• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

Take-Two CEO: "Subscription model doesn't really make sense for frontline titles”

TheGrat1

Member
Isn’t PSNow essentially Gamepass except with streaming titles as well as game downloads?
Nah. Gamepass' great hook is that it gets all MS published games day one. That is the content the consumer can count on to come (relatively) steadily and stay forever instead of rotating out like other titles. Gamepass is more like Gamefly: Xbox Edition, except it is delivered digitally so there is no worry about availability. Also, all games through Gamepass are downloadable which is vastly superior to streaming.
PSNow lacks that first party day one offer and that is the greatest difference between the two. The odds you will have to wait longer for bangers is higher on PSNow, but it offsets this by having a much larger catalog.
 
Then how come there is extra 2m users? Does anyone who bought the game, have another user on their system, which plays the game? Where do gamepass players be situated? Considering the game have been on a platform, where 20m+ users can access the game.
Game Pass users are definitely a large part of it, never said otherwise. But as I have remarked three times now, it's absurd to say 2 million users from those numbers are GP users. Maybe 1.5 mil, maybe more, maybe less, who knows, I don't know, you don't either, but it's certainly not 2 million.
 
Last edited:

arvfab

Banned
Then how come there is extra 2m users? Does anyone who bought the game, have another user on their system, which plays the game? Where do gamepass players be situated? Considering the game have been on a platform, where 20m+ users can access the game.

Let's assume all of the 2m are from Gamepass. Isn't the number underwhelming? I mean, in other threads people said 10% attach rate for games paid 70€/$ were bad...
 

kingfey

Banned
That's not necessarily a bad thing. They have a highly concentrated portfolio that is focused on quality over quantity which ensures sales and engagement numbers that most other publishers could only dream of. They've found something that works for them so they are sticking with it.
Like running an online MP game, for a game which was released in 2013. The game survived by Shark loan cards. That is why they are boosting about not needing A sub model.

We don't have raw figures on how much GTA Online or GTA V earned digitally in April, but the game managed to make over $500 million in microtransactions in 2019 alone, and total mTX revenues were up 40% YoY in Take-Two's FY20 period.

Read more: https://www.tweaktown.com/news/7271...transaction-earnings-in-april-2020/index.html

That is how much they made from mtx in 2019.

They are like fifa. Fifa sold 112.68m copies since 2013 to 2019. total wide. They sold 325m copies since fifa was made. And most of their money was from MTX in recent years.

Games like these dont need subs, since people will buy it.
Over the years, Call of Duty games have grossed around $15 billion and sold over 300 million copies

As long as people buy these games, they have no use for subs. Other games dont have that privilege's. They have long period of time between them. 5 years is enough for people to move on from the series. The only way people will stay with you, is if you provided them with some sort of long gameplay. Like gtav online mode, Skyrim mods, Halo MP mode, mods with mcc collection. These games havent made a sequel game since 2011-2013.
 

kingfey

Banned
Let's assume all of the 2m are from Gamepass. Isn't the number underwhelming? I mean, in other threads people said 10% attach rate for games paid 70€/$ were bad...
This is a sport game, nevertheless a baseball at that. Not a huge series. and the fact it got close to that numbers, indicates there is room for different type of games. Specially with 475+ games being on the service.

I would say that is a huge numbers. 500k would have been my guess. it seems people are hungry for a baseball game.
 

kingfey

Banned
Game Pass users are definitely a large part of it, never said otherwise. But as I have remarked three times now, it's absurd to say 2 million users from those numbers are GP users. Maybe 1.5 mil, maybe more, maybe less, who knows, I don't know, you don't either, but it's certainly not 2 million.
Only MLB knows so far. Still, even if gamepass is 1m users, that is still impressive, as that is half copies sold.
 

arvfab

Banned
This is a sport game, nevertheless a baseball at that. Not a huge series. and the fact it got close to that numbers, indicates there is room for different type of games. Specially with 475+ games being on the service.

I would say that is a huge numbers. 500k would have been my guess. it seems people are hungry for a baseball game.

You mean one of the most popular game types combined with one of the most popular sport types in the USA (where majority of Gamepass subscriptions are, I guess), and yet just 10% played it. Seems really underwhelming.
 

