Yeah, sad but true. I don't expect major top tier AAA third party multi-platform titles day one. Maybe 6 months later if that but if it's a game I really want to play, im not waiting to see if/when that particular game goes on Game Pass. I am happy that Microsoft is getting a good amount of AA third party multi-platform titles day one. As of now, I have the following -
- A Plague Tale Requiem
- Flintlock: The Siege of Dawn
- Lies of P
- Stalker 2: Heart of Chernobyl
- Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty
I'm expecting all five of these games to be in the 80's on Open Critic. If Microsoft can give me at least a few great AA third party multi-platform titles every year, I will be a very happy gamer.
Well I can't say anything WRT Flintrock but of that list three of them would be worth playing to me whether they were in GamePass or not, so that's not too bad. But on the other point, about lack of 3P AAA Day 1 games, I still think comments from Take-Two's CEO and Sony's CFO sum it up perfectly both in terms why we don't see many of those games on these services Day 1.
It's simply too costly and that's a big reason MS have just went out and bought publishers instead. If a publisher is worried that Day 1 for their AAA games on the service is going to severely impact sales revenue, remove the worry of sales revenue by just buying the company altogether.
Subscribers is a fair metric. The only thing that really matters is what customers say. Before Sony combined their online game subscriptions with their game service it was undeniable which service was more popular. Until MS releases Xbox Live Gold numbers there really isn't a way to compare numbers now.
Sony never really pushed PS Now anywhere to the degree MS has pushed GamePass, though. For MS, GP became their all-or-nothing. For Sony, PS Now was a neat little side hustle to their main gaming business.
There's a reason MS doesn't list Gold numbers, but have rolled in Gold with Silver and reported those numbers together. Given so many GP/GPU subs are probably Gold users on the $1 conversion and stacking programs, and I strongly doubt Gold during XBO era ever had significantly more than half the sub count PS+ got, I wouldn't be surprised if total Gold subs are under 20 million. If so that'd put Gold + GP/GPU numbers at roughly 45 million, but I think the number of Gold subs who've converted to GPU is probably pretty high, so personally I think Gold subs are probably closer to 15 million.
Because I really don't see much a point sticking with Gold if you can switch to GPU on a $1 conversion deal, unless you're in some country where the rules are weirdly different. I don't even think you can buy Gold at an annual rate anymore so you don't save as much that way as might've in the past.
Exactly. Sony clearly didn't like the comparison before. There was a reason they changed the way their subscriptions were counted.
Lol having less subs than GP was not the main reason Sony merged them. They wanted to boost revenue from PS+, needed a value incentive to do so, saw that PS Now (which they were never particularly serious about) could provide that value incentive, and merged the two. A good chunk of games actually
left PS+ due to the merger so it would've benefited Sony to keep them separate if anything, at least in the short term.
I don't really get the comparison. Game pass has 25 million confirmed subscribers and Oculus has 10 million owners so Oculus is less niche? You have no idea how many $1 subs there are and it's pretty funny everyone forgets it's a conversion from XBLG which would cost a bit more than a $1.
We know it's a lot, because we have some figures as to how much subscription services contribute to the overall gaming market. Roughly $3.2 - $3.7 billion, or 4%, of an $81 billion market.
And that $3.2 - $3.7 billion would include PS+, NSO, Gold, PS Now (when it still existed), Stadia etc. Then there is a specific slice of that market on GamePass-style services, of which GamePass leads with 60 - 70%. But, since we know the revenue PS+ and NSO bring in, we can also say we know however big that slice of the subscriptions market is that GamePass counts towards, it's at least $3.7 billion minus $2.5 billion, minus ~ $600 million (NSO) on top of that.
So from that, GamePass would have 60 - 70% of roughly $1 billion to claim. That's the very rough breakdown of it, so from there, knowing the costs for GamePass regularly, we can definitely start to figure out how many are paying in full, and how many aren't.
But let's suppose the $3.2 billion - $3.7 billion figure was purely for GP-style subscriptions (the article this is all based on was sloppily written, but the data it pulled, including some from Ampere Analysis, was accurate). GP having 60% of that would be $2.22 billion, 70% would be $2.59 billion. The average annual GP subscription is $120/year. 25 million subs would be $3 billion/year. Obviously, this number's much bigger than the two I just gave (and those would be in an
absolute best-case scenario for GamePass revenue).
At the very least, that would mean at best a little over 21 million of that 25 million are paying in full for GP, but at worst, 18.5 million of 25 million are paying in full. And this is not accounting for GPU subs, because if there are people paying for that in full, it would drop the total number of fully-paying members down even further regardless which revenue figure you'd want to go with.
