Matt Piscatella: Sub. growth has flattened & sub services account for only 10% video game spending in the US. |UP| Still stagnant & stalled.

[Say1nMan]

 

[flaccidsnake]

To get the money they make, mostly on mobile and selling CoD and WoW stuff.

how many years do you think before the -$70B turns positive?

 

[Yurinka]

If Sony are no longer the dominant company in the industry, and the majority of revenue is made from mobile, gatcha and MTX, then their feud with Microsoft becomes pointless and Sony becomes a drop in the ocean.

Sony continues being the dominant company in the industry:

• Sony is the top grossing gaming company in the world, having passed (at least temporally) Tencent.
• PS has the biggest and most active console userbase.
• Which is the cause of being the top grossing platform for the top 3rd party AAA publishers.
• PS+ has twice the subs than GP, generates way more revenue and unlike GP it's a profitable business.
• Almost every year out of the three, Sony's exclusives are the ones who win more GOTYs and/or have more goty nominess. And it's also the platform where more GOTY nominees are.

And will be even more because:

• Sony keeps eating Xbox market share
• Sony keeps growing in PC: >50% YoY during first half of the current FY, where it was top 20 PC publisher in the previous one even if only had a few games and still didn't start to publish new GaaS there
• New GaaS from people like Bungie, Firewalk or Haven will highly increase their revenue in console and PC
• In mobile it's also around top 20 publisher, but is making many deals with top mobile devs and preparing themselves to grow there with also internal teams like the acquired Neon Koi
• Their movies and tv shows are being very popular and are working in almost a dozen adaptations, generating them direct money but also making their brands more popular, which increases consoles and game sales

how many years do you think before the -$70B turns positive?

If they continue putting their games day one on GP and don't go full multiplatform in console, never.

But seeing CoD will continue on PS at least for 10 years and that at least via subs the next 15 years of AB games will be able to be on PS via Ubisoft (and all games in PS subs must be on the PSN store), I think outside maybe some isolated case with a timed console exclusive they'll go full multi.

Then some higher up or investor will tell them to stop burning money with day one games on GP because that strategy is a failure and a money pit, plus won't allow them make more big publisher acquisitions to focus on make their business profitable, not releasing a console for the next gen, but they may release a SteamOS like Windows "Xbox Edition" version to be used in SteamDeck and Steam Machines like console shaped pcs.

They also should change their top positions firing (or "promoting to other divisions") Phil Spencer, Aaron Greenberg and Sarah Bond.

By doing all these things, they'd slowly move to profitability and somewhere between 10-20 years maybe would recoup the $70B investment.

 

[Gamernyc78]

This was posted in the other thread where Ubisoft mentions not owning games if your interested in seeing tht discussion.

 

[Gamernyc78]

Which means subs are worth 20~ billion a year? That's a significant amount.

If Xbox earn 50% of that, while never having to eat the cost of R&D and hardware, is it game over for Xbox? If they expand the reach of gamepass and earn a few more percent of 20 billion, then it isn't a bad business decision.

Fwiw I hate streaming. Mobile games and their consequences have been a disaster for the console industry.

Yeah but it's already a fact tht Sony dominates in subs as well with PSplus making way more than gamepass. So idk I mean Microsoft has still made marginal profits but if subs are stagnating it's not looking to good for them because they want growth and they've put all their basket in subs service tht is not expanding.

 

[Yobo]

Imagine spending 80 billion on betting Gamepass takes over then it flatlines
Embarassing

 

[Dr Bass]

Honestly, Steve Ballmer killed Xbox by approving the money hats and shoddy hardware of the 360 in pursuit of first-mover advantage and a desire to show up Sony.

Perhaps it's a compromise. Everyone who has contributed to Xbox has helped kill it in varying degrees.

 

[AshHunter216]

They're really banking hard on COD in Gamepass being enough to reverse this trend.

 

[Box]

I know! I am flabbergasted that gaming websites could have been so wrong!

Remember when these same people Said the Ouya would destroy traditional consoles or that the ps3 would be thr last console generation.

This is why nobody takes gaming media seriously

 

[KiryuRealty]

They're really banking hard on COD in Gamepass being enough to reverse this trend.

By this point I’m pretty sure they aren’t banking on anything saving Game Pass and see it as a failed venture to be mothballed when Xbox hardware is discontinued.

It is a massive money-losing proposition when they have $100 billion worth of gaming-related acquisitions to try to get some value out of.

 

[DForce]

 

[KiryuRealty]

Jizz says “No! How dare they not take away the things we wanted them to take away from PS players!”

Fuck that neckbearded hygiene crisis!

 

[SLB1904]

Buying Bethesda makes sense to become a 3rd party. They've got a lot of good teams still capable of original AAA games. And it's not an unheard-of cost.

Activision is an assembly line for the production of Call of Duty. There's obviously value to King and Blizzard, but the bulk of that $70B is the cost of owning Call of Duty. Buying Call of Duty and making it Xbox exclusive has a grandiose logic to it if MS is determined to turn Xbox around and really hurt Playstation in the US.

If they just want to be a publisher, it'll take nearly 10 years to start seeing a return and that's only if Call of Duty stays popular. They didn't need to do it.

At this point Microsoft could buy rockstar and they will still fail. Starfield is a disaster. That game had the potential to be the one of the biggest games of this generation. They fuck it up.

 

[flaccidsnake]

So which is more likely/viable?

- There's another Xbox after Series S|X

- Microsoft adds "Xbox" to Windows such that any PC/handheld can run in console mode. The UI exposes your Steam library seamlessly, but you buy games via the Xbox store as if it was a console.

- Microsoft concedes PC gaming to Steam/SteamOS. Does a deal with Valve to get Game Pass on Steam.

 

[AshHunter216]

That dude's article was basically a greatest hits of every flawed talking point that every Xbox fanboy has been using over the past couple of weeks.

These folks have always just been fanboys obsessed with revenge against Playstation and its community.

 

[Box]

They're really banking hard on COD in Gamepass being enough to reverse this trend.

Most cod fans play warzone, which is free. I don't think anybody is subbing to Gamepass for old cod games.

 

[Umar]

 

[Airbus]

 

[Nhomnhom]

Larian gets it. What a gem of a studio.

The fact that Xbox is the last one he mentions is pure gold.

 

[Satoru]

Microsoft killed xbox, both mattrick and phil are company men.