Stooky

Member
Like running an online MP game, for a game which was released in 2013. The game survived by Shark loan cards. That is why they are boosting about not needing A sub model.

We don't have raw figures on how much GTA Online or GTA V earned digitally in April, but the game managed to make over $500 million in microtransactions in 2019 alone, and total mTX revenues were up 40% YoY in Take-Two's FY20 period.

Read more: https://www.tweaktown.com/news/7271...transaction-earnings-in-april-2020/index.html

That is how much they made from mtx in 2019.

They are like fifa. Fifa sold 112.68m copies since 2013 to 2019. total wide. They sold 325m copies since fifa was made. And most of their money was from MTX in recent years.

Games like these dont need subs, since people will buy it.
Over the years, Call of Duty games have grossed around $15 billion and sold over 300 million copies

As long as people buy these games, they have no use for subs. Other games dont have that privilege's. They have long period of time between them. 5 years is enough for people to move on from the series. The only way people will stay with you, is if you provided them with some sort of long gameplay. Like gtav online mode, Skyrim mods, Halo MP mode, mods with mcc collection. These games havent made a sequel game since 2011-2013.
Yes to all of this.
With game budget numbers, Letts say Game A cost 160 mill to make. A lot the upfront cost is Engine/tech/game development. The sequel to Game A will cost less. Most games count on a sequel to leverage that initial cost.
 

JLB

Banned
Not the same circumstances here... like... at all.

The VAST majority of dollars spent on video games currently goes to MTXs first, then digital and physical full games sales, then subscription-based games like MMOs, and finally subscription game services like GamePass are at the bottom of the list.

Yes, sub-services like GP are growing in revenue generated, but not faster than any of the other aforementioned items.

So gamers overwhelmingly are not seeing game subscription services as the exclusive future of gaming, rather an additive option... which is entirely unlike what Netflix has become for TV and movie content.

Not sure why you put MTXs and even sub games MMOs in the same line. I mean, Gamepass just make it easier for devs to tempt gamers to spend even more on that.
 

Kenpachii

Member
Man who sells 150 million copies of game says giving the copies away for "free" doesn't make sense.

Oh My God Reaction GIF

Yet they gave gta 5 away for free on epic store.
 

kingfey

Banned
You mean one of the most popular game types combined with one of the most popular sport types in the USA (where majority of Gamepass subscriptions are, I guess), and yet just 10% played it. Seems really underwhelming.
As if majority of gamepass users are USA, or have any interest in baseball. Baseball is too niche, compared to madden and nba. Plus the franchise has been a playstation exclusive. So most baseball lovers will buy on that platform.

The 2018 sold 1.06 compared to the 2017 1.16m. That was on the ps4. The franchise hasnt been that popular, its why they made it multiplatform. Nba17 sold 7 million copies by feb 2017. While madden nfl 17 sold 1.06 on it s1st week.
That is how weak MLB the show is. Baseball sold very low.
 

sendit

Member
FYI. Halo5 sold 9m on 51m devices, while god of war did 20m on a 116m devices. If Xbox had that much ps4 numbers, they would have sold the same as gow. But i doubt you care.

Halo 5 was despised by its fan, and its sold that 9m on a 51m device, and its still available on gamepass. Not to mention, the game isnt even on pc, where halo is gigantic.

Continue your console dream though.
If…only if people people bought that many Xbox’s it would have sold as much….Do you not see how data is relatable/relative and the arguement you’re trying to make is pretty stupid.
 
gamepass cost 15 bucks. Thats what a game costs. on pc.

It's $10 for regular and $15 for Ultimate (which has XBL Gold rolled into it).

They are right, big games like GTA or COD wont get gamepass Day 1 unless Microsoft pays alot for it. GTA COD dont need game pass, those games have their own eco system, they make a large amount of money from sales. They wont potentially cannibalize their sales for a subscription service.

Big games in the way GTA or COD exist, maybe, but that's not every AAA game. In fact, that isn't MOST AAA games, most AAA games sell nowhere near the # of copies of a GTA or COD. So if that's his standard for "frontline" then his comments are only relevant for 2%...maybe 5% ...of the entire AAA market, let alone the AA or indie sides of the gaming market as a whole.

His comments literally concern a minuscule minority of overall software releases in the industry, yet people are taking it as gospel to apply to gaming as a whole? Something smells fishy there, and that's on the people interpreting it that way.

