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[tommib]

Apple's revenue from its music and gaming subscription services is expected to jump 36% to $8.2 billion annually by 2025, according to JP Morgan (via Reuters).

The U.S. investment bank's analyst Samik Chatterjee on Monday said Apple Music and Apple Arcade are likely to have a combined subscriber base of about 180 million by 2025, with 110 million users paying for the company's music services and 70 million for gaming.

Launched in 2015 and now the second biggest music streaming service after Spotify, ‌Apple Music‌ is expected to account for $7 billion revenue by 2025. ‌Apple Arcade‌, which launched in 2019, is estimated to pull in $1.2 billion.

https://www.reuters.com/technology/...er-8-bln-revenue-by-2025-jpm-says-2022-06-13/

 

[jigglet]

I think at this point - roughly 15 years now - it's clear this growth in mobile gaming has been from a pretty different demographic and hasn't really affected traditional gaming for the most part. It hasn't lead to the doom and gloom many predicted. Any encroachment of mobile concepts, could be argued, would have found their way into traditional gaming with or without the rise of smart phones. Every time I dip my toes into mobile gaming I realise it isn't for me and ...that's totally cool.

That being said: bring on the irrational hate!

 

[Magic Carpet]

Apple Arcade is the only good mobile gaming service available.
Cloud doesn’t stand much of a chance.

 

[Punished Miku]

Apple Arcade is definitely better than the usual mobile crap.

 

[ManaByte]

Apple Arcade is only $5 a month. If you have an Apple device it’s totally worth it.

I do the $20 family plan that gets Apple Music, Apple TV, Apple Arcade, and 200GB on iCloud.

 

[Bernd Lauert]

While the games are good, I only subbed for 2 months before cancelling. There's not enough new content to make it worth it to stay subscribed.

I assume most users are actually subbed to the all-in-one thing for 15 bucks a month.

 

[theHFIC]

Apple Arcade service has been great for me, I've been a subscriber for like two years now and I have been impressed with the titles coming out for it and the fact that they are available on all my devices locally desktop, TV, and mobile. Are they the most visually impressive AAA or now AAAA titles? No, but they are fun and don't require a 40 hour commitment. If I want that, I have my PS5 and PC.

Apple Music on the other hand is hot garbage.

 

[reksveks]

Is that factoring in any regulatory pushback in terms of the two Senate bills?

 

[SmokedMeat]

Apple Arcade is the only good mobile gaming service available.
Cloud doesn’t stand much of a chance.

Fuck Apple Arcade.

Apple allows the mobile market to turn to shit, so they can sell a subscription to play regular games.

 

[Robb]

Kinda surprised to hear Apple Arcade even has more than one million subscribers tbh, 70M people subscribing to play freaking mobile games just sounds crazy to me.

 

[ManaByte]

Apple Music on the other hand is hot garbage.

Not with cloud sync.

 

[sainraja]

I love it when companies bundle up their offerings — paying one fee to access Apple Music, Arcade, Apple TV, etc is great.

 

[Trogdor1123]

Apple Arcade is only $5 a month. If you have an Apple device it’s totally worth it.

I do the $20 family plan that gets Apple Music, Apple TV, Apple Arcade, and 200GB on iCloud.

We do exactly this. Spread among the family it’s a no brainer. My kids use it a fair bit and so do the wife and I.

I do wish Apple TV had better content but it seems to be getting there slowly. The dinosaur stuff is awesome.

 

[reksveks]

Fuck Apple Arcade.

Apple allows the mobile market to turn to shit, so they can sell a subscription to play regular games.

Consumers turned the mobile market to shit. Apple doesn't give a fuck and didnt give a fuck, they were always getting their 30% cut.

Kinda surprised to hear Apple Arcade even has more than one million subscribers tbh, 70M people subscribing to play freaking mobile games just sounds crazy to me.

The power of being a platform holder.

 

[mckmas8808]

I think at this point - roughly 15 years now - it's clear this growth in mobile gaming has been from a pretty different demographic and hasn't really affected traditional gaming for the most part. It hasn't lead to the doom and gloom many predicted. Any encroachment of mobile concepts, could be argued, would have found their way into traditional gaming with or without the rise of smart phones. Every time I dip my toes into mobile gaming I realise it isn't for me and ...that's totally cool.

That being said: bring on the irrational hate!

It also didn't lead to the epic change that many video game media talking heads predicted either. To me, it's been a nothing burger.

 

[theHFIC]

Not with cloud sync.

I don't want to send the thread off topic but for my use case of a large local library that I have been building since iTunes 1.0, Apple Music wrecked absolute havoc on the test machine with library copy I sync'd it with. Changed versions, cover art, labels. Plus I didn't like the integration into the music app having streamed music and my local library intermixed should I ever cancel down the road.

I think I am in the minority with it though since not too many modern Mac users seem to have big music libraries and stream most of the content. Personally I like having my local music in Music.app and all my streaming music in the separate Spotify App and haven't looked back.

 

[MMaRsu]

Haha

 

[jigglet]

It also didn't lead to the epic change that many video game media talking heads predicted either. To me, it's been a nothing burger.

I'll fully admit I expected it to have a bigger impact on traditional gaming too. So I'm no less guilty of this. But I think at this point it's time to let go of any bitterness, resentment, and a feeling of threat. I don't understand people who are reflexively angry at mobile gaming at this point.

 

[Magic Carpet]

Fuck Apple Arcade.

Apple allows the mobile market to turn to shit, so they can sell a subscription to play regular games.

