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[Punished Miku]

This is not about liking stuff, but a change of culture that could ruin itself, for the sake of having cheap games day 1.

The opposite is already true though. AAA gaming has basically ruined gaming now in more ways than one. And they just keep getting more expensive all the time with no real ability to reign itself in. It's not sustainable. Not even Nintendo can make some of the behemoths these people churn out, nor do they want to. Quest is also shooting for lower graphics and cheaper titles and finding success.

No one can predict the future, but it's entirely possible things actually get better in some ways, not worse.

 

[Trogdor1123]

You can easily replace PlayStation and Sony in your statement. Doesn't change the fact Game pass has no impact on PlayStation customers or games. Again it is nice to show such 'concern' for Xbox gamers though. I'm sure it's appreciated.


I've noticed lots of the complaints about Game pass appear to be more speculation than actual evidence of harm. Bad products tend to be dropped.


I am participating in the discussion just like you are friend. If you don't want to hear commentary from people who actually use the service you too are free to leave the thread. I would be interested to hear how Game pass has impacted you or your enjoyment of your preferred platform.

I'm positive games are not put on Game pass for free. We have not seen evidence that playing a game on Game pass does not benefit the industry especially if it's a game was wasn't going to be bought in the first place. As long as it remains an option and it's forced on any one I'm not seeing the issue.

They are not free for sure. Didn’t we hear that they got a few million for gotg? Wasn’t it something they complained about or am I confusing them?

 

[adamsapple]

MCC on xbox release date: 2014
Gamepass launch date: 2017
MCC on PC launch 2019 (piecemeal)

If anything the fact that the port and enhancements didn't require staggered development and active development blogs on xbox series s and x shows it can be done without it.

I think it's a lot easier to assume that the work was already done and much easier/quicker to port all the PC enhancements to the new Xboxes in time for the launch updates instead of whatever nefarious things you think were happening behind the scenes lol.

This is just one example of the kind of ongoing development details. The entire package was also converted to a UE4 wrapper for PC. That and the games were available on Steam and windows store at retail on launch as well, game pass would have no bearing there at all.

I'm sorry fam, you're trying to find conspiracies where seemingly none exist.

 

[thicc_girls_are_teh_best]

Man I wish Ed Fries were still with Xbox. Peter Moore, Seamus Blackley, and J Allard, too. They were a great quartet for the brand even if it took a while for Xbox to catch on with the mainstream at that time.

You simply can't deny the quality of 1P & 3P exclusives they managed to make & secure for OG Xbox and 360.

 

[onnextflix5]

Its a good experiment, lets see how it pans out in the next 10 to 15 years. If Netflix is any example, it will be very difficult to make a lot of profit, then again netflix don't have things like DLC and mtx. So lets see what happens

 

[fermcr]

That's surely not because of the pay-out from Spotify - it's the exposure from Spotify that helps selling tickets to concerts, merchandise and so on.

Music business was dying before Spotify.
Were you purchasing music CD's during the Ipod days?... well, nobody else was.

 

[Kokoloko85]

But the music industry adapted. New artists make nearly all of their money with touring. Not the way it used to be but they adapted. This industry will need to adapt as well. For better or worse.

Or maybe it can do what Its been doing for the last 20 years.
Alot of games and studios are selling more games than ever

 

[8BiTw0LF]

When we start getting a bunch of games that are only available on game pass, then we can raise an actual issue about it.

Would be nice if we didn't get that far, cause there's no turning back at that point. MS themselves want to get to 1 billion subs - and I'm hesitant to say it, but if that's the number to get to, before it's sustainable - we'll see a major drop in sales of AAA games over the next 10 years.

No one can predict the future, but it's entirely possible things actually get better in some ways, not worse.

But we can compare how the music and film industry is doing since Spotify and Netflix took over. Only the biggest productions make the bill, everyone else have to take the scraps they can get.

Music business was dying before Spotify.
Were you purchasing music CD's during the Ipod days?... well, nobody else was.

But there was room for the small bands to make a buck. That's becoming increasingly more difficult since Spotify only advertise for the big names.

 

[NickFire]

You can easily replace PlayStation and Sony in your statement. Doesn't change the fact Game pass has no impact on PlayStation customers or games. Again it is nice to show such 'concern' for Xbox gamers though. I'm sure it's appreciated.

I disagree with the premise there is no impact on PlayStation customers. Exhibit A = Starfield. I accept the premise that making exclusive games has been an industry practice since day 1. But maintaining customers for a recurring subscription will require increased levels of consolidation that we are already witnessing, and that will affect everyone. No one on earth can convince me that MS would have cancelled the PS version if it was not for GP. It simply would not make sense from a financial standpoint without GP.

Exhibit B = COD. It's possible this game simply gets added to GP and business as usual continues outside of GP. But no one really knows, and that includes millions upon millions of current players on PS systems. And then there is the second level questions of what kind of changes will they require to justify the changed monetization plans?

In short, for better or worse GP will affect everyone to a degree. It's fine to say those are the breaks of picking one system or the other. But claiming no impact is an objectively untrue statement.

 

[fermcr]

But there was room for the small bands to make a buck. That's becoming increasingly more difficult since Spotify only advertise for the big names.

Hum, No.

