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[Bumblebeetuna]

We're seeing a constant declining in quality of their releases

It's actually the opposite, but if this were true, a business model without GamePass would be worse for them.

Anyone who thinks GamePass was a mistake, what other option did they have? Don't forget that GamePass was a Hail Mary attempt to get people into their ecosystem and play their software. They weren't selling games without it, so they pivoted.

A traditional sales approach would have killed a lot of these projects. Instead they've released some good and great games and we've had a few shit shows get canceled.

Lastly, friendly reminder that you don't have to use GamePass. If you want the game you're free to buy it.

 

[Mr.ODST]

Shame they never actually took control and sorted the quality of Halo, brought back Project Gotham and more of their known exclusive titles.

I prefer Xbox as a system (even though I main PS) but its just long gone now

 

[Griffon]

They wanted gamepass to destroy the industry, but instead it destroyed Xbox.

Well deserved.

 

[rofif]

Bullshit. Plenty of games today are doing fantastic work (Silent Hill 2, Death Stranding 2, Kingdon Come Deliverance 2 etc...). Gamepass is a complete negative for the industry. Sooner people realize it the better. It has ruined Xbox as a brand and the focus shift from consoles to a fucking subscription service is pathetic. Fuck lying Phil and his merry band of dumb fucks.

absolutely true

 

[LordOcidax]

Because its not on PlayStation. If it is all of that vanishes immediately. Its just bullshit. Look at any PS+ thread for all the comments about ruining the industry. You won't find it. Even when they do a day 1 game.

I know… But i love to read all the non sense comments of people "worried" about the finances of a 3 billion dollar company that they don't care at all… and the same peoples go and celebrates jobs cuts on another thread.

 

[Buggy Loop]

Bullshit. Plenty of games today are doing fantastic work (Silent Hill 2, Death Stranding 2, Kingdon Come Deliverance 2 etc...). Gamepass is a complete negative for the industry. Sooner people realize it the better. It has ruined Xbox as a brand and the focus shift from consoles to a fucking subscription service is pathetic. Fuck lying Phil and his merry band of dumb fucks.

Fantastic work? that little list?

Man if we listed the shit that's been pouring out there

But Gamepass titles like GOTY Clair Obscur expedition 33?

Only a negative to the industry /s

 

[MacReady13]

What a way to devalue your own brand.

What brand? They have no identifiable brand anymore. They used to be all about consoles. Now they are PS5, PC, Samsung/LG TV's, Switch and Switch 2, Gamepass. Everything except for consoles.

 

[Unknown?]

Paying more for rentals bad.

Ftfy

 

[Sanepar]

Xbox division needs to stay but gamepass needs to go way. Gamepass is cancer for this industry. Thanks god beside xbox fanboys, consumers didnt't embrace it.

 

[ChorizoPicozo]

I don't see a reason to wait when I can play on day one at a significantly lower cost. Even during major sales, Game Pass still ends up being much more affordable - plus, it's more convenient to try games without committing to a full purchase, which also reduces the risk of buying something you might not enjoy.

So ignore the biggest advantage of the service, which is the day one games? Really if you do that there is no difference at all from waiting for a sale.

you're mathing against buying a game... but that's not what GP is offering.

the comparison is flawed. you are not saving money because you are not buying a game, you are just paying for the service, right?

if you try to argue about how much money have you saved/affordable it is.... the moment you stop paying for game pass is the moment you loose all that value too. the moment a game leaves Game Pass, it's "value and affordability" goes out of the window, especially if you have paid for GP for more than 4-6 moths. and even worse.... as games devalue over time, if you acces an older game ie. Persona 5 you will be paying way more by accessing via game pass instead of just buying for the same or lower price than a month of GP subscription fee.

 

[EN250]

The business behind it is completely ass backwards and to this day it only "works", because MS is a 3 trillion dollar company capable to afford it...

 

[HarryKS]

Don't agree that movies or tv shows are 'cheaper' to produce, even streaming exclusives.
Faster is true however.

