Thats the rub isn't it. I don't think its make or break, but certainly wont see another COD on the service day one if this doesn't move the needle significantly and permanently.
Warzone and COD Coexist in my experience, most Warzone players use MP to level the guns. Might be worth a Sub instead. Who knows......
Super interested myself to see how this all plays out.
If COD doesn't do anything for GP I think it'll be more than just COD not going in there anymore. It'll probably be all the big games, especially those with multiplat releases (which is shaping up to be all of them). The smaller stuff like Pentiment or Avowed, those would still be Day 1, but the CODs/DOOMs/TES etc. won't.
OTOH, I think it'd be the best excuse for MS to try a VOD-based rental model for big games individually. So maybe you just pay $25 or $30 to rent the next COD if you have an active GP subscription. And you just "rent" it for as long as you have the subscription active. You lapse and you lose access, like it already does.
But I don't think it would work without major changes to the service; they'd have to restructure the tiers at the upper ends and bring the prices down across the board. Then lean into the service as basically existing for free perks, discounts, games-on-demand rentals and such.
Starfield did not turn out to be what they hoped. And there is a cost to that.
But it was Game of the Generation™
Awful take.
Anybody new to the Xbox can dine for years on the contents of GamePass. It’s only not worth it if you happen to own most of the big hitters on it, or they don’t tickle your fancy, or you have no interest in what’s upcoming in the very near future.
Depends on the price tolerance threshold of those new customers. MS just got rid of the $1 deal. They've limited stacking and will probably eliminate that in a year or so. The price went up across all tiers.
You'd have to be a new gamer who just
really likes indie games and most AA to pay for Game Pass long-term, and then eventually take a liking to more of MS's 1P AAA offerings. Ironically I think Game Pass would probably do better if it had more of a focus on indies and mobile-style indie/AA games that have a lot of MTX. Or just gutting Day 1 releases altogether and going with a VOD-like per-game access model. Just use Game Pass itself as a big perks-driven service (and lower the costs down to reflect that).
Maybe that's what they're going to do in a few years, who knows.
I think it's all about Firestick personally and mobile. They just increased their potential cloud install base overnight by 200+ million just from the Firestick app addition, which is Netflix numbers. People still have to sign up, but they want to see if people are going to give it a shot. If even 5 million new people signed up on Amazon which is just 2.5%, it would be a huge gain. There's zero indication that is going to happen, but you never know.
Most sub services are limping along, but Netflix is still dominant because they got there first and then managed to keep it going. Everything they're doing is 100% logical. The rest is just up to consumers to decide what they want to do. People don't need an Xbox, or even an Xbox controller. They can use a dual shock if they want and try out the big holiday games for very cheap.
This is what competition looks like when you're not just paying to keep things off other systems, which does work, but isn't adding anything. They're gambling on trying to get new customers and grow the gaming pool, which by all indications has been shrinking lately.
OK, so you're of the mind that this gamble with COD on Game Pass is to tap into Firestick subscribers? Well okay, maybe that's the driving factor. But, it still leaves a lot of doubt.
Just how many people accessing Game Pass through a Firestick care about playing COD? I just don't see the audience overlap. Now if it were a new Candy Crush, I could see the appeal to a Firestick audience immediately, because I think they're the casual & mainstream (borderline non-gaming) types who'd be more into a game like CC over COD. Those interested in COD, at the very least, are probably gonna have a smartphone for Warzone.
Meanwhile, those who want to play COD more seriously will have a console or PC. Now, if the cloud experience added a seamless QOL feature to the game for console & PC users (or even mobile users), or it were a different COD only possible through the cloud, I could see that Firestick audience showing up. But AFAIK, there is no appeal in the value like that. So I'm just so sure GP being accessible through the Firestick is going to lead to any substantive subscriber boost.
To that last point you made tho...well
. I mean yeah the gaming pool has shrunk but it's really
one console in particular mostly contributing to that. I think we both know that console's name. Though I'm not gonna ignore things like PS losing market share to PC in Japan, either.
www.metacritic.com