In the days before Spotify, how did small bands survive?... selling music CD's? No. They made money by playing in bars and such.
Nowadays, if they don't get exposure from Spotify, they have other options: YouTube, Instagram or other social networks.... or they can play in bars and such.

 

[PropellerEar]

I do wonder if Microsoft will adopt Sony's path of not releasing their games immediately, would that not be a better way to sustain the service?

They always copy Sony sooner or later.

 

[8BiTw0LF]

Hum, No.

In the days before Spotify, how did small bands survive?... selling music CD's? No. They made money by playing in bars and such.
Nowadays, if they don't get exposure from Spotify, they have other options: YouTube, Instagram or other social networks.... or they can play in bars and such.

Getting a music contract. Today labels use metadata to sign new artists - not only Spotify's fault, but they're a key factor. It only results in a more mainstream sound, same kindda artists, same kindda music. If that's the future for games, I think we all can agree on that everything were better in the old days.

 

[thicc_girls_are_teh_best]

Also gonna give a link to this thread because it's somewhat pertinent to this topic. The last page in particular, there's Heisenberg 007, myself, and a few other posters trying to work out likely GamePass annual revenue figures and we basically arrived at something around $725 million - $780 million a year.

It's too much to quote here but the conversation's there for those of you interested in how we arrived at these numbers. FWIW, the article(s) some of that data came from had some sloppy math themselves, so that made it a lot harder to figure some things out than it should've been.

 

[Leyasu]

Also gonna give a link to this thread because it's somewhat pertinent to this topic. The last page in particular, there's Heisenberg 007, myself, and a few other posters trying to work out likely GamePass annual revenue figures and we basically arrived at something around $725 million - $780 million a year.

It's too much to quote here but the conversation's there for those of you interested in how we arrived at these numbers. FWIW, the article(s) some of that data came from had some sloppy math themselves, so that made it a lot harder to figure some things out than it should've been.

Yeah the numbers are wrong.

Because even IF every single subscriber managed to get an Xbox live yearly card for 40 and did the 1 dollar conversion, it would still work out more than the 1.63 per month per sub that you guys arrived at.

No matter how you turn it, without solid numbers from Microsoft, everything is a guess at best. No matter how good the methodology employed.

 

[Hezekiah]

I'm not losing any sleep over it. The gaming business is doing a fine job all by themselves of making themselves unsustainable and prone to failure. When I started playing games, I had to put in quarters. Shit changes sometimes.

On one side you have subs trying to save you money. On the other side, every game is $70. Fuck that $70 shit. I'm so grateful there are options.

You genuinely think the idea behind subscription services is to save you money long-term..?

 

[MacReady13]

Apart from the fact I'm a hard core Red Hot Chili Peppers fan and purchased their newest album, I haven't purchased an album since Tool's last release. And before that I couldn't tell you the last album I purchased. I have Spotify and listen to my music through there. I really should support the artists I want to listen to but the convenience of Spotify is too alluring to let go.
Now in saying that I am fully aware of what it is doing to music artists and it is wrong. I don't want to see gaming going down this path as it is bad. Real bad. Microsoft can take the hit as they have very deep pockets but the thing I would hate to see is devs releasing quick and nasty games just to keep content flowing on this service. And it will happen. Just look at the shit Netflix releases. If only people had self control and purchased games they truly wanted when they had the money instead of wanting a constant flow of games to play. Society today and their short attention spans...

 

[S0ULZB0URNE]

This is why I will never support such services.

 

[MacReady13]

You genuinely think the idea behind subscription services is to save you money long-term..?

Short term thinking... The amount I've spent on just Netflix and Spotify alone in the years I've had them both does not justify what I have watched and listened to! I could've purchased the movies/tv shows and purchased the CD's and saved money in the long run.

 

[qwertz12345]

Apart from the fact I'm a hard core Red Hot Chili Peppers fan and purchased their newest album, I haven't purchased an album since Tool's last release. And before that I couldn't tell you the last album I purchased. I have Spotify and listen to my music through there. I really should support the artists I want to listen to but the convenience of Spotify is too alluring to let go.
Now in saying that I am fully aware of what it is doing to music artists and it is wrong. I don't want to see gaming going down this path as it is bad. Real bad. Microsoft can take the hit as they have very deep pockets but the thing I would hate to see is devs releasing quick and nasty games just to keep content flowing on this service. And it will happen. Just look at the shit Netflix releases. If only people had self control and purchased games they truly wanted when they had the money instead of wanting a constant flow of games to play. Society today and their short attention spans...

I have seen the decline of music bands in the age of the internet. 20 years ago, there were soooooooo many bands. Now, there's hardly any.

People blame piracy, but I think streaming services have had a far more negative impact on the material success of bands.

You are right, in that streaming services are really convenient. But they're also "wrong". Because musicians (on the whole) don't really make any money.

20 years ago, an upcoming musician could make money. Now, it's practically impossible for an upcoming musician to make any money.

People talk about how touring is a great way to earn money, but you don't get residual income from touring. You do however get residual income from CD sales.

I don't know what all these people are talking about when they go off on how "touring" is what a musician should do. They don't realize that touring sucks. They also don't realize that touring gets a lot harder as you get older.

Ain't no 60 year old musician going to want to be touring toilets. Not when they have a mortgage to pay for, and mouths to feed.