You are over thinking this too much.

In order for a game to hit that, they need to be a massive franchise, sell in all 3 devices, and have a successful game.

Few games have that. Even the mighty skyrim barely managed to hit 3m in 2 days. That is on 3 system.

Games now days have a competition. Unless you are a first party game, good luck hitting 5m in your first month on all platform.

Resident evil 8 did 4m in 1 month. This is a long running franchise, on a 5 system. Pc, xseries , ps5, x1, ps4.

You also have to consider the risk if making these big hits.

God of war costed $200m for Sony to make. In 4 years, with discounts and being 10$, it sold estimate of 20m copies, since release. Since it's Sony game, they don't have to pay 30% cut. If the game had failed, Sony would have lost alot of money. Because they Paid $200m just to make the game. How many millions do you think sony would need to cover that loss? They would need to sell 3.5m copies to hit that $200m cost. If the game made 2m sold in 1 month, that would have been a huge loss for Sony. as 2m is $120m at a 60$ price cost. 20m for 4 years is $1.2b profit, if the game stayed at 60$. But it had 10$ as its lowest. If we do average, which is 30$ per copy, God of war would have made $600m at minimum in 4 years. Substract the cost of making, and you get $400m profit in 4 years. That is 20m copies. Who didnt flop, and its a 1st party game.

I'm not privy to God of War's costs myself, but supposing it was $200 million to develop it, there's also the additional expense of marketing for the game. In the film industry, I think marketing is usually an extra 1.75% multiplier on top of the production costs, so assuming that's somewhat similar for a Hollywood-style blockbuster AAA game, $200 million quickly becomes $350 million altogether, so you'd actually have to clear $350 million to break even, not $200 million.

Again tho, that's just an example assuming GoW's budget was $200 million; I'm not sure it actually was, though there's the possibility the NEXT (full) GoW sequel could reach that high on production costs, and if the film marketing average holds true for AAA blockbuster games then overall costs would push it around $350 million or so in that case.

Which I personally think is absurd for production & marketing costs in general, game or film, but that's another discussion...

Now do that, to 3rd party games. If resident evil 8 gets sold on Playstation, they would have to pay 30% cut of the 2m potentially sold in that console. With the price tag of 60$ as a majority, the game would have made $120m/30%=120m-36m=$84m. same for other devices, which takes 30% cut, $84m. total is $168m. Now you takeout the game cost, and marketing, and what is left is the profit.
What would the R8 profit be, if it sold 1-2m on that month? Do you think they would have recouped their loss?

This is what 3rd party games would need to deal with. As games gets expensive, it would harder for them to make profit. They will also need to fight other game releases, especially big games. Outriders were lucky, it didnt get released between Battlefield, Halo and COD. That is why it sold well. The good window helped the game get more players.

You have gamepass at its infant. By now, it should be 20m+ users. Subs fees alone would be $200m. That is the cost of making god of war. With 30m, subs fees would $300m. This is just at average of 10$. Not counting 1st party dlc, and those who just want to buy the games that are on gamepass, or pay mtx, or small adds on, like dlc characters.

They can just get unlimited funding for their 1st party games. Get 3rd party games, who are afraid of losing their investments, like outriders.

This what happens when a game fails.

13. Marvel's Avengers​

Year released: 2020

Developers: Crystal Dynamics

Publishers: Square Enix

Platforms: PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Stadia, Xbox SeriesX/S, Windows

Fallout: Approximately $67 million loss

If you have no exclusive deals, or timed exclusive, you will lose that much money on your product, if its not successful. Every year a game fails.
this is a 2018 game.

7. Overkill's The Walking Dead​

Year released: 2018

Developers: Overkill Software

Publishers: Starbreeze Publishing

Platforms: Microsoft Windows

Fallout: At least 60 jobs and millions of dollars lost

I remember seeing ads for this game. That is how much it suffered, because it didnt sell well.

Not everyone is lucky as gtav, or have Sony/Xbox/Nintendo name. Studios who dont have financial backing would shoulder that much loss, if their game sold less.

This is why Subscription service is important. Making a deal with those companies, allows the company to have some of its cost shaved from them, and face less losses. If their game is truly sold bad.

Careful now, you're making too much sense! Are you...are you a SHILL, brah!?

