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Costs for 3rd Party Games coming to Game Pass day one

Thick Thighs Save Lives

Thick Thighs Save Lives

NeoGAF's Physical Games Advocate Extraordinaire
Below you'll find MSFT cost estimations of getting various 3rd party games day one on Game Pass (info has surfaced via the recently (un)redacted FTC doc):

Star Wars Jedi Survivor - $300M
Suicide Squad - $250M
Mortal Kombat 1 - $250M
Assassin's Creed Rift - $100M
Dying Light 2 - $50M
LEGO Star Wars - $35M
Gotham Knights - $30M
Dragon Ball: The Breakers - $20M
Return to Moneky Island - $5M
Wreckfest 2 - $10-$14M
Just Dance - $5M
Blood Runner - $5M
Glitch Busters - $5M
Baldur's Gate 3 - $5M (before the popularity of the game exploded)
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
GTA V - $12-$15M/mth
Red Dead 2 - $5M/mth

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Punished Miku

Punished Miku

Human Rights Subscription Service
Definitely explains an acquisition strategy if you want to run a sub. Basically covers the entire cost of Jedi Survivor and then some I would imagine, and then it doesn't even stay on there forever. Netflix made the same change eventually and now makes more of their own stuff with a few bigger 3rd party sprinkled among the indies and AA games.
 
Roufianos

Roufianos

Member
Surely that 5m is way off? I know Buldur's Gate was a surprise hit, but they must have expected to sell more than 100k copies on Xbox?
 
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Chukhopops

Chukhopops

Member
Roufianos said:
Surely that 5m is way off? I know Bulder's Gate was a surprise hit but they must have expected to sell more than 100k copies on Xbox?
Click to expand...
This is a year old at least, long before the hype started.

It’s actually funny to see BG3 described as « Second-Run Stadia PC RPG ».

Really shows how little some of those are expected to cost to add.
 
xrnzaaas

xrnzaaas

Member
5 million for Baldurs Gate 3 is a laughable projection. It's from the same people who made VERY highly acclaimed Divinity Original Sin games. Not like BG3 is their first game or the IP is completely unknown. Besides Game Pass isn't a console-only service anymore.
 
Thick Thighs Save Lives

Thick Thighs Save Lives

NeoGAF's Physical Games Advocate Extraordinaire
Since this was confidential data before today, it should give considerable bargaining power back to 3rd party publishers when negotiating future deals for Game Pass lol.
 
adamsapple

adamsapple

Or is it just one of Phil's balls in my throat?
saintjules said:
So what can we conclude here as to why Jedi Survivor and Mortal Kombat 1 have not appeared day one on Game Pass?
Click to expand...

Nothing. It straight up says "Crown Jewel. They won't do" in the detail.

This is just someone making estimations of how much they think the publishers would ask for.
 
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diffusionx

diffusionx

Gold Member
Publishers of high-end AAA games are basically telling MS to pay for the entire development cost or GTFO. Whatever they sell on the other consoles is just gravy. Hell, makes sense, companies vastly undervalued their own IP when streaming started to get going. But there is no friggin way this is sustainable, especially when you add on that MS is developing their own $200M+ games and handing them out on GP.
 
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Humdinger

Humdinger

Gold Member
Couple of questions from a Gamepass noob:

1. Does MS have any third-party games coming out Day 1 on Gamepass? (I thought it was just their first-party titles.)

2. How can they project $12-$15M/month Day 1 for GTA V, if GTA V has been out for 10 years? How can it be Day 1? Isn't it more like Day 3650? Or is this some kind of retrospective guess at what it would have cost, 10 years ago?
 
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Punished Miku

Punished Miku

Human Rights Subscription Service
Humdinger said:
Couple of questions from a Gamepass noob:

1. Does MS currently have any third-party games coming Day 1 on Gamepass?

2. How can they project $12-$15M/month Day 1 for GTA V, if GTA V has been out for 10 years? How can it be Day 1? Isn't it more like Day 3650?
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Atomic Heart, Wo Long, Payday 3, Lies of P, maybe a few others. You usually can expect 1st party, AA games, indie games, and 3-4 bigger 3rd party games a year.
 
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Thick Thighs Save Lives

Thick Thighs Save Lives

NeoGAF's Physical Games Advocate Extraordinaire
Humdinger said:
Couple of questions from a Gamepass noob:

1. Does MS have any third-party games coming out Day 1 on Gamepass? (I thought it was just their first-party titles.)

2. How can they project $12-$15M/month Day 1 for GTA V, if GTA V has been out for 10 years? How can it be Day 1? Isn't it more like Day 3650? Or is this some kind of retrospective guess at what it would have cost, 10 years ago?
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They're not day 1. I should actually separate them from the rest of the tiles, but it still useful info to know since not everything is day 1 stuff on GP. Plenty of newer and older games are rotated in and out from their game catalogue.