 

[NoLootBoxDev]

I am not expert. But lets take a look at Netflix (which I think it's kind of similar)

Netflix had approximately 221.64 million paid subscribers worldwide, at $12.99 month.

Xbox gamepass at 25 million at $14.99/mo

Then lets take into account production costs of series

The Crown costs 13 million per episode at 10 episodes $130 million.
Stranger things 12 million per episode 8 - 9 episodes depending on the season.
Stranger Things season 4 cost Netflix $30 million per episode - 9 episodes - $270 million

Halo infinite can be at $250 - $500 millions depending on the site XD. (not sure who to believe)
Red Dead Redemption 2 — $379 million to $550
Star Citizen — $320 million-plus
Cyberpunk 2077 — $316 million

I did a google search for those prices (do not shoot me).

Based on this forum logic, if Netflix is not sustainable, then gamepass (day one) will have the same situation sooner or later (sooner due to the amount of subscribers).

Yes, there is other things to take into account like sales, people who are not part of gamepass, promotions, and other things. I just base this on something simple. I am not here to to bash anyone, but to look at production costs on both services. Only time will tell, because if Netflix fails, then most likely game-pass will too (for day 1 release).

 

[Swift_Star]

Apart from the fact I'm a hard core Red Hot Chili Peppers fan and purchased their newest album, I haven't purchased an album since Tool's last release. And before that I couldn't tell you the last album I purchased. I have Spotify and listen to my music through there. I really should support the artists I want to listen to but the convenience of Spotify is too alluring to let go.
Now in saying that I am fully aware of what it is doing to music artists and it is wrong. I don't want to see gaming going down this path as it is bad. Real bad. Microsoft can take the hit as they have very deep pockets but the thing I would hate to see is devs releasing quick and nasty games just to keep content flowing on this service. And it will happen. Just look at the shit Netflix releases. If only people had self control and purchased games they truly wanted when they had the money instead of wanting a constant flow of games to play. Society today and their short attention spans...

I don’t buy Taylor swift álbuns and I’m a massive fan lol Spotify really changed the way we listen to music.

 

[Oddvintagechap]

Ill just see what Sony does.

Bungie purchase is not something I approve of, I played that shit Destiny, its sucks ass. It’s for those shit players that just like to grind bullshit all day. Thats a PS+ play. Playstation might be trying to get those waste your time games so youre in their subscription all year. Their AAA story 16 hour games just don’t make sense for the service, I can sense more ulgy Destiny-like games are incoming.

 

[DarkMage619]

They are not free for sure. Didn’t we hear that they got a few million for gotg? Wasn’t it something they complained about or am I confusing them?

I am pretty sure MS gave Guardians a major lifeline. The game sold poorly and Game pass provided additional resources.

Guardians of the Galaxy Game is Growing Its Audience Because of Xbox Game Pass

After a slow launch, Eidos Montreal says its Guardians of the Galaxy game is reaching a bigger audience with it available on Xbox Game Pass.

gamerant.com

Game pass hurting the industry indeed.

In short, for better or worse GP will affect everyone to a degree. It's fine to say those are the breaks of picking one system or the other. But claiming no impact is an objectively untrue statement.

Interesting premise but purchasing studios is part of the business and acquisitions existed BEFORE Game pass. Also MS has published titles on PlayStation even though Game pass exists so again I don't see any correlation.

Sony paid to keep Final Fantasy and Street Fighter off of Xbox. That affected millions of Xbox gamers but that wasn't because of Game pass or PS+ it was business. Sunset Overdrive won't see a sequel on Xbox because Sony bought the studio. It's the breaks of business and has nothing to do with Game pass at all.

Same is true of any acquisition MS or Sony has made. Game pass remains a completely optional service that people can either use or not. It isn't hurting anyone and if it isn't a good service it will end. There is nothing to be 'concerned' about especially if you dont have an Xbox at all.

Man I wish Ed Fries were still with Xbox. Peter Moore, Seamus Blackley, and J Allard, too. They were a great quartet for the brand even if it took a while for Xbox to catch on with the mainstream at that time.

You simply can't deny the quality of 1P & 3P exclusives they managed to make & secure for OG Xbox and 360.

I too enjoyed those old days but I must admit the current days aren't so bad seeing the direction the platform is taking minus the regular first party releases. With their current stable of studios it's only a matter of time before we see more regular drops. Their last first party release was only 6 months ago and their showcase is next month. I'd like to see what is planned for the rest of the year before getting too nostalgic for the past.

 

[qwertz12345]

I don’t buy Taylor swift álbuns and I’m a massive fan lol Spotify really changed the way we listen to music.

By what metric would you argue that you're a massive fan?

Have you seen TS on tour? Have you gone to a different country in order to see her in concert? Have you bought any merchandise - including tees? Are you part of any fan club? Have you taken the time to meet her? Can you recite all the lyrics of her 20 most popular songs? Do you know what year she was born? What's her star sign?

If you can't answer all of the above questions with an affirmative, then you're not really a massive fan.

 

[thicc_girls_are_teh_best]

Yeah the numbers are wrong.

Because even IF every single subscriber managed to get an Xbox live yearly card for 40 and did the 1 dollar conversion, it would still work out more than the 1.63 per month per sub that you guys arrived at.