I'll go ahead and say this, if not for Gamepass it's quite possible that Xbox wouldn't exist anymore. Since Satya arrived at Microsoft he's been focused on ensuring their revenue streams come from recurring subscriptions, any business area that has failed to transition over to that model has been on the chopping block.




Xbox now have the full backing of the business because of the fact that gamepass exists, deals like the Bethesda one don't get done without it. So basically, come profit or loss, rain or shine, they have no choice since this is the only way forward for the business as long as it's a division of current day Microsoft.


So Microsoft's previous strategy didn't work for them, people complained and they needed to change. In all of this, Xbox as a division now has expectations to meet, and it has to synergize itself at least in part with the company's overall business strategy. And that's not a bad thing.

Because now, as you've said, they have MS's full backing, which means they can access resources that might've been locked off to them before. The synergy between the gaming and non-gaming sides are now in concept about where they've been with Sony for the past decade, and that has only benefited PlayStation.

People asked for a more competitive Xbox this generation, they can't start crying now that they've made some necessary changes to do that, and aren't doing a carbon-copy of Sony or Nintendo's business strategies in doing so. This is the diversity of thought and creative visions for the industry gamers always asked for, right?


I don't even own any stock in them tho :LOL:

Grand day when destroying falsehoods with logic and numbers gets me labeled with the Shill Stamp ™, yet here we are 🤷‍♂️
 

kingfey

Banned
If…only if people people bought that many Xbox’s it would have sold as much….Do you not see how data is relatable/relative and the arguement you’re trying to make is pretty stupid.
People see big numbers, and touch their noise like the got something big. Sadly math doesnt work on people like that.
 

Stooky

Member
It's $10 for regular and $15 for Ultimate (which has XBL Gold rolled into it).



Big games in the way GTA or COD exist, maybe, but that's not every AAA game. In fact, that isn't MOST AAA games, most AAA games sell nowhere near the # of copies of a GTA or COD. So if that's his standard for "frontline" then his comments are only relevant for 2%...maybe 5% ...of the entire AAA market, let alone the AA or indie sides of the gaming market as a whole.

His comments literally concern a minuscule minority of overall software releases in the industry, yet people are taking it as gospel to apply to gaming as a whole? Something smells fishy there, and that's on the people interpreting it that way.
Well he is currently in charge of 2 of those '2%' titles and he's still right. A game does not have to be as big as GTA to get more revenue from sales than subscription services. Right now there are very few numbers to back up the validity of a major AAA day 1 release on game pass. It would be dumb to make that gamble especially if your preorder numbers are high.
 

kingfey

Banned
Subscription models work in EVERY single industry, from movies, tv shows, music, education… except gaming… apparently
Gaming have this mindset, that their entertainment is high quality. Sadly its not.

A game cost as much as a movie. Yet movies makes their money from 10$ ticket.

All the game needs, is your 1st buy out. It doesnt care whether you play it or not. As long as you buy the game, you are giving them money. Its no different than going to a cinema or buying the movie. Same experience.

Same business plan. The movies guys just figured out that they can make more money on subs. Why wait for people to come to a theatre, when you can show your product directly on tv, while saving all those sweet money that you will have shared, with cinema stores, ticket guys, and ads.

Sports also can reach wider audience using this tactic. Tons of fans for their game. I didnt like football/soccer that much. But now I watch them on youtube, despite never going to a match.
 

kingfey

Banned
Well he is currently in charge of 2 of those '2%' titles and he's still right. A game does not have to be as big as GTA to get more revenue from sales than subscription services. Right now there are very few numbers to back up the validity of a major AAA day 1 release on game pass. It would be dumb to make that gamble especially if your preorder numbers are high.
You have to account, whether the game would be a hit or not. whether game would meet the requires sales or not. Whether the game revenue would be higher than what your spending is.

You would have to be stupid, or confident on your game, to not a put on a service, which is willing to give you money upfront. This upfront money is enough to cover, some of your spending.

The real test starts in 2023. At this time, gamepass should have 35m+ users. We would see, whether publishers/devs would ignore it.

We already in the sub model market. Most of your entertainments are a sub. Because of how much money it makes.

For example, a stadium has limited people to watch the game. You can have sports+ sub model for people to watch the game on the go at their home. You get those potential lost ticket from these guys.

