscribers, it'd be losing money?

We know it was probably just about profitable at 10m subs based on Greenberg's comments from last July. Why would it now not be profitable at double the number of subscribers?

I agree with you that we can't say exactly what profit is being made here, but if you think we can't make an educated guess about how all this works you're just wrong.

Greenberg? same guy who said that we could not tell the difference between 720p and 1080p? Etc? Yeah as a graphic designer and as a gamer I do not trust a single word he says. Sorry. Let’s just end this here. We will not reach any conclusion

 

[The Hamburglar]

"War shit posts"?

You're seriously lacking self awareness with the trash you post lol. But nice just job changing the subject to try attacking me.

And where did I specifically say "you" said it was bad? Guilty conscious I guess lol.

The first post in this very thread is you with yet another Xbox persecution post.

 

[SLB1904]

The term "Fairly certain" means I'm not 100% sure. Which is true, I wasn't, then I posted everything you needed to know. Somehow that makes me full of shit? Maybe I should teach you another term? Calm your tits.

it wouldn't make sense put your game on gamepass without getting paid upfront

 

[Mmnow]

Greenberg? same guy who said that we could not tell the difference between 720p and 1080p? Etc? Yeah as a graphic designer and as a gamer I do not trust a single word he says. Sorry. Let’s just end this here. We will not reach any conclusion

In one final message, I'll say what I've said an unreal number of times these past few days, but apparenlty it's something that needs to be said.

For you to claim a problem, you have to prove the problem exists. Simple maths shows that MS's plans with Game Pass will be making a lot of revenue very, very soon.

If they can't make this work on $5b, that's poor planning on their part.

If you disagree, it's on you to say why. We have no figures, but we know enough about the situation that you should be able to come up with a decent hypothesis, and if you can't you should reassess your view. Otherwise you're just saying what you want to believe based on something you can't even put into words. How can anybody argue that?

All the best!

 

[Zeroing]

In one final message, I'll say what I've said an unreal number of times these past few days, but apparenlty it's something that needs to be said.

For you to claim a problem, you have to prove the problem exists. Simple maths shows that MS's plans with Game Pass will be making a lot of revenue very, very soon.

If they can't make this work on $5b, that's poor planning on their part.

If you disagree, it's on you to say why. We have no figures, but we know enough about the situation that you should be able to come up with a decent hypothesis, and if you can't you should reassess your view. Otherwise you're just saying what you want to believe based on something you can't even put into words. How can anybody argue that?

All the best!

Like I said we both cannot say who is right because both of us do not have numbers!!! We just have a guy on Twitter (known for talking crap) saying it!

 

[Schmick]

It's impressive how this thread in 1 day has almost the same number of replies as the thread dedicated to the game. This is a drama forum, not a gaming forum.

Haha thats brilliant. Probably the best description of this forum I have ever read.

 

[dcmk7]

MS had treated game ownership far better than Sony (The BC initiative, auto HDR, auto FPS, etc) so I don't think Game Pass changes that conversation either way.

And you want to talk about the future... how far? 20 years? Shit could go bad. 5-10 years? MS is just getting started. These aggressive deals with third parties are to get gamers to hang on for MS first party which will start up around 2022. So for the immediate future it looks like MS is going all in on providing content and establishing Game Pass as the game service to beat. I would not expect that to change this generation.

I mean, looking at the current state of Playstation and Xbox right now it seems to be the fear should be placed on where the hell is Sony going? PS Now is a haphazard and confused streaming / download service, exclusives going to other platforms without any tethers back to the playstation ecosystem (no cross save, no cross buy, no trophies), little regard for legacy titles and now they charge $70 per game at launch. Sony has the brand power on lock but I don't see how anyone can deny that their current trajectory is messy.

Let's be honest here, it works both ways.

It's not all going according to plan for Microsoft either.

And by the way why are Microsoft only just getting started now? They have been in the industry for how long now and they have gone backwards in every respect since their heydays of the Xbox 360 era. They still sit very firmly in 3rd place.

Won't spend long on each points.. but playing devils advocate:

The innovation they bought to the table this generation are loading saved states (which is still somewhat buggy) and enhanced backwards compatibility titles. Didn't even bother to update the OS.

The brand has been dragged through the mud with the Xbox One launch fiasco. Which still not recovered from.

They didn't launch with a single exclusive title. Their marquee game, was delayed a year, and was a PR disaster. Despite a budget of hundred of millions.

The above embarrassment forced them to pay double the price for a big publisher to gain some positive PR.

Teased that future entries from Bethesda will continue to release on other consoles.

Haven't had a successful new IP since..? Don't even know this one.

They have done relatively little with the existing studio's they have in their stable.

All their marketing spiel about the most powerful console, they have had to quickly retract, due to all the launch title comparisons which were all unfavourable.

Ditto the above regarding the Series S advertised resolution.

With GamePass, Phil Spencer has even admitted they are making it up as they go along in terms of how revenue is distributed to developers. And are teasing about introducing new tiers to it.

They released two SKU's, with developers are already complaining about the lower end spec, stating it's holding back their game development process and situation is going to get worse.

Needless to say having two SKUs is needlessly confusing for casual gamers.

But like everything, we will just have to wait and see how it pans out.

 

[squarealex]

If gamespass is 'bad business' why would square enix/people can fly launch their game onto Gamespass?

Volunteering of course...