Because almost everybody I know that has or had GP did use or are using it.
As I said before, the 1$ has a penalty for xbox users.
You need fresh account, that didnt have gamepass before. After 3 month trail, you are charged 15$ a month. if you can cancel it, you will be have to wait 4 months, for your account to be eligible for the 1$ deal again. That means for every 1$ 3 month, you will have to wait 4 month. You have to give up your xbox gaming time for 4 month, or pay 4 months of xbox live, while you wait for the 1$ deal to appear again.
If you are saying use new account, then how will you carry your gaming progression? Because you will start with new fresh account, everytime you want to use the 1$. That means you cant buy any xbox game at all.
PC players also have that penalty too.
This is the official pricing for USA, in other countries it has other pricings. And it isn't the one you get from Pass or Gold cd key store cards.
here is 3 month gamepass ultimate.
That is 3 month of paying 10$. and those cant even reach 500k accross all the websites who sell these cards. Plus you need to buy these cards every 3 month.
Or if you want to buy Gold months and to convert them to GPU.
You pay 180$ upfront. then 1$ to upgrade it to 3 years. that is 181$. Not enough 1m users who use this trick. Because spending 180$ at once for a service, is something that is hard to do for majority of people.
It's something MS put there for people to use it. And you have no idea of how many people use it, what is useless is that 50K statement.
Its how companies attract new customers. Netflix and disney had free 1 month to attract customers to their service. Now that they have enough users, they cancelled that promotional.
Gamepass is still a baby. MS wants to entice alot of gamers. Its why the 1$ is running now. Once its 50m subs, they will cancel it. It only applies to fresh accounts. You cant resub it again, if you cancel it. You have 4 month grace period.
Even ps+ has 14 days trial, despite having 48m users.
Having promotions of free PC GP months and $1 deals where people upgraded years that assumption is totally wrong. And there's nothing that indicates that the split between GP and GPU is around 50%/50%.
These promotion are 3 month. And you will be charged 15$ a month after that. That means for 9 month, you will be charged 135$ more than the 10$ a month for 12 month. Basically those first is being covered, and you will pay it later if you keep subbing to the service.
You dont need to split it 50%. Just make it average. 10m users paying at 15$ equals 15m users paying at 10$. That 40/60 split. The 15$ includes xbox live, and xcloud. To xbox players, that is not a brainer. They will sub to the 15$ service, while pc can sub to 10$ service, or the 15$ if they want xcloud.
Sony makes almot $1B/quarter, so almost $4B/year in revenue from Plus+Now having the double of the subscribers and they have way less promotions of free months and $1. So the GP revenue must be way smaller.
And MS made $2.1b a year at 10$ or $3.2b a year at 15$ from 18m users, not counting xbox live users revenue.
Your 1$ promotional becomes 15$ in the later, after the trial. That would put them in the 10$ gamepass users.
Yes, I know that I can buy multiple years of Gold and to conver them to GPU for $1. And once it's over I create a new user and do it again forever. Or depending how prices and discounts are, to get directly cards of GP directly (sometimes is cheaper).
Then you are throwing away your xbox account, which you use it to purchase those games. and all those progression you had for 3 years. No gamer wants that.
Yes, well, Gold intstead of XBL:
-Tier 1: Plus/Gold
-Tier 2: console base GamePass/PS Now without cloud gaming (I assume console only)
-Tier 3: Game Pass Ultimate (I assume in PC only streaming)/PS Now+PS Plus
yup same thing. But here is a catch. There would fees for those games, like how gamepass had fees.
I assume each tier/service will have its fee, as they do now in MS and Sony.
I assume tier 1 will have the current PS Plus pricing, tier 2 the base GP picing and tier 3 the GPU or PS Now picing.
But it's only a personal guess, what I'd do and what I think they'll do but who knows.
Bloomberg wasn't very clear in things like if Tier 2 would also include Plus ttoo (I assume yes, so could be more expensive than base GP), or if their catalog was going to be exactly the downloadable games from PS Now, or what was that thing in tier 3 they are going to include of 'extended demos'.
That is why it wont have 48m users instantly. You will have to make ps+ users move to the new gamepass competitor. And you cant force ps+ to move to that service, because of consumer protection laws.
If MS change xbox live gold to gamepass gold, it wont affect the actual gamepass subs. as that would be treated as separate subscription. Spartacus would be the same. People will only pay attention to the gamepass Spartacus tier.
Sony make as a ton of revenue and profit from their game subscripions, and they will continue to do so.
That is the perk of having bigger base.
But that wont be the same after this year. 25m users can now match the 48$ subscription fees. And the more subscriber gamepass gains, the more revenue it would have.
The downside of Sony, is that they dont have PC users, like gamepass does. as long as that section exist, MS would make more money from the subs.
Also, PSnow makes like $180m a year. That service needs complete overhaul.