In this case, Publishers sees these service as a potential way, to reach gamers wouldnt have bought their games at all.
 
Last edited:

EDMIX

Member
Well yeah. Red Dead 2 sold like $750 million worth of copies in one month. GTA sold almost a billion. They cant afford to give it away for $10.

GTA has now sold 150 million copies. Most of them at around $30-40. Red Dead 2 is now at 38 million and I have never seen it drop below $40 even after three years.

Subscription model should work for MS now that they have 24 studios potentially pumping out games left and right but Rockstar makes like 1 game every 5 years.

Good point.

Its not for all publishers, especially if you are moving massive units. MS historically has not really done that to the same degree as Nintendo, Sony, Rockstar etc. So that model makes more sense for them, then for Rockstar or Take Two in general.
 

kingfey

Banned
Good point.

Its not for all publishers, especially if you are moving massive units. MS historically has not really done that to the same degree as Nintendo, Sony, Rockstar etc. So that model makes more sense for them, then for Rockstar or Take Two in general.
What happens if MS buy take2? Take 2 costs 2.5x bethesda. They can easily buy them, and have 2 of the most sold copies games ever. minecraft and gtav, aside of tetris.
 
Says the company that has one of the worst implementation of rip off microtransactions and loves giving old games a touch up and reselling them as new versions
 

Stooky

Member
You have to account, whether the game would be a hit or not. whether game would meet the requires sales or not. Whether the game revenue would be higher than what your spending is.

You would have to be stupid, or confident on your game, to not a put on a service, which is willing to give you money upfront. This upfront money is enough to cover, some of your spending.

The real test starts in 2023. At this time, gamepass should have 35m+ users. We would see, whether publishers/devs would ignore it.

We already in the sub model market. Most of your entertainments are a sub. Because of how much money it makes.

For example, a stadium has limited people to watch the game. You can have sports+ sub model for people to watch the game on the go at their home. You get those potential lost ticket from these guys.

In this case, Publishers sees these service as a potential way, to reach gamers wouldnt have bought their games at all.
For every game released there are tons of marketing analytics that done so they have a good idea of how well the game performs. If it benifits the game to be on GP then it will happen. For many successful games i dont see a day 1 realease on Gamepass, I see that game showing up on GP months later. The numbers don't add up. The games that do show up Day 1 will either have their development co funded by Microsoft or microsoft just paid the dev a lot money for day 1 access. A 10 mill selling franchise should stay away get their money from sales, they will make more money that way.

Your sub analogy is off. Most of these services offer old product or they arent streaming and selling the same new product at the same time. Music would be the only example that doesn't work but it doesn't cost 60-100mil to make an album and most of these music labels are pushing for streaming only anyway.
 

kingfey

Banned
For every game released there are tons of marketing analytics that done so they have a good idea of how well the game performs. If it benifits the game to be on GP then it will happen. For many successful games i dont see a day 1 realease on Gamepass, I see that game showing up on GP months later. The numbers don't add up. The games that do show up Day 1 will either have their development co funded by Microsoft or microsoft just paid the dev a lot money for day 1 access. A 10 mill selling franchise should stay away get their money from sales, they will make more money that way.

Your sub analogy is off. Most of these services offer old product or they arent streaming and selling the same new product at the same time. Music would be the only example that doesn't work but it doesn't cost 60-100mil to make an album and most of these music labels are pushing for streaming only anyway.
The market analytic didn't help Avengers game. Or RE8 do better record. Sometimes, certain game, fail to appeal to the masses, despite the analytics having a good calculation about the game.

Whether MS supports them or not, its depend on what the game needs. Old franchise have no need for gamepass. Because, they already have people who will buy them. Best example is persona. Its very successful game, to atlus, despite it not being on xbox at all.

New games, are the ones that need gamepass like service. They have no followers, or any cult. They have to gamble with the game. Either flop, or become like a gem. Hidden gems such as, Deaths door being a hidden gem. Or it takes 2 Those game dont need to rely on gamepass, because they have the magic on them. Others dont have that much success. Even if you love the game, it doesnt mean it will be a hit to the masses. For example, the Ascent. Not as good as deaths door. But good enough, that it garnered quite alot of players. It would have been in the trash if it werent for gamepass, due to the score it got. People like it, but not the critics that much.

