They're gaining over them now because Microsoft's output has been non-existent for the most part. Also, the hardcore fans already own their console of choice where as the later years is usually casual that jump in and if Microsoft has a $200 Series S and Game Pass, that's simply a lot to overcome. A lot of games will give Game Pass a boost. What will do it most is just Microsoft being consistent with releases.
I still don't see how that closes the gap for MS in a way you feel it will, assuming Sony continues to make more moves themselves. For them to close the gap as you say, at least in console sales, MS have to reach beyond Xbox hardcore and it's going to look less and less likely the Series S, even with Game Pass, manages to accomplish that when we're likely going to see a cheaper PS5 model in the future or Nintendo with their Switch systems, both options attracting would-be casuals & mainstream away from Series S as an enticing offering.
And that's just in the US; imagine how that plays out globally in markets where Xbox is already weaker in and where the Series S & Game Pass combination hasn't done much to move the needle. I agree with you, MS need the big attention-grabbing mainstream hits. But what among the games of theirs we already know about fit that criteria or would fit that criteria?
As for COD, it will be day one in Game Pass as will every Microsoft first party game. They're not going to change that or make any exceptions regardless of the game. Doing that would harm their platform, eco-system and messaging more than not having as many sales on Xbox. For Microsoft and Xbox, they'll never reach the sales numbers of Sony and no one is reaching is Nintendo so for them, it's all about Game Pass and the best way to build it is by having massive games in the service.
We already have statements from Microsoft themselves in the court cases that taking COD off other gaming platforms would be counter-productive to the revenue potential of the IP. It doesn't take a lot to guess that putting it Day 1 in Game Pass would also be counter-productive to that same same revenue-generating ability for the games.
There are already rumors that a new Game Pass tier is coming which would, among other things, delay out Xbox 1P games being in that tier by six months. So it's always about the economics, basically. COD in Game Pass Day 1 will mean less revenue versus continuing the model they currently have. While I can see MS throwing in some exclusive perks like bonus DLC and EXP for those with Game Pass subs, and discounts on Battle Passes or new maps if you have a Game Pass subscription, that's probably as far as it will go.
I mean look at how well MW2 is still selling on the charts. Why cut off that revenue to subsidize (i.e incur losses) through Game Pass Day 1 for a game that can clearly sell on its own, considering MS want ABK in big part because of the revenue IP like COD generate? It just doesn't make any business sense.
You're looking way too into the money aspect but not taking into account the sales COD would still get on Battle.net, Steam, PlayStation (if available) and Nintendo. Losing sales on Xbox but gaining subscribers will be far more valuable plus don't forget, they will gain a shit ton of revenue from micro-transactions across all platforms.
Except if COD on Game Pass Day 1 is enough of a big deal, MS actually LOSES sales on Battle.net, Steam, PlayStation (why would it not be available here if it's available on Switch?) and Nintendo!
And again, back to the subscribers thing, them gaining subs only works out if the ARPU is good. Currently it's way below what it should be for the service; MS would have to adjust pricing, cut out or limit loopholes & deals, and maybe introduce additional tiers or change the 1P release cadence into certain tiers, to have the sub growth work out to their favor.
Because ultimately even with pursuing subs, what MS REALLY wants is more revenue.
I agree with this for the most part but again, as I have said, Microsoft just needs to be consistent with their first party releases. The quality is there regardless of what anyone wants to think or believe but the quantity and most importantly, the consistency isn't. Microsoft was thrashed in Europe last generation. It won't be the same this generation. It's all about Game Pass. This is their answer. It's not going to happen overnight but we saw a huge increase in subscriptions because of their 2021 second half lineup. They stay consistent, they will gain market share because people will want to play the games and with a lot of regions where games are $100+ for a single release, Game Pass is going to look like a Godsend. They don't need to do anything else. Game Pass IS their answer.
I think you meant the UK: they're usually pretty close with Sony in the UK but less so in the rest of Europe. Truth is, no sales trends have indicated that changing, like at all. Xbox is still a weak brand in Europe outside of the UK, and even there I think they may have slipped a tad.
Again I think you are grossly overstating the importance of Game Pass's value on price being a selling point. The vast majority just don't see that as valuable, if they did we'd of seen better sales for Xbox in its strongest market last year but we didn't. It's really about those mass-market, mainstream heavy-hitting exclusives and incidentally, Game Pass benefits from having them if they're MS 1P, but Game Pass in and of itself is not a factor in helping sway the market. We have too much data now proving it isn't...at least not without the right software.