No matter how you turn it, without solid numbers from Microsoft, everything is a guess at best. No matter how good the methodology employed.

You would have to also keep in mind, though, that there is some limit to XBLG converts to GPU via the $1 conversion amount, not to mention there are people who may pay month-to-month, but aren't paying for the entire year. They could only pay for a single month or two, for example. Let alone people who are getting it via free trails, or using Reward Points to cover costs.

If our numbers are wrong, then the numbers in those reports are also wrong. Which, well, some of them were wrong, but it would actually be more damning in terms of the percentages used in those reported figures. It's the best we can do with info provided, and are the only figures that actually fit in with the general amounts reported while also respecting other amounts provided directly from Sony and Nintendo for their own subscription services revenue in the time period.

I think if GamePass revenue figures were particularly large, MS would want to report them in isolation from other services revenue let alone overall Xbox division revenue, even if the revenue figures for it are lumped in with those. Subscription services in gaming are an emerging market, no? You think you'd want to prove without a shadow of a doubt said market can generate big enough money on its own, not just for shareholders but to make a point towards potential competitors (Amazon, Google, Sony etc.).

Revenue figures from MS directly in relation to GP/GPU would definitely be a more meaningful statement all around than just subscription numbers, given the variance in subscription stability rates.

 

[Ghost of Caelid]

A business that cannot survive a new business model is a business that deserves to fail. Using the music industry as an example as it was extremely predatory of the artist. Spotify doesn't make it much better but due to it alot of artist are able to forgo labels or enter with more leverage. Gamepass and services been a huge boon to A-AA developers which is a plus to me. We haven't seen the complete impact on AAA games but forza, gears, gafs goty halo etc all launched on it successfully, so let's stop acting like services are the death of video games...its silly.

 

[ReBurn]

That's surely not because of the pay-out from Spotify - it's the exposure from Spotify that helps selling tickets to concerts, merchandise and so on.

It's from people actually paying for music now because they can pay what it's worth for what they listen to instead of feeling like they have to steal it because studios wanted you have to pay 20 bucks to get access to the one song on the album that's actually good instead of having to pay for the 9 other songs you don't want. People always went to concerts for artists they like. Spotify didn't make that a thing.

 

[Leyasu]

You would have to also keep in mind, though, that there is some limit to XBLG converts to GPU via the $1 conversion amount, not to mention there are people who may pay month-to-month, but aren't paying for the entire year. They could only pay for a single month or two, for example. Let alone people who are getting it via free trails, or using Reward Points to cover costs.

If our numbers are wrong, then the numbers in those reports are also wrong. Which, well, some of them were wrong, but it would actually be more damning in terms of the percentages used in those reported figures. It's the best we can do with info provided, and are the only figures that actually fit in with the general amounts reported while also respecting other amounts provided directly from Sony and Nintendo for their own subscription services revenue in the time period.

I think if GamePass revenue figures were particularly large, MS would want to report them in isolation from other services revenue let alone overall Xbox division revenue, even if the revenue figures for it are lumped in with those. Subscription services in gaming are an emerging market, no? You think you'd want to prove without a shadow of a doubt said market can generate big enough money on its own, not just for shareholders but to make a point towards potential competitors (Amazon, Google, Sony etc.).

Revenue figures from MS directly in relation to GP/GPU would definitely be a more meaningful statement all around than just subscription numbers, given the variance in subscription stability rates.

Of course they are wrong. The numbers in the article are wrong, which in turn gave you guys an incorrect base to work from. Just using the maths of every single subscriber taking advantage of the cheapest method possible (the one that I used used) puts it beyond doubt. It works out more.

As they don’t seem to be getting much shareholder pressure to split their revenue in their reports, they don’t seem inclined to divulge them. Good or bad, I just don’t give a shit.

But for those that do like to play with figures, I do agree that it would be better if they released some concrete stats

 

[Three]

I think it's a lot easier to assume that the work was already done and much easier/quicker to port all the PC enhancements to the new Xboxes in time for the launch updates instead of whatever nefarious things you think were happening behind the scenes lol.

This is just one example of the kind of ongoing development details. The entire package was also converted to a UE4 wrapper for PC. That and the games were available on Steam and windows store at retail on launch as well, game pass would have no bearing there at all.

I'm sorry fam, you're trying to find conspiracies where seemingly none exist.

It's a lot easier to assume that they released a previous collection in exact Halo story timeline chronological order on a subscription service every other month because it made business sense to instead of doing it as a single collection release like they had done in the past. There is no conspiracy or anything nefarious about it.

Halo: Reach December 3, 2019
Halo: CE Anniversary March 3, 2020
Halo 2: Anniversary May 12, 2020
Halo 3 July 14, 2020
Halo 3: ODST September 22, 2020
Halo 4 November 17, 2020

You asked for an example and it's right there.
It's also safe to say that with games releasing incomplete and going towards "seasons" this is not far fetched. I bet Sony do similar things with Bungie.

 

[S0ULZB0URNE]

Ill just see what Sony does.

Bungie purchase is not something I approve of, I played that shit Destiny, its sucks ass. It’s for those shit players that just like to grind bullshit all day. Thats a PS+ play. Playstation might be trying to get those waste your time games so youre in their subscription all year. Their AAA story 16 hour games just don’t make sense for the service, I can sense more ulgy Destiny-like games are incoming.

