You get more money the more people who sign up for gamepass. Which do you think is more enticing for gamers? A library of classic single player titles? Or a library full of old unplayable GaaS games?
Halo is one game, and it has been in development since before gamepass existed. If Microsoft is serious about the long term success of gamepass it makes no sense to fill it with a bunch of games that wont be playable in the long term.
Plus this notion that people will pay $120 a year to play a $60 game makes no sense. If all you do is sit around playing one game, you probably have no interest in gamepass. Gamepass is only appealing to people who like to play a large variety of games.
And I don't think Microsoft is hurting for cash. I am pretty sure they can afford to make as many games as they want. If they were worried about short term profits they wouldn't be giving away their games for free on gamepass in the first place. In fact, gamepass probably wouldn't even exist.
The average gamer buys two full-priced games a year. $120
A year of GP, with no discounts or 1$ upgrade path. $120
Only GP carries much higher costs for MS, given they have to pay partners, and deal with offering discounts, promotions, and the like.
I don't disagree with you, a diverse selection of SP games would be really appealing, but it's
nowhere near sustainable, and we've seen that. Most, if not all recent MS releases featured heavy mtx, gaas elements, and were designed for continued player retention first and foremost.
It's not that SP experiences can't happen, they just become increasingly less likely and lower budget if you're relying on a subscription model for revenue. It's why most SP releases on GP are not from MS, but from companies that made their profit selling the game already.
After all, a single GP release, to get the same revenue, needs to either:
- Keep a player subscribed for 6 months
- Bring in 6 times as many people for 1 month
The latter is far more attainable, which is why GaaS happen. This again
does not translate to profit.
Subscription services go through a period were they bleed money to get more content and subscribers, which may eventually translate to some profits over the very long-term. Again, Netflix is 12 Billion dollars in debt, and I don't believe GP and XBox have anywhere near the same capacity for growth, given the increased costs of games over TV/movies.
For subscription services to become profitable they first go through a very lengthy period were they bleed cash (and were most crash and burn), trying to get more content