 

[ScorpionX]

What brand? They have no identifiable brand anymore. They used to be all about consoles. Now they are PS5, PC, Samsung/LG TV's, Switch and Switch 2, Gamepass. Everything except for consoles.

I believe that happened because of the reasons I said

 

[Judge Magister]

explain why xbox users begging for helldivers 2 to be released on their console?

explain why xbox games are selling well on PS5?

 

[Zacfoldor]

Paying less for games bad.

Everybody paying almost nothing for brand new games, unsustainable.

Look when a business starts going under a lot of times they will drop their prices to try to give sales a boost. It's a desperation move not some brilliant strategy with an end game.

When you don't value your own products don't expect anyone else to value them either.

 

[Audiophile]

Last gen they just had to make a box that's 80% as good as Sony's and put out two solid exclusives a year that were 80% as good as Sony's. Built out Game Pass in a more measured way, nurtured their studios and not engage in silly shenanigans when revealing the platform. Then pushed the boat out a little more this gen.

It was that simple. They could've retained ~40% of the PS/XB console market.

But the execs had "ideas".

Transforming the market to favour a Netflix-style service is a big ask to begin with, but it was never gonna happen when you can barely hold on to a third of the market. All they did was devalue their big titles and train an entire playerbase to want everything for free.

 

[MacReady13]

Fantastic work? that little list?

Man if we listed the shit that's been pouring out there

But Gamepass titles like GOTY Clair Obscur expedition 33?

Only a negative to the industry /s

Oh fucking spare me. Keep sucking Microsofts cock for 1 game that the VAST majority of people didn't even play on gamepass. If you want me to keep listing games that are great today that refuse to go on gamepass then I'd be happy to do it. Just jump on Steam and see the games that would never devalue their true worth by being on a sub service.

 

[Giallo Corsa]

Paying less for games bad.

"You'll own nothing and you'll like it"

 

[LordOcidax]

Everybody paying almost nothing for brand new games, unsustainable.

Look when a business starts going under a lot of times they will drop their prices to try to give sales a boost. It's a desperation move not some brilliant strategy with an end game.

When you don't value your own products don't expect anyone else to value them either.

Again… don't worry about Microsoft money, they have plenty

 

[Durin]

We're seeing a constant declining in quality of their releases and unless a miracle happens, this could be the beginning of the end for Xbox as we know it

Microsoft definitely likes to shoot themselves in the foot, but the quality of their game releases has absolutely gone up over the last year or two. People are talking up Clair Obscur to be a GOTY contender, when was the last time any game connected with Microsoft did that?

Game Pass isn't killing Microsoft, their problem is that it's one of the only bright-spots in their platform ecosystem. Everything else has been them throwing stuff at the wall,or being way too late to improve...why just now are they working on de-bloating Window's background processes and making a controller GUI?

 

[Zacfoldor]

I think really Microsoft's strategy was to start a race to the bottom. Devaluing games would hurt them but they could weather the storm. It would kill Playstation. However, the way it played out was that people on Playstation didn't care that gamepass games were almost free and kept buying on Playstation. This confused the hell out of Phil. He didn't understand that the Xbox was no longer culturally relevant which is why gamepass didn't register. On PC it registers but PC people are different. They will pay less, cancel month to month, and generally take more than they give on a service like this. PC can't replace console players for the very reason that PC gamers are so proud. They are too smart for gamepass long term. It won't trap them like it will an absent minded parent or a kid. So yes they are fucked and fully invested in this bad plan now. It started as a desperation tactic and now it is an albatross around their neck. Some will clearly not accept this yet, so let's keep going. The next gen hardware will be a huge negative for them and sink them further, so let's see how long we can live in denial and how many more games they can promise and not deliver or how many studios they can close or how many WoWs they can ruin before we get even the slightest bit upset.

 

[Makki]

GAAS is cancer

 

[Sybrix]

What a surprise, a business wants low cost and max profits.

Hardware cost big bucks.... GamePass offers games on demand with a continual customer base.

I don't agree with it, i want the PS3/360 days, but thems the breaks.

Get over it.

It's the future.

Suck it up.