So I think we can both agree that MS need those types of games and releasing them consistently, in order to start building up better mindshare and gaining market share, if that's their goal. But just coasting off the price argument isn't working, it didn't work in 2022, it won't work this year and it won't work in the future. People
WILL pay for a premium if they think the quality is there. We see that with PS5, we see that with Switch, we see it with GOW Ragnarok, HFW, GT7, Pokemon, COD, Elden Ring etc.
Series S only didn't do as well last year because well, there's no first party output. Do you really believe that 2023 will be a repeat if they release 5 or so first party games? Microsoft knew that once they delayed Starfield, Redfall and Forza Motorsport that they were going to take a hit overall and that's fine because they have a long way to go with this generation.
It could, depending on how those games hit relative to other big games and multiplats, and whether those games are appealing enough to mainstream audiences (which includes if they're advertised well). Quantity and even quality alone don't do enough to have a mass-market success that then ends up boosting a console's profile. You need excellent marketing and general mass-market appeal as well.
From what MS have confirmed coming, Forza Motorspot is not one of those games. RedFall is potentially not one of those games. That Ara RTS game is not one of those games. Minecraft is, but it's multiplat and most of its audience are on Nintendo, PS & mobile. The ESO expansion kind of is but, again, multiplat and not strongly associated with Xbox brand-wise even after the acquisition.
Starfield is the only game that has a more sure chance of meeting that appeal for the mass market as well as being a big and high-quality game but that depends on how it crosses the finish line. If it's buggy AF, it won't have that effect. If the story is lackluster (in terms of the main quest), it won't have that effect. The game already has some things working against it ATM like the lack of planetary entry and only a few planets with anything noteworthy to do on them, or where it seems like the team's pushing quantity over quality, but we'll see how things are when they show it off again in the future.
If I were Bethesda/MS I'd get some big marketing campaign going playing up on films like A Space Odyssey, Interstellar etc. maybe even get some directors from those films to do commercial spots with George Clooney or other people from well-known hard sci-fi space films. I'm not counting on them to have a vision of that scale though, so it could be a missed opportunity, but I'd like to be surprised.
Hellblade 2, Fable, Indiana Jones, The Elder Scrolls VI, next Coalition, Id Software, etc. games. Plus Avowed, The Outer Worlds 2, etc. They have plenty of games and the reason they'll increase their console market share is because many people will want to play these games and when they know they can get it on Game Pass day one, why wouldn't they jump in?
Because PS aren't going to just sit idle and provide nothing of their own to counter a lot of that, either from 1P teams or with 3P exclusives. KOTOR Remake ran into some rough times but if that turns out really strong and comes out around the time of TES VI, it could cause some stiff competition for Elder Scrolls, for sure. There's no telling if Gears 6 will innovate enough with the IP or just be more of the same, but it really needs the former to attract any more than just Gears faithful. The next DOOM either needs really good timing or some strong hook to ensure it hits better with the market than Eternal did, at least commercially.
Outer Worlds 2 is probably several years away, and needs to do a lot of things to keep interest better than the first game did. No idea if the Indiana Jones game is exclusive or multiplat, but historically Indiana Jones wasn't a big system mover even with the one that was exclusive for OG Xbox. Fable was a good series but some would say the quality dropped off past the second game, and the market for WRPGs is way more competitive now than it was when the original games came out for Xbox & 360. Hellblade 2 is probably going to be a great game, but what does it have that we KNOW of that's going to make it a bigger draw than the original?
Even if MS have these games and they're all successful, none of that guarantees they increase market share in a way relative to PlayStation losing any (which is what I assume you mean by MS increasing market share, otherwise I agree they
CAN increase market share but realistically only in a manner where Sony & Nintendo are also increasing market share meaning the market percentages stay roughly the same between the three). These games being in Game Pass Day 1 (and again, if those rumors are true, it'll come down to what tier of Game Pass you have to maybe get these Day 1) doesn't mean much if a person isn't necessarily interested enough in playing those games over offerings on competitor platforms or even competitive software offerings that could be on Xbox.
After all, a person's time is even more valuable than their money.