You have no idea how many new stuff these industry put on their service. Always there is a new movie. You wont know it, because most of the movies are too average, that you think they come out long time ago. These stuff, are the ones you dont see in the cinema. Because they really dont get that much chance, especially when they are competing against big Hollywood movies. Here is the list for Netflix July month.
Here is for the current list

Disney has new content too. But they are mostly their own content. Hulu has it too. Most of other service too.

When you arent tracking them, you would think there is nothing there. But when you actually do your research, you will find tons of new stuff. I didnt know austin powers was on netflix. Time for me to check it this weekend.
 
Nah. Gamepass' great hook is that it gets all MS published games day one. That is the content the consumer can count on to come (relatively) steadily and stay forever instead of rotating out like other titles. Gamepass is more like Gamefly: Xbox Edition, except it is delivered digitally so there is no worry about availability. Also, all games through Gamepass are downloadable which is vastly superior to streaming.
PSNow lacks that first party day one offer and that is the greatest difference between the two. The odds you will have to wait longer for bangers is higher on PSNow, but it offsets this by having a much larger catalog.
That’s true, but I mostly mean they are similar in concept and both offer quality games even if Sony has more older titles. Gamepass has its fair share of older titles as well. I think if Sony continues to build on PSNow and market it more, it could be a very strong competitor to Gamepass. They are adding more downloadable games, but as you stated all GP titles are downloadable. Microsoft does have the advantage of day one first party games though so that will be a very nice perk for Gamepass.
 
Last edited:

EDMIX

Member
What happens if MS buy take2? Take 2 costs 2.5x bethesda. They can easily buy them, and have 2 of the most sold copies games ever. minecraft and gtav, aside of tetris.

That would be wild.

After the Zenimax deal, I doubt nothing lol Anything can happen at this point. (shit i'd say after Disney buying Fox, anything can happen as many felt such a deal couldn't happen based on the whole monopoly thing, but after that shit....anything goes lol)
 

Heisenberg007

Gold Journalism
That $22b was from 30% cut of all games in their service, plus 1st party games. There is thousand of games, which gets sold on PlayStation system.
No, that was the total revenue. So third-party sales + first-party sales + MTX + every other revenue. And the problem with subscription services is that you pay developers to get their games on those services. On the other hand, developers pay you to sell their software on your platform.
If they do in gamepass way, Sony would earn 180$ a year from 80m people paying 15$ a month from subs alone, to hit that milestone. OR 240$ from 62.5m players paying at 20$ a month.

Playstation has a bad management with their users. Their communication is turd. Its why psnow has 3.1m users. Their lack on investing in their system, not making ps+ more appealing, is why their subs model is bad.
I wouldn't say that PS has bad management because PS+ already is the biggest gaming subscription in the industry. That's 2.5x better than Gamepass. PS is already the biggest gaming brand. If that is after the bad management, what does that say about management in other companies.
Psnow will get 20m users, if those games, were download, past 4+ year 1st party games were available on the service. That would have been $1.2b profit from just 20m users at a 60$. They just dont care.
PS Now games (PS2 and PS4 games) are already downloadable.

We can do "would, could", but the fact is that subscription services in gaming haven't proven to be a success yet. GP has 18 million subscribers but that's just converting Gold subscribers at the moment by asking them to pay $1. What happens when they cross that threshold of their existing Gold subscriber counnt? Perhaps that's what we are seeing with PS Now with only 3-4 million subscribers.
 

Heisenberg007

Gold Journalism
If Sony started offering their first-party AAA games day and date on PS Now, the yearly subscription price would be increased substantially from the current $60/year, so lets not be disingenuous about the pricing strategy. If we assume they increase the price to $100/year (which still seems low), that would mean they need 150 million yearly subscribers to break-even, not 250 million.

Additionally, being a streaming service means the consumer base is not limited to the number of consoles sold.
  1. When you increase the cost, the demand goes down. Who's to say 150 million will be realistic at $100/year.
  2. Even 150 million is beyond the current userbase of PlayStation, which by the way includes very, very casual users who just play Fifa and CODs year after year.
  3. And a streaming service would add additional Cloud and server costs, which would push the operating expenses further up.
 

longdi

Banned
Take two don’t have enough games for a subscription service

Yap! Highly concentrated portfolio leads to high risks concentration. 🤷‍♀️

TT will scramble to subs services should their GTA brand fall wayside to gamers' boredom.
 