Tier 1 of Spartacus is supposed to be exactly the current PS Plus, with the same content (which includes the monthly PS Plus games and PS Plus Collection), name and I assume price. Spartacus accoring to Bloomber will remain the PS Plus branding but not PS Now.
Then we would have to add xbox live gold to gamepass numbers then.
So basically Spartacus is to add two tiers to PS Plus, let's call them "PS Plus Vault" and "PS Plus Ultimate". The Ultimate would include PS Now (which would stop being sold as a separate service) bundled with PS Plus and more stuff.
That service would start from the scratch. And if people go to that service, PS+ would lose alot of users, since they moved to the new tier.
That subscription cap for that service is 50m at most. Difference is that, these Lost PS+ users would go to Spartacus new tier, just like how xbox live gold lost users went to gamepass.
You have to keep in mind, that doing tier plan increase revenue depends on the pricing. If 20m ps+ users went to the 10$ service, that would mean $2.4b revenue a year. While ps+ would have 28m users, and would generate $1.680b revenue. A total of $4b revenue. at 15$, that would be $3.6b+$1.680b=$5.28b.
In a sense, you are gaining extra $1.2b if you charge 10$, and have 20m migrate from ps+, or $2.4b from the 15$.
That revenue target wont be easy to achieve. You have to make people sub to that service, by giving them incentives. Gamepass is the best deal in the gaming industry, and not even that can get xbox live gold users to sub to the service.
Gamepass exist inside XBL, you must be a XBL user to use Game Pass. I think you mean Gold (included inside Game Pass Ultimate), which is the paid service to play online inside XBL.
I keep messing up gold with xbox live one.
Spartacus tier 3 won't only include PS Now, will have PS Plus bundled and they are suppose to include games from PS1 and PS (I assume via cloud only, because if not I don't see the point of including them only here) plus new stuff like 'extended demos'. PS Now is supposed to stop existing outside Spartacus, so I assume tier 3 will have the same -or cheaper- price than PS Now and Sony will move all their PS Now subs to Spartacus tier 3.
That is what people will compare it to gamepass. Not the tier which has ps+ only.
There is now law preventing this. In the same way that Sony could make other promotions like upgrading from tier 1 to tier 3 for $1, give new players a month of tier 3 for $1 etc. Same as MS.
You cant force consumers to upgrade to different plan. You can give them promotion, but not change the service they have. That is breaching consumers rights.
MS could have changed xbox live gold to gamepass gold, and say these are gamepass users.
Each tier has is its own separate service. You pay for that tier. No one can force you to pay another tier service, that you didnt agree to.
Sony runs successful and profitable gaming businesses like their game subscriptions, which have more subs and revenue than the MS ones, and unlike MS ones they are profitable.
That doesnt translate to subscription model. Hardware isnt the same as subscription service. And forcing users to pay for online portion mode, is what generates these profits.
MS money comes from standalone service. They dont depend Xbox live gold for their profits. Gamepass standalone generates that money. And it cost alot of money to maintain it. MS had to eat the cost of those services for 2-3 years.
We can talk about Psnow, which managed to get RD2 on a 3m subscription. If that service can afford a game like that, then most games at gamepass is very cheap for MS.
Sony doesn't need to throw Billions to the garbage bin because they aren't desperate for attention. The debut day Spartacus will have around twice the amount of userbase than MS and not only will be profitable, but Sony won't be sacrificing their day one sales, so Sony will get even more profits from game sales.
They will have to. They have no choice. Gamepass set the stage with Day1 1st party in the service. If Sony wants to compete with that service, they would need to put their day1 games in to their spartacus, and spend alot of money getting AAA 3rd party games day1 on that service.
Gamepass has room to grow. Activision would bolster those subs, and their upcoming games would increase the sub count. If MS hits 50m users, That is $400m a month/$4.8b a year for 8$, $500m /$6b for 10$, $600m/$7.2b for 12$, $750m/$9b for 15$. That is 400m-750m a month or $4.8b-$9b revenue.
You will needs tons of money to rival that money printing machine. And it wont stop at 50m userbase. It has the potential to hit 100m users in 8 years. Unlike consoles, Subscription services dont have a ceilings.
I understtand why Spencer begs to include GamePass on PS or Switch. But I don't see why Nintendo or Sony would want to have GamePass on their consoles, in the same way I don't understand why would Sony would want to put Spartacus in non-Sony consoles since what they want is to bring players to their consoles because they get there the 30% of any games/dlc/mtx/season pass sold there.
Because more users print out more money.
If MS charges gamepass 15$, and nothing else, they will get $9b a year guarantee money from 50m subscribers. That is 40% of Sony 2020 revenue. MS doesnt have to sell games at all. The more subs the service gains the more money they will gain. Even 100m (hard to achieve) would generate $1.5b a month or $18b. That is more than Xbox revenue in 2020 selling games, 3rd party games, and dlcs.
That is how much money these subscription service make. Phil will be so happy for Nintendo, Sony, and steam to have that service. It gives him tons of users.