Microsoft doesn't need the big blockbuster game because they're not reliant on console sales and whatnot. They just want you in the eco-system which for this generation will mainly be console but there will still be those who play on PC and possibly streaming later on in the generation. It's more of a collection of various options as opposed to just one singular one.
The problem with this is that MS actually are still reliant on console sales to some big degree, they just don't like talking sales numbers. And it's not like they're even the only ones branching out beyond console: Sony have been bringing more of their games to PC and had PS game streaming to PC and mobile before Microsoft did, same with PS streaming to TV, they did that well before MS. They also had Remote Play as another option. Both Sony & Nintendo are in the mobile space right now with multiple games, some of which are very successful like Fate: Grand Order and Pokemon Go!
The difference though is that the development will still be the same like Switch is for Nintendo. Instead of dividing studios to develop games for a console, a handheld, etc., Microsoft does one version of the game and it simply gets optimized for how you want to play it. I don't think that they will have a Streaming stick or anything like that. I believe that they will Game Pass included in 4KTV's later this generation like Netflix and whatnot to where you just access it. They have that adapter for the controller that you connect into the USB port and that's it. You're good to go.
The approach of making a game that's just one version and optimized for other devices of varying compute ability has its drawbacks though, especially if those other devices require native versions of the game to run on them. It's a reason I'm still concerned about Series S's existence and it potentially holding back game scope of more ambitious 1P Xbox titles down the line.
Relying on a streaming app in smart TVs would only be a partial solution. For one, there are going to be lots of people with older smart TVs that won't be able to use the app due to outdated firmware and the lack of that TV's manufacturer providing updates, so those people are going to now be forced to pay several hundreds or even thousands of dollars for a new TV to access Game Pass via xCloud, instead of paying maybe $150 tops to do the same with a box they can use on ANY TV they have or ever decided to buy in the future?
Yeah, sure, make the app a thing for those who want the option, but I don't think that makes up for lack of a streaming box. A streaming box that, IMO, should have probably taken Series S's place altogether but, I'm not running the Xbox division. Phil Spencer is.
Two consoles like it is now. PC for those who want the best superior experience and TV apps/cloud for those who just want access to the subscription service and games. And of course, cloud will be there for those who play on the go or are on business trips/vacations.
The thing is how practical are these solutions going to be for people in their everyday gaming habits, and what's the real market potential for any of them individually? We know what that is for consoles, and a good gauge of what it is for PC.
But when I talk about MS having too much product in-fighting, I mean from a business & messaging standpoint towards gaming customers. These different products don't quite create the technical issues Sega's approach with multiple consoles and add-ons back in the day did, but it can create comparable logistical issues with messaging & marketing, in fact we're already seeing them.
Go to Xbox's Twitter or Youtube and you'll regularly see Series S being promoted all the time, but nary any promotion for Series X. When up to June 2020, MS led with Series X exclusively in their marketing & messaging. But if you have the "most powerful" console and the "cheapest" console and they're two completely different devices, and both have games running natively on them, and you're selling them simultaneously, how do you think that impacts design scope for more ambitious 1P AAA games down the line with anything aside from graphics/resolution and framerate?
That's where these logistical problems may start to manifest as the generation goes on, but we'll see.
Sega oversaturated their own market with Genesis, 32X and Sega CD. All three were different, required different games and whatnot. This is not Microsoft is doing. For them, it's all going to be seamless and integrated. This is why I believe they eliminated Keystone. Why having a streaming stick when you can just make deals with TV manufacturers to include a Game Pass app pre-loaded right out of the box? That's how I see it anyway.
Well I just touched on why Project Keystone makes sense even if you have an app with TV manufacturers, and why (IMO) it makes more sense than a Series S in the product line. For the former, it lets people use xCloud without it being specifically tied to a TV they could end up breaking & needing to replace, or replacing because it's outdated (lack of firmware updates, etc.).
For the latter, it would've enabled even cheaper production costs on hardware, and freed devs from needing to bother building a native version for a sub-Series X hardware spec, freeing up their dev time to focus on polish and even further optimization.
Have to wait and see how the generation plays out. I simply believe that it won't play out like majority believe it will. Again, we'll see.
It's nice to be hopeful, and I wish I could share your optimism, but until Microsoft make some substantive changes to their business strategy in multiple areas, I don't see things shaking out the way you do.
But as always, time will tell.