Yes the FREE mobile market has gone to crap and is a ocean of garbage.

But games on the Apple Arcade are like how things should have always been back when you can just buy a game.

 

[Interfectum]

Apple Arcade has actually turned into a pretty great service, especially if you have kids. Ad free, MTX free.

 

[Morrie’s wig shop]

And yes, housewives and confused grandmas count.

 

[Miyazaki’s Slave]

And yes, housewives and confused grandmas count.

What about the children.....

Seriously, of my entire circle of friends that have kids they are all using mobile devices (tablets or phones). None of them play on console or even own a console. When I ask their parents why they don't play switch or playstation or xbox, they all say the same stuff. The people the kids watch on youtube/tiktok/instagram are all playing mobile games so that is all they play.

I would love to see the demographics in terms of how many kids under, say the age of 13, are playing console vs mobile, I would wager it is a huge number.
Bonus bet: those underage players would migrate to teenage pc players (or streaming players) vs console gamers.

 

[ChorizoPicozo]

That's my (expert) estimation for Game Pass by 2024.

 

[SCB3]

I mean I got 3 months worth with my phone last year and used it for Mini Motorways, Mini Metro and Monster Hunter Stories, pretty good deal for free, the 2 Mini games nearly kept me they're perfect iPad games

 

[Kataploom]

Kinda surprised to hear Apple Arcade even has more than one million subscribers tbh, 70M people subscribing to play freaking mobile games just sounds crazy to me.

That's my POV too... I mean, aren't they just... F2P?

 

[midasmulligan]

Apple Arcade is only $5 a month. If you have an Apple device it’s totally worth it.

I do the $20 family plan that gets Apple Music, Apple TV, Apple Arcade, and 200GB on iCloud.

What’s worth playing? Any games you keep coming back to? Haven’t looked too deeply into it yet

 

[ManaByte]

What’s worth playing? Any games you keep coming back to? Haven’t looked too deeply into it yet

I mostly play Star Trek Legends, which is one of those gacha character RPGs. But on Apple Arcade there's no MTX.

 

[SmokedMeat]

Consumers turned the mobile market to shit. Apple doesn't give a fuck and didnt give a fuck, they were always getting their 30% cut.

Yes the FREE mobile market has gone to crap and is a ocean of garbage.

But games on the Apple Arcade are like how things should have always been back when you can just buy a game.

Customers didn’t turn the mobile market to shit. It was players like Apple, that didn’t curate anything on their store and allowed it to turn to shit.

Apple Arcade is what the mobile market should be, and you should be allowed to buy the games separately. Could you imagine Microsoft not letting you buy the games on Game Pass?

So dumb.

 

[Bitmap Frogs]

Customers didn’t turn the mobile market to shit. It was players like Apple, that didn’t curate anything on their store and allowed it to turn to shit.

Apple Arcade is what the mobile market should be, and you should be allowed to buy the games separately. Could you imagine Microsoft not letting you buy the games on Game Pass?

So dumb.

It's a bad idea for platform owners like apple and google to do that.

As for apple arcade, if you use iDevices it's a no brainer the way they bundle tv+, music, arcade and icloud.

And if you don't want all that it's just 60$ bucks a year for a continuous feed of actual games worth playing.

 

[SmokedMeat]

As for apple arcade, if you use iDevices it's a no brainer the way they bundle tv+, music, arcade and icloud.

And if you don't want all that it's just 60$ bucks a year for a continuous feed of actual games worth playing.

I have an iPhone, but I’m not paying for iCloud or Arcade. Sure it’s cheap, but I’ve got enough subscriptions in my life. I’m tired of everyone trying to lock me into a monthly payment.

 

[mckmas8808]

I'll fully admit I expected it to have a bigger impact on traditional gaming too. So I'm no less guilty of this. But I think at this point it's time to let go of any bitterness, resentment, and a feeling of threat. I don't understand people who are reflexively angry at mobile gaming at this point.

I think it's from all those conversations years ago about mobile gaming being the "console game killer". Some people haven't let that go yet. But you're right, that war is over now.

 

[skit_data]

Damn, the netflix of mobile gaming

 

[Bitmap Frogs]

I have an iPhone, but I’m not paying for iCloud or Arcade. Sure it’s cheap, but I’ve got enough subscriptions in my life. I’m tired of everyone trying to lock me into a monthly payment.

Sure, I can understand the sentiment.

 

[reksveks]

Customers didn’t turn the mobile market to shit. It was players like Apple, that didn’t curate anything on their store and allowed it to turn to shit.

The market tried and failed. Platform holders curate to the stuff that gets them the most revenue.

Apple Arcade is what the mobile market should be, and you should be allowed to buy the games separately. Could you imagine Microsoft not letting you buy the games on Game Pass?

So dumb.

That's a separate dumb issue.

 

[jm89]

Really surprised apple arcade is doing this well, I thought it was pretty much forgotten. I guess not.

 

[ReBurn]

Kinda surprised to hear Apple Arcade even has more than one million subscribers tbh, 70M people subscribing to play freaking mobile games just sounds crazy to me.

Mobile is the new hardcore gaming platform

 

[Spukc]

it's free for everyone at first.
so cool cool fake ass numbers

 

[RoboFu]

FYI Apple Arcade also is on OSX and apple tv. I played Fantasian on my mac and apple tv.


then cancled Arcade

 

[ReBurn]

I got several months free when I bought a new iPhone back in 2019. I canceled it and haven't looked at it since. They didn't give me any more free months when I upgraded my phone in March.