There is no way Game Pass can be a sale. I don't understand that thinking.
It generates income from subscribed users. $200m is 3m AAA copy sold at 60$ price. that is 3m copy every month, and it go more, as subscribers count go up.
and as for profits, you break it down like game sale profits.
I spent a dollar on it for three years. I won't be giving MS any more money (most likely) until the beginning of 2025 but I get to play everything they have spent 77 billion on (and counting if you consider they now have to pay salaries for all of these studios) during that time.
I like this stupid take alot. Mind telling us how you got those 3 years deal? Because last time I heard, you had to pay 180$ upfront to get that 1$, and have your xbox live acount be fresh from gamepass.
Normal people dont spend that much. 15$ is what they can afford, not 180$ upfront.
I'm also about to drop 80 bucks on Horizon Forbidden West, and might get GT7. So thats 150 bucks on two games, to support two studios over the course of two months.
Sony doesnt get stable income like gamepass. They dont sell their games on pc. MS can simply get Sony like sales, and still make more money from gamepass.
20m xbox live users+25m gamepass users. That is stable income. None gamepass users will buy 1st party games. PC users will also buy xbox 1st party games since they drop day1 on steam. That is enough to make sales, which covers people who sub to gamepass. Not to mention, xbox games sell for along time on steam. It can reach 10m steam sales.
Which company do you think is better off here?
MS, because their approach gives them more money.
Sony has to rely on their system to sell games. MS relies on their system, on their windows pc, steam users, and gamepass users.
If Sony puts out 3 1st party games, and they sell 8m each for that year (very hard thing to do, since got took almost 2 years+ pandemic sales to hit that), they will sell 24m copies. since those games gets ps4 drop, the average price would be 65$. That is $1.56b.
If MS did the same, and they sell 5m copies each, that is 15m sale at 60$. $900m sales. If gamepass makes $200m a month, that is $2.4b. add that to 900m, and you have $3.3b revenue total. not profit, but revenue.
We can argue about profit wise, but in term of revenue, MS clearly makes more money with gamepass+pc+xbox.
disclaimer: This is not how much both companies make. They sell to global audience. with different currency, it might not represent actual value for both systems.