Thankfully most don't have a shit take like this.

 

[Leyasu]

It's a lot easier to assume that they released a previous collection in exact Halo story timeline chronological order on a subscription service every other month because it made business sense to instead of doing it as a single collection release like they had done in the past. There is no conspiracy or anything nefarious about it.

Halo: Reach December 3, 2019
Halo: CE Anniversary March 3, 2020
Halo 2: Anniversary May 12, 2020
Halo 3 July 14, 2020
Halo 3: ODST September 22, 2020
Halo 4 November 17, 2020

You asked for an example and it's right there.
It's also safe to say that with games releasing incomplete and going towards "seasons" this is not far fetched. I bet Sony do similar things with Bungie.

That is just wrong and you know it. They were porting them over one at a time…. Making sure that each one actually worked before releasing them. Not like the abomination that they released on consoles lol

 

[reksveks]

Would be nice if we didn't get that far, cause there's no turning back at that point. MS themselves want to get to 1 billion subs - and I'm hesitant to say it, but if that's the number to get to, before it's sustainable - we'll see a major drop in sales of AAA games over the next 10 years.

How much revenue do you think 1 billion subs would generate a month?

You assuming no hw revenue? No dlc/mtx revenue?

 

[Swift_Star]

I am pretty sure MS gave Guardians a major lifeline. The game sold poorly and Game pass provided additional resources.

http://[URL]https://gamerant.com/guardians-of-the-galaxy-xbox-game-pass-good/amp/

[/URL]

Game pass hurting the industry indeed.


Interesting premise but purchasing studios is part of the business and acquisitions existed BEFORE Game pass. Also MS has published titles on PlayStation even though Game pass exists so again I don't see any correlation.

Sony paid to keep Final Fantasy and Street Fighter off of Xbox. That affected millions of Xbox gamers but that wasn't because of Game pass or PS+ it was business. Sunset Overdrive won't see a sequel on Xbox because Sony bought the studio. It's the breaks of business and has nothing to do with Game pass at all.

Same is true of any acquisition MS or Sony has made. Game pass remains a completely optional service that people can either use or not. It isn't hurting anyone and if it isn't a good service it will end. There is nothing to be 'concerned' about especially if you dont have an Xbox at all.


I too enjoyed those old days but I must admit the current days aren't so bad seeing the direction the platform is taking minus the regular first party releases. With their current stable of studios it's only a matter of time before we see more regular drops. Their last first party release was only 6 months ago and their showcase is next month. I'd like to see what is planned for the rest of the year before getting too nostalgic for the past.

GotG is also on new ps+ lol. The time of “gamepass our savior” is coming to an end.

 

[DarkMage619]

GotG is also on new ps+ lol. The time of “gamepass our savior” is coming to an end.

Is PS+ hurting the industry then? Figure they'd both be called out by concerned parties.

 

[Leyasu]

GotG is also on new ps+ lol. The time of “gamepass our savior” is coming to an end.

PS+ going to destroy the industry too then?

I saw that the guy above wrote the same thing lol

 

[Swift_Star]

Is PS+ hurting the industry then? Figure they'd both be called out by concerned parties.

I never said that, specially since those services will rely on indies, failed games and games that passed their prime sales windows to survive as they’ve been doing until now. Unless Sony, Capcom and others put their games their day one, nothing will change.
MS approach so far is biting them in the ass after Starfield delay.

 

[8BiTw0LF]

How much revenue do you think 1 billion subs would generate a month?

You assuming no hw revenue? No dlc/mtx revenue?

A lot, but it's the road to 1 billion that concerns me. Sustainability in putting out AAA games shouldn't rely only on subscriptions - but they will long before 1 billion users are subscribing.

 

[Three]

That is just wrong and you know it. They were porting them over one at a time…. Making sure that each one actually worked before releasing them. Not like the abomination that they released on consoles lol

So why couldn't they all release at once at the time of the last release, "making sure each one worked". It was a 2019 release of a 2014 collection. Come on. With the release on Series S/X what happened to "release one by one making sure all of them worked", or was that an abomination? It's nonsense.

 

[Leyasu]

So why couldn't they all release at once at the time of the last release, "making sure each one worked". It was a 2019 release of a 2014 collection. Come on. With the release on Series S/X what happened to "release one by one making sure all of them worked", or was that an abomination? It's nonsense.

Ok. What are you even talking about?

Fuck me we all know how long it took for them to get the games working on consoles! And just look at what they did with infinite. Yet, here you are using 343 and the pc release of one of the most broken games to ever pass certification to justify the conspiracies swirling between your ears lol

This ain’t the proof that you think it is unfortunately. Try again

 

[thicc_girls_are_teh_best]

I too enjoyed those old days but I must admit the current days aren't so bad seeing the direction the platform is taking minus the regular first party releases. With their current stable of studios it's only a matter of time before we see more regular drops. Their last first party release was only 6 months ago and their showcase is next month. I'd like to see what is planned for the rest of the year before getting too nostalgic for the past.

Sorry but I have to disagree on this one. I'm not saying MS haven't had some good 1P releases the past year: FH5, Halo Infinite, Flight Sim, Deathloop, Psychonauts 2, AoE4 to name the main ones. But there are caveats with all of them.