And again, that's assuming the "subscription services" figure from that original article was purely in reference to GP-style services like it, PS Now, Luna, Stadia, GeForce Now and the such. If it also pertained to just gaming services in general like Gold, PS+, and NSO, that actual likely GP revenue cap drops SIGNIFICANTLY and probably hovers closer to $750 million or so annually.
Even if it doesn't, even if the $2.2 billion/year or $2.59 billion/year figures are better (and considering Nadella has no problem announcing Xbox consoles leading a market in revenue for multiple quarters, I would think he'd jump at the opportunity to do the same for GamePass if it's pulling in THAT much revenue or in the extreme best-case, even more than PS+), you are still looking to at least 4 - 7 million subscribers utilizing some mix of $1 conversion deals, free trails, MS Rewards etc. to get their memberships. And that's without considering the potential massive drop in Gold subscriptions that is highly likely to coincide with that, if majority of those subs were in America and UK. Why pay for Gold and regular GP when you can get the best of both at a somewhat cheaper price in GamePass Ultimate, AND get PC GamePass perks alongside that?
You don't know how much money Game pass makes but I'd ask how does that affect gamers? Why would any gamer worry about how much money MS is making on their services over if they actually find value in the games offered on the service? Game pass just got another highly rated new title so again the value proposition is clear.
Because MS are pushing GamePass to, ultimately, make as much money as possible. It's through GamePass how they expect to start making big revenue AND profit from gaming as a whole. So if GamePass isn't generating enough money, they'll probably eventually shut it down.
I have thought about the other benefit to GamePass, though, or specifically the Azure cloud that powers it. There is a slight chance that, even if GamePass itself does only bring in a small bit of revenue, MS would be willing to perhaps keep it around if they can net enough high-value gaming clients for their Azure cloud technologies and services. In some ways I think that's their bigger play even over GamePass itself, because they need Azure growth in new markets that aren't saturated for cloud technologies and services, gaming being potentially the biggest opportunity.
It's why they made that announcement with Sega, for example, and also with Kojima. I think when MS says they want to push into Japan and Asian regions, it's not really about Xbox or even GamePass: it's about Azure. New technology clients in those markets for Azure services over the long-term. Gaming happens to be the best opportunity for Microsoft to accomplish this because them going to other tech companies in these markets outside of the gaming sphere will likely get immediately shut down or jockeyed out of position by companies like Tencent, for example, or other Asian-based cloud providers or even companies like Amazon who probably already have very lucrative and long-term deals with data center, commerce etc. companies in non-gaming markets in these regions.
I do recall the clause they had in RE Village so there is some evidence Sony is not above blocking content from Game pass. Sony was clear they see it as a threat. Sony is far more aggressive in timed exclusives and the duration of those timed exclusives last at least twice as long as any MS does. Business is business but I wouldn't be surprised if MS' recent acquisitions were a reaction to getting content blocked from their platform. It's still pretty hilarious MS can't even confirm if Deathloop and Ghostwire Tokyo, IP they own, will ever hit Xbox at all. Good short term win for Sony we'll see how it looks long term.
The RE Village clause is perfectly normal; Sony were footing some of the marketing costs for the game, it makes sense they'd want to protect that investment. The thing about the timed exclusives is, MS could have gone for more of them, but chose not to. They never established a consistent trend which is why gamers and pundits never simply "got used" to it.
Actually I take that back. They DID clearly establish that trend with the 360, but didn't weather the early rough storm with XBO to continue it forward, and then they just started scaling back XBO-related game funding altogether. No one stopped Microsoft from getting rights to Spiderman or other Marvel characters other than Microsoft. No one stopped Microsoft from co-funding SFV other than Microsoft, the list goes on and on.
No gamer determines value based on how many sales or money a company makes. That is pure fanboy forum fodder. MS has considerably more money than Sony but that has no bearing on Game pass being a superior service.
I made that comparison because you were stating GamePass was the superior service as if it was objectively true, and I asked what metrics (measurable, objective metrics) you were using to state the claim that way. I even listed some examples, then listed the caveats that would come with them.
In general though, I agree that these things can't be objectively stated as being superior to one another, the value determined is subjective. So I'm asking, why were
you stating GamePass being superior to PS+, as if it was objective?
Except any and all MS first party titles. Again a big difference from what anyone else is doing.
Well, I did say 3P, as in third-party. So that wouldn't include Microsoft's stuff.
www.metacritic.com