Xbox isnt a hardware company, its a live service now.

 

[adamsapple]

you're mathing against buying a game... but that's not what GP is offering.

The posters you're quoting never said about buying the games, they're talking about playing the games, which is what the service offers them.

Is their time and experience playing the game not worth it because they don't keep a permanent physical copy or a tenuously owned digital copy that can be revoked any time?

 

[Zacfoldor]

Microsoft definitely likes to shoot themselves in the foot, but the quality of their game releases has absolutely gone up over the last year or two. People are talking up Clair Obscur to be a GOTY contender, when was the last time any game connected with Microsoft did that?

Game Pass isn't killing Microsoft, their problem is that it's one of the only bright-spots in their platform ecosystem. Everything else has been them throwing stuff at the wall,or being way too late to improve...why just now are they working on de-bloating Window's background processes and making a controller GUI?

When did this myth come to pass?

No, Microsoft did not publish Clair Obscur: Expedition 33. While Microsoft did partner with the game by including it as a day one release on Xbox Game Pass, the game is actually developed by Sandfall Interactive and published by Kepler Interactive.

 

[MiguelItUp]

The problem is more that with all of their decisions they HAD to go balls deep on Game Pass because it is the only thing they have. They killed their console sales, and went on a spending spree for over $80 billion buying studios. Studios that they then needed to put onto Game Pass meaning that Game Pass cost them even more to maintain and therefore needing to rely/push Game Pass more.

The more studios they buy the more expensive Game Pass is to maintain and that's not even touching third party games some of which cost them a lot of money to get on the service.

From a consumer standpoint I get why people like it.

And I don't disagree, which is why I think it could've very well been their "Hail Mary". Because things were fumbled so poorly otherwise, and without it they would be in a much, much worse state.

Which is kind of why I don't think Game Pass is a mistake, or it's a reason for their fumbles. Those fumbles were happening before even Game Pass launched.

It's the one thing I really respected about Microsoft this generation. It felt like they were trying to give their fans choices, sure the two console thing felt stupid, but it felt cool to give consumers the option to choose if they could or couldn't afford the beefier console. Then the whole Game Pass thing. Is it a necessity? No. But it's an option. I've just always liked people having options, especially gamers. It's just unfortunate that so much with the brand has been in such an odd place for so long now.

 

[PurePlatinum]

GamePass was a sketchy proposition from the beginning for anyone with any kind of foresight.

Ask yourself the following question - "Would Nintendo ever offer such a service?" Of course not, because they can get you to pay $60-$80 for a game, with no sales, for the lifetime of the product...not to mention for a product that cost a fraction of the development cost.

Now reverse the thinking and consider what such a cheap cost communicates about Microsoft's products. By offering GamePass, they are essentially communicating to the consumer, "Our games are not worth buying at full price", and you are now seeing the results of that, and the ramifications on their bottom line.

PlayStation's strategy is somewhere in the middle. They offer older titles on PC and PS+ extra, but aren't dumb enough to put their brand new games on a subscription service.

 

[MMaRsu]

This tale of Game Pass being the death of Xbox is such nonsense. Their downfall started in the PS4 age and they never recovered. It has nothing to do with GP

 

[Zacfoldor]

What a surprise, a business wants low cost and max profits.

Hardware cost big bucks.... GamePass offers games on demand with a continual customer base.

I don't agree with it, i want the PS3/360 days, but thems the breaks.

Get over it.

It's the future.

Suck it up.

Xbox isnt a hardware company, its a live service now.

"We" aren't worried about the future of gaming. Gamepass isn't the future. We are not upset. We have nothing to suck up. We are actually quite okay with all this. Why would non-Xbox fans be upset. Does it look to anyone like Xbox is doing well? Does it look to you like Xbox's competition needs to be worried? Even if they go 3rd party, that's a boon for the competitors, not a loss. Gamepass has floundered for years. When the next hardware comes out it's gonna be not a good thing for gamepass. PC gamers will never float gamepass like console did. The next console will be niche, and so gamepass is a thing that is in its prime right now. Phil will be gone at the end of the gen or very early into next. Them's the real breaks I'm afraid.