FH5 has seemingly stalled in momentum since release. Halo Infinite has solid gunplay but very little content and has been bleeding players for months. Flight Sim was a port of a game that came to PC first in 2020. Deathloop has a VERY polarizing reception between critics & many players. Psychonauts 2 was more or less on very solid ground prior to MS buying DF (their funding did help, though). AoE4 is another 1P game that's prioritized PC over Xbox for initial release (why can't these games get PC & Xbox simultaneous Day 1 releases?).

But for myself, I don't know if the current variety matches what they had in the OG Xbox & peak 360 eras, and there's no telling if the future releases will provide a match in variety or quality, either. OG Xbox getting Halo 2, Crimson Skies, DOA3, DOA: Ultimate, Ninja Gaiden, the Otogi games, JSRF, Outrun 2, PD Orta, Blinx, DOOM 3, Riddick, Morrowind, Jade Empire 1 & 2, KOTOR 1 & 2, PGR, Forza and more. 360 had a lot of Western 1P & 3P exclusives and quite a few cool Japanese 3P exclusives and more Japanese 3P multiplats in the AAA space than anyone thought they'd get.

If we're just talking in terms of platform exclusives, I don't think Xbox has had the cadence in releases they did during the 360 or even early XBO days, and again there's no telling how some of these games actually land.

Of course they are wrong. The numbers in the article are wrong, which in turn gave you guys an incorrect base to work from. Just using the maths of every single subscriber taking advantage of the cheapest method possible (the one that I used used) puts it beyond doubt. It works out more.

Yes it's true some of the numbers were off, but that wasn't the only article being used. Other reports, including fiscal results from Sony & Nintendo directly within that time period, were used for corroborating things in that article. Things like the GamePass percentage share of game subscriptions market, we assumed that was as a subset to the wider services market revenue amounts, which makes sense logically speaking.

For some of the numbers that were wrong, it was easy enough to get more accurate numbers because numbers the article provided were based on percentage amounts, so assuming the percentages were accurate then deriving actual numbers was easy enough to fix.

If we take your idea here, all 25 million people doing the $1 conversion would be $300 million a year, and that's the cheapest method technically out there. So that's actually worst than the range we arrived at in that other thread :/.

As they don’t seem to be getting much shareholder pressure to split their revenue in their reports, they don’t seem inclined to divulge them. Good or bad, I just don’t give a shit.

Ultimately I don't care much, either, but wanting some numbers on GamePass revenue is always something we as gamers are going to want because it gives us a way to measure platform/ecosystem performance over a long-term period. It provides important discussions, too, and we always want some means of knowing how gaming platforms are performing.

Plus, with Microsoft themselves having positioned GamePass and metrics like MAU as more important than console sales (for them), the fact they already don't provide console sales numbers is going to leave some gamers wanting that to be "made up" for via some other type of hard numbers. I think shareholders ultimately don't care because Xbox and GamePass themselves aren't big parts of MS's profits anyway; Windows, Office, and Azure Cloud are where the vast majority of MS revenue & profit comes from so any performance with Xbox and GamePass (positive or negative, financially speaking) doesn't really matter for most shareholders anyway.

But for those that do like to play with figures, I do agree that it would be better if they released some concrete stats

Agreed

 

[Three]

Ok .Fuck me we all know how long it took for them to get the games working on consoles! And just look at what they did with infinite. Yet, here you are using 343 and the pc release of one of the most broken games to ever pass certification to justify the conspiracies swirling between your ears lol. This ain’t the proof that you think it is unfortunately. Try again

You just think it's a conspiracy when it's not even that deep. Company decides to release a 2014 collection piecemeal in story timeline order. Could have easily released feature complete in 2020 but individual game releases over the year is to stop broken games apparently. Except they did the opposite and released it all at once on Series S/X. Ok.

Look forward to coming back to this thread in a year or so. Should be fun just like all the other threads.

 

[Leyasu]

Sorry but I have to disagree on this one. I'm not saying MS haven't had some good 1P releases the past year: FH5, Halo Infinite, Flight Sim, Deathloop, Psychonauts 2, AoE4 to name the main ones. But there are caveats with all of them.

FH5 has seemingly stalled in momentum since release. Halo Infinite has solid gunplay but very little content and has been bleeding players for months. Flight Sim was a port of a game that came to PC first in 2020. Deathloop has a VERY polarizing reception between critics & many players. Psychonauts 2 was more or less on very solid ground prior to MS buying DF (their funding did help, though). AoE4 is another 1P game that's prioritized PC over Xbox for initial release (why can't these games get PC & Xbox simultaneous Day 1 releases?).

But for myself, I don't know if the current variety matches what they had in the OG Xbox & peak 360 eras, and there's no telling if the future releases will provide a match in variety or quality, either. OG Xbox getting Halo 2, Crimson Skies, DOA3, DOA: Ultimate, Ninja Gaiden, the Otogi games, JSRF, Outrun 2, PD Orta, Blinx, DOOM 3, Riddick, Morrowind, Jade Empire 1 & 2, KOTOR 1 & 2, PGR, Forza and more. 360 had a lot of Western 1P & 3P exclusives and quite a few cool Japanese 3P exclusives and more Japanese 3P multiplats in the AAA space than anyone thought they'd get.