Actually I've reread it and the original assumption I made in the OP was correct, as it says right there in the leak that those cost estimations for RDR2 and GTA5 are for D&D on Gen 9 aka Day One GP release of these titles for Xbox Series X and S.
Obviously RDR2 never got a next-gen release but GTA 5 did receive one back in 2022.
 
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SportsFan581

SportsFan581

Member
cebri.one said:
Lol, that's why Gamepass is completely unprofitable. Phil being subsidized by the rest of MS so they can dump competition.
Click to expand...

You realize that MS hasn't actually been throwing money at 3rd parties like this, right? This is why the big AAA releases that appear on the service day and date are mostly their own.
 
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Clear

Clear

CliffyB's Cock Holster
DaGwaphics said:
You realize that MS hasn't actually been throwing money at 3rd parties like this, right? This is why the big AAA releases that appear on the service day and date are mostly their own.
Click to expand...

Its a balancing act. No doubt when they realized they had gaps in the schedule due to first-party titles getting delayed they'd "tap the gas" by increasing procurement spending for third-party product.

Which is why when/if they get their first-party pipeline running to their satisfaction they can start to low-ball offers outside of a handful of partners they designate as offering key strategic benefits to their ecosystem. Once this happens the smaller operators are going to start to feel it, real quick.

The key thing people need to understand is that the whole subscription model is based on a principle of advantaging the operator to the point where it can dictate every aspect. You want access to the biggest market, you better learn to play ball and know your role. Because the bigger they get, the less they need anything outside of the monolith.
 
Q

quest

Not Banned from OT
Humdinger said:
Couple of questions from a Gamepass noob:

1. Does MS have any third-party games coming out Day 1 on Gamepass? (I thought it was just their first-party titles.)

2. How can they project $12-$15M/month Day 1 for GTA V, if GTA V has been out for 10 years? How can it be Day 1? Isn't it more like Day 3650? Or is this some kind of retrospective guess at what it would have cost, 10 years ago?
Click to expand...

Yes lies of p was the latest one. The day 1 are a mix of indy and smaller-midsize titles.
 
Kokoloko85

Kokoloko85

Member
I wonder how much good guy Phil paid to get Yakuza and Persona? And how much did it cost to block the PS5 next gen version for the timed period.
This shit isn’t profitable either way
 
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M

Metnut

Member
It’s insane how much money Microsoft is losing on Gamepass. No wonder they are getting less third party games now.

Starfield is like 120 hours long. Why would anyone buy Gamepass for it rather than just own the game?
 
Robb

Robb

Gold Member
The span is surprising to me. Definitely didn’t expect some to be that high (or low for that matter).
 
Sintoid

Sintoid

Member
Gamepass is "affordable" for Microsoft, just because they have have a shit-ton of money to invest on killing specific competitors
 
Pelta88

Pelta88

Member
Those costs are astronomical considering that internally they state they have 0% GP growth in the past 9 months.

wAm7pX2.jpg
 
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Sanepar

Sanepar

Member
These numbers plus internal dev costs proves that gamepass need a lot of users and a increase in price to be sustainable.
 
tryDEATH

tryDEATH

Member
This sort of analysis is a perfect example why its best to wait for release as some of the prices are insane. Gotham Knights probably cost a quarter of MS's expect ask since it bombed so bad. Also for everyone going crazy about BG3 its a relatively unknown turn based IP whose base is on PC, no matter if its a 10/10 if people aren't getting excited or playing it its not really worth it for GamePass.

Really interesting to see this sort of info though.
 
twilo99

twilo99

Member
tryDEATH said:
This sort of analysis is a perfect example why its best to wait for release as some of the prices are insane. Gotham Knights probably cost a quarter of MS's expect ask since it bombed so bad. Also for everyone going crazy about BG3 its a relatively unknown turn based IP whose base is on PC, no matter if its a 10/10 if people aren't getting excited or playing it its not really worth it for GamePass.

Really interesting to see this sort of info though.
Click to expand...

Gamepass has a PC tier , if they wanted to get some PC gamers to use gamepass BG3 would’ve brought in some numbers
 
tryDEATH

tryDEATH

Member
twilo99 said:
Gamepass has a PC tier , if they wanted to get some PC gamers to use gamepass BG3 would’ve brought in some numbers
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It would have and that is what their own estimates calculated as being worth, its a relatively niche game and it's not like everyone was anticipating that BG3 was going to blow up like this.
 
A

a multicultural team of v

Member
Jinzo Prime said:
I hope the "5 mil" for Baulder's Gate acts as a lesson for some developers: don't sell youself short.
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In 2015 Netflix bought the rights stream Friends for $30 million a year. In 2019 Warner had to agree to a $500 million deal to acquire the rights.

Streaming services were built on the back of media companies laughably underpricing their content, and game subscriptions have been the same way. However, eventually the content owners realize what their content is worth, and that is when the endless price hikes begin.
 
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