IDKFA

I am Become Bilbo Baggins
Money talks

Take Two will never make their own subscription service, but I guarantee that soon Microsoft will be throwing money at them, plus all other publishers, to ensure their AAA games release on Gamepass on day one.

When that happens, we'll have no need to drop £70 on a single game again. Every game from MS and third party publishers will always be on Gamepass from day one and also never leave the service.

Give it a year and this will be the future. I also think Sony will do the same with PS Now, but it might take them longer as they don't have the same financial clout as MS.
 
gamepass is DOA

Here's the potential subscriber among the gaming crowd.

1. MS hardcore fan who would support MS no matter what.
2. Trophy hunters.
3. High schoolers who play a lot of games every month - who is not into Fortnite (or other F2P), Fifa, CoD and the likes.
4. Those who have a lot of money that they don't care they waste $15 a month even though they're playing GTA6 (or the latest 3rd party AAA games) almost every time he turns on his console.

Here's the potential subscriber among the casuals.

1. None


tnTLxjk.jpg
 
Last edited:
They cant make enough games to justify Subscription service. One game in 5 to 6 years wont help subscription service.

Plus don't have pockets like MS for subscription services.


That's said EA and Ubisoft are doing it for their big games. So not all publishers agree with T2.
 
Here's the potential subscriber among the gaming crowd.

1. MS hardcore fan who would support MS no matter what.
2. Trophy hunters.
3. High schoolers who play a lot of games every month - who is not into Fortnite (or other F2P), Fifa, CoD and the likes.
4. Those who have a lot of money that they don't care they waste $15 a month even though they're playing GTA6 (or the latest 3rd party AAA games) almost every time he turns on his console.

Here's the potential subscriber among the casuals.

1. None


tnTLxjk.jpg

Oh thank you for expert industry analysis. You seem to know about Game pass alot. Im sure you have done thorough research before farting out those words in your post.

Gaf is full of expert like you which makes it best place for gaming related expert analysis.
 

KRYPT83

Member
Q1 2022 Take-Two Earnings Conference Call

Gamespot

Take-Two Reacts To Game Pass-Like Subscription Services


Once again, Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick has responded to the financial situation surrounding subscription services like Game Pass. His views are unchanged--subscription services make sense of catalog games but not new ones. This is a point he has been stressing for years already.




Zelnick observed that "consumption patterns" for a streaming service like Netflix--which offers linear entertainment (for now at least)--are different from interactive entertainment.
That's because it takes then 10 damn yrs to release one game
 

Helghan

Member
I'll go ahead and say this, if not for Gamepass it's quite possible that Xbox wouldn't exist anymore. Since Satya arrived at Microsoft he's been focused on ensuring their revenue streams come from recurring subscriptions, any business area that has failed to transition over to that model has been on the chopping block.




Xbox now have the full backing of the business because of the fact that gamepass exists, deals like the Bethesda one don't get done without it. So basically, come profit or loss, rain or shine, they have no choice since this is the only way forward for the business as long as it's a division of current day Microsoft.

As long as it makes sense of course. They don't make subscriptions just to make subscriptions. There has to be a sound business model behind it.
 

Hobbygaming

has been asked to post in 'Grounded' mode.
Sony was kind enough to lend their biggest sport franchise (MLB: The Show) to the service at launch and Square Enix launched their big new IP Outriders on day one there too.
I'm pretty sure this is because they were expecting Outriders not to meet their sales expectations so they struck a Gamepass deal with MS
 

GHG

Gold Member
As long as it makes sense of course. They don't make subscriptions just to make subscriptions. There has to be a sound business model behind it.

Of course there is but it's not for everyone due to the fact that media subscription models require a significant amount of ongoing investment along with a period of cash burn until the number of subscribers reaches a certain level.

Some companies can justify the risk better than others. My point is that it's a risk that Xbox had to take in order to move the business forward. At some point they also ran the numbers on Zune Pass and moved ahead with it, where is that now? There's no guarantee these things work out and for that reason a lot of companies with healthy existing business models will shy away from it.
 
Top Bottom