What would be a shocker to me is if Xbox or gamepass or microsoft returned to cultural relevance.

Let's see who ends up being right about this. I don't think we need much time. The launch of the nextbox will tell the tale. /remindme 18 months

 

[ValiantInstance]

That, and spending 70 billion dollars to buy Actiblizz, only to keep producing games for all other systems.

Not only doing that but taking no creative control whatsoever and letting them continue to pump out the same old shite. If anything it's gotten worse.

Bobby the goblin is gone, the shareholders are gone. Why are Call of Duty releasing a Beavis and Butthead battle pass?

 

[Holammer]

If Game Pass was an actual good idea the rest of the industry would have followed suit ages ago. They didn't, because it's a loss-leader strategy Nintendo or Sony cannot afford.
Unsurprisingly Apple is the only other company doing it with Apple Arcade.

 

[SilentSpecter]

you're mathing against buying a game... but that's not what GP is offering.

the comparison is flawed. you are not saving money because you are not buying a game, you are just paying for the service, right?

if you try to argue about how much money have you saved/affordable it is.... the moment you stop paying for game pass is the moment you loose all that value too. the moment a game leaves Game Pass, it's "value and affordability" goes out of the window, especially if you have paid for GP for more than 4-6 moths. and even worse.... as games devalue over time, if you acces an older game ie. Persona 5 you will be paying way more by accessing via game pass instead of just buying for the same or lower price than a month of GP subscription fee.

I get where you're coming from, but for me, Game Pass just makes sense. I don't collect games or replay them - I usually finish once and move on. I also don't sub every month, just when there's a couple games I want to check out, so for me it's both convenient and cost-effective.

It's also a good way to try stuff I'm on the fence about - if I really like something, I can always pick it up later, usually at a discount.

Totally fair that it's not for everyone though - if you've got limited time or prefer to spend months on one game, then yeah, GP might not be the best deal.

 

[Buggy Loop]

Oh fucking spare me. Keep sucking Microsofts cock for 1 game that the VAST majority of people didn't even play on gamepass.

And you got your data where?

If you want me to keep listing games that are great today that refuse to go on gamepass then I'd be happy to do it.

Sony games? What's with their decline in quality? Remember, that's the post you responded to.

Or you want to convince me that TLOU 2, Spider-man 2, Ragnarok, Horizon forbidden west are not in decline?

Ubisoft's decline, gamepass' fault too?
EA's decline, gamepass' fault too?

Just jump on Steam and see the games that would never devalue their true worth by being on a sub service.

Survival indie games, souls clone #100 and hentai?

Wukong's no xbox contract for a year? Monster hunter wilds and Dragon dogma 2 which are again, in steep decline in quality, how is that attached to gamepass again?

Meanwhile Expedition 33, Balatro, Stalker 2, Blue Prince, Cocoon , Atomfall, Doom dark ages, all quality games also on gamepass

But every games on gamepass are not great and devalued

You fucking black and white peoples are exhausting

Meanwhile, Xbox had 5 of the top 10 charts for april-may from Circana in US and the disgusting games are even leaking to awesome valued Playstation store, oh my goddddddd nooooooooooo :

 

[{insert code here}]

GamePass could've worked if there wasn't such an emphasis on modern or "new" games. People forget Netflix got big because it had all the old shows that you couldn't watch anywhere outside of owning the discs for them and also it had exclusive content.

GamePass didn't do either of these and the inability to make exclusive content on the service was a death sentence from day one.

 

[playbignbox]

you're mathing against buying a game... but that's not what GP is offering.

the comparison is flawed. you are not saving money because you are not buying a game, you are just paying for the service, right?

if you try to argue about how much money have you saved/affordable it is.... the moment you stop paying for game pass is the moment you loose all that value too. the moment a game leaves Game Pass, it's "value and affordability" goes out of the window, especially if you have paid for GP for more than 4-6 moths. and even worse.... as games devalue over time, if you acces an older game ie. Persona 5 you will be paying way more by accessing via game pass instead of just buying for the same or lower price than a month of GP subscription fee.