If we're just talking in terms of platform exclusives, I don't think Xbox has had the cadence in releases they did during the 360 or even early XBO days, and again there's no telling how some of these games actually land.



Yes it's true some of the numbers were off, but that wasn't the only article being used. Other reports, including fiscal results from Sony & Nintendo directly within that time period, were used for corroborating things in that article. Things like the GamePass percentage share of game subscriptions market, we assumed that was as a subset to the wider services market revenue amounts, which makes sense logically speaking.

For some of the numbers that were wrong, it was easy enough to get more accurate numbers because numbers the article provided were based on percentage amounts, so assuming the percentages were accurate then deriving actual numbers was easy enough to fix.

If we take your idea here, all 25 million people doing the $1 conversion would be $300 million a year, and that's the cheapest method technically out there. So that's actually worst than the range we arrived at in that other thread :/.



Ultimately I don't care much, either, but wanting some numbers on GamePass revenue is always something we as gamers are going to want because it gives us a way to measure platform/ecosystem performance over a long-term period. It provides important discussions, too, and we always want some means of knowing how gaming platforms are performing.

Plus, with Microsoft themselves having positioned GamePass and metrics like MAU as more important than console sales (for them), the fact they already don't provide console sales numbers is going to leave some gamers wanting that to be "made up" for via some other type of hard numbers. I think shareholders ultimately don't care because Xbox and GamePass themselves aren't big parts of MS's profits anyway; Windows, Office, and Azure Cloud are where the vast majority of MS revenue & profit comes from so any performance with Xbox and GamePass (positive or negative, financially speaking) doesn't really matter for most shareholders anyway.



Agreed

25 million x 40 + 25m = 925m

Not only do the numbers not line up, the biggest clue that should make people wary of what those articles were reporting is the fact that Microsoft are so cagey with their numbers. Those articles are obviously getting some correct numbers for somethings, but are lacking others and are probably just trying their best.

It’s not a criticism, btw

 

[Leyasu]

You just think it's a conspiracy when it's not even that deep. Company decides to release a 2014 collection piecemeal. Could have easily released feature complete in 2020 but individual game releases over the year is to stop broken games apparently. Except they did the opposite and released it all at once on Series S/X. Ok.

Look forward to coming back to this thread in a year or so. Should be fun just like all the other threads.

Okay I see what you mean now. The MCC only got a patch for the x/s I think, perhaps, fuck knows!

Yeah they could have released them in one go or perhaps they went the piecemeal route to see if there would be any interest on the pc? Who knows? I just don’t think for one second it was to keep subscribers. How much is the MCC on pc anyway? Also, where does the largest majority of pc gamers reside: steam or on their store/launcher?

 

[DarkMage619]

I never said that, specially since those services will rely on indies, failed games and games that passed their prime sales windows to survive as they’ve been doing until now. Unless Sony, Capcom and others put their games their day one, nothing will change.
MS approach so far is biting them in the ass after Starfield delay.

The premise of this article is that some are 'scared' of Game pass. If one is scared of one optional sub service you should be scared of them all. I am assuming you are basing your Starfield comments on Twitter? The day one games primarily relate to MS releases. Is there concern for MS bottom line now? There has been no actual evidence of harm otherwise.

 

[Dr Bass]

He gives the example of Spotify... yet, musicians are making more money then ever with Spotify.

Dude ... No. Just no.

This is straight up just not true.

 

[Swift_Star]

The premise of this article is that some are 'scared' of Game pass. If one is scared of one optional sub service you should be scared of them all. I am assuming you are basing your Starfield comments on Twitter? The day one games primarily relate to MS releases. Is there concern for MS bottom line now? There has been no actual evidence of harm otherwise.

There’s no concern for MS. I just think it’s been proven that day one MS games haven’t and won’t move the needle. Gamers don’t actually care. At all.

 

[digoutyoursoul]

GotG is also on new ps+ lol. The time of “gamepass our savior” is coming to an end.

The fuck is this, the prequel trilogy senate?

 

[Helghan]

I am not expert. But lets take a look at Netflix (which I think it's kind of similar)

Netflix had approximately 221.64 million paid subscribers worldwide, at $12.99 month.

Xbox gamepass at 25 million at $14.99/mo

Then lets take into account production costs of series

The Crown costs 13 million per episode at 10 episodes $130 million.
Stranger things 12 million per episode 8 - 9 episodes depending on the season.
Stranger Things season 4 cost Netflix $30 million per episode - 9 episodes - $270 million

Halo infinite can be at $250 - $500 millions depending on the site XD. (not sure who to believe)
Red Dead Redemption 2 — $379 million to $550
Star Citizen — $320 million-plus
Cyberpunk 2077 — $316 million

I did a google search for those prices (do not shoot me).

Based on this forum logic, if Netflix is not sustainable, then gamepass (day one) will have the same situation sooner or later (sooner due to the amount of subscribers).

Yes, there is other things to take into account like sales, people who are not part of gamepass, promotions, and other things. I just base this on something simple. I am not here to to bash anyone, but to look at production costs on both services. Only time will tell, because if Netflix fails, then most likely game-pass will too (for day 1 release).

How many titles does Netflix have?
How many titles does game pass have?

Apple's & oranges

 

[IFireflyl]

How is it? If going on gamepass nets then a nice guaranteed slice of development costs before the game goes on sale, then how is it a negative? The game is still for sale on Xbox/PlayStation/pc.

Right now unit sales are the norm. Everything I have said in this thread is predicated around subscription services becoming the norm. If subscription services becomes the norm then unit sales have lost traction. The developers aren't getting all of their unit sales and also getting a slice of the subscription. If people are using the subscription service then they generally aren't buying the game which equates to a lower revenue for the developer. Sure, some people might try the game on the subscription service first and then buy the game, but that won't be the norm in the same way it isn't the norm for people to pay for Spotify and then also pay for a CD or digital copy of a song/album. This shouldn't be news to anyone.

When a physical album is sold, a portion of the profit from the sale is paid directly to the artist according to the terms of their record label contract. A typical label contract would see an artist receive 10 to 20 percent of revenue for physical sales, or around $1.50-3.00 for each sale of a $15 CD. Under the subscription-based streaming model, royalty payments are structured differently. Revenue from all subscribers is pooled, and royalty payments are issued to artists’ record label proportionally based on the share of total music streams each artist generated. This means that the rate at which artists are paid is dependent not only on how many times their own music is streamed, but how much other artists’ music is streamed as well.

Source: https://onlabor.org/streaming-servi...industry-but-theyre-leaving-musicians-behind/

And again: from my original post I never said this is a certain doom situation. What my initial point was is that there is a high-risk for a negative industry impact, but that doesn't mean there will definitively be a negative impact. This is just my concern, along with reasons for my concern.

 

[thicc_girls_are_teh_best]

A business that cannot survive a new business model is a business that deserves to fail.

Who says that gaming subscription services are the new business model that the gaming market needs?

Using the music industry as an example as it was extremely predatory of the artist. Spotify doesn't make it much better but due to it alot of artist are able to forgo labels or enter with more leverage.

Services like Spotify also caused record and music shops to go by the wayside though, which resulted in real job displacement. Another user ITT brought it up, can't remember who it was though.

Gamepass and services been a huge boon to A-AA developers which is a plus to me.

It depends on the definition of "services", here. Steam is technically a "service"; it's a digital storefront providing digital content to the end user. The only major difference between it and GamePass is the money pipeline. With Steam, the platform holder isn't creating a lot of software of their own, and aren't paying devs & pubs to put their content on the platform. The customer pays for each game, rather than a flat subscription rate providing all available games to them in the duration of that subscription, and that money then goes to the publisher of that game minus a 30% cut from Valve.

GamePass is, essentially, a "storefront", except the only thing the customer buys is a subscription to access the storefront whatsoever. That purchased subscription goes 100% to the platform holder who owns that "storefront", who in turn at the very least pays publishers and developers to put their content on the service. The platform holder may also make content of their own for the service.

As long as a A/AA developer can find a publisher or secure funding, there's very little a service like GamePass can offer them that another service like Steam cannot offer them. The big difference is in terms of potential funding or funding reimbursement: with Steam, funding comes either the traditional means (bank loans, publisher funds) or through crowdfunding. Those costs have to be made up through direct sales to the customer. With something like GamePass, the funding either comes from those same means, or from a platform holder like Microsoft paying the cost of development directly. If the funding is still via traditional methods, then MS paying for the game on their service can cover some or all of those costs.

But here's the kicker: even if the money ends up right for either method, one still brings more dependency than the other. With Steam you have a much larger storefront and a much larger service, reaching a wider audience. With GamePass, your total audience reach is going to be a lot smaller (at least for the time being). And the main method for GP growth is going to be much more stressful on MS as a platform holder than Steam growth has been/will be for Valve, since in GP's case it's mainly 1P games that will drive that growth.

Which actually could present a hamper for 3P A/AA games and a few indie devs came out not too long ago voicing their concerns on this.

We haven't seen the complete impact on AAA games but forza, gears, gafs goty halo etc all launched on it successfully, so let's stop acting like services are the death of video games...its silly.

Well they did launch successfully, but in the case of Halo (and somewhat, tho not as much, FH5) since that's a live-service game, the question is how well does it maintain an active playerbase. And the answer is, it's really struggling to do that in a way comparable to the other big live-service shooters on the market. So launch success for Halo Infinite doesn't mean that much if outside of that, the game's been losing significant momentum.

25 million x 40 + 25m = 925m

This doesn't make sense; wouldn't that be $1.025 billion?

Not only do the numbers not line up, the biggest clue that should make people wary of what those articles were reporting is the fact that Microsoft are so cagey with their numbers. Those articles are obviously getting some correct numbers for somethings, but are lacking others and are probably just trying their best.

It’s not a criticism, btw

I understand. That being said, there ARE other sources out there which provide tracked, accurate numbers for other parts of the industry, and platform holders like Sony & Nintendo do in fact provide hard numbers for aspects of their businesses including game services revenues.

That's where the corroboration comes in: we can take those figures, line them up, see what the relationship between them are, and use that to try filling in missing pieces such as GamePass's own revenue totals. Which, yes, we can't 100% arrive at accurately, but I think we're in a good enough ballpark. If everything in even that article (let alone other industry-wide data tracking sites or even numbers from platform holders directly) were off by wide margins, a lot of people would be out of jobs, credibility, and likely facing criminal charges