Some people just want to play the game for an affordable price and be done, so "buying" or "renting" it doesn't matter, especially if you play on PC and it all comes down to bytes installed on your SSD that can be easily downloaded out there.

The guy in the post you quoted played all those games for less than $30 and is happy with it. To play the same games by buying them, he would have to wait so many years that by then more recent games would have come out. Basically, what you're proposing is that the user stays at least 5 years behind the industry's releases if he wants to have access to the same games for the same price as GamePass. That's why this service is such a good deal.

But if you don't mind waiting almost a generation to buy the games for the same price you could play them by subscribing to the service, that's fine, the option to buy games will always exist and if you think you contribute more to the industry by waiting for the games to be +75% off and buying them, go ahead, at least you "own" the games (with all the digital rights management, but that's another subject).

 

[jakinov]

There's nothing inherently unsustainable about the model. Just like any business if you don't execute well it's not going to do that well. You set a budget every year on how much you will spend and if you make great enough content people will come. Xbox own output has been mediocre for many years. Is the model the most lucrative with the highest reward potential if you execute well? Definitely not. Is it easier said than done sure but that's all business.

What can be unsustainable is specific choices in the model not the model itself. Things like setting too low of a price when there's practical limitations e.g. months in a year and finite total addressable market.

The comparison to TV is silly because there are factors in that industry that make much harder to sustain than games. Things like unions, backend deals, that make it so even after you spent millions to make the content you have to pay for life for it meaning your library growth means you're paying more and more to keep legacy content. Having long Dev cycles is not a big deal because development cycles can be cascaded. Having high development costs is not a big deal in and of itself because again if you can make great content people will show up. Xbox is currently spending the money to make the content just for it to fail gamepass or not.

If you assumed that Xbox has a $3B/year content spend (I picked it for easy math and to strengthen the point of how far a budget can go), let's assume a 5 year dev cycle for AAA. $300M budget. That would mean a single AAA game cost about $60M a year to develop. Meaning you can have 50 active AAA projects at a time.This would allow Microsoft to release 10 AAA games per year. In practice they won't be releasing that many big budget games and a good chunk will be spent on licensing 3rd party games and smaller projects. So let's say it's 5 AAA games a year and the other $1.5B is spent on all the smaller projects and deals.

Now how many full year subscribers at full price ($12/month for pc gamepass) do you need to break even $3B/year content spend? Under 21 million subs. It's more complicated than that as you will need to account for engineering, sales, marketing not just content spend. But it's basically an entitlement management system built off of an existing entitlement and distribution system so it's not that expensive of an operation itself. The most expensive part would likely be marketing as the $1 promos would likely be billed as a marketing expense and it's expensive to market. If we said they spent $1.5B (which is probably conservatively high)on operating costs putting subs required to break even at around 31 million it's still less than what they have today at 35 million. Now imagine if they actually executed well that people actually bought Xboxes to play their games and they don't have a bunch of games in development hell they just cancelled. They'd arguably be doing better than 35 million.

Apart from budgets growing there's no strong reason why they would need to greatly grow their content spend and there's no reason to believe that they are at theirs limits in terms of market penetration. There's also always opportunity to raise prices like for everything else in this world even if it results in elevated churn, revenue per user would be up.

Saying it's unsustainable is nonsense. Arguing that it's not lucrative or not a good business decision sure. But there's nothing unsustainable about the model itself even in the long run.

 

[MiguelItUp]

This tale of Game Pass being the death of Xbox is such nonsense. Their downfall started in the PS4 age and they never recovered. It has nothing to do with GP

Exactly! I don't understand how anyone could've lived in the Xbox 360 era's prime and then think Xbox One was looking just as good / strong. It wasn't, at all. I felt like it started it's decent even with all the Kinect stuff IMO.

I mean, I loved the Xbox 360. So much so that when the Xbox One came out I got one, and not too long after, I sold it. The PS4 didn't do much for me either, but it definitely felt like it did better in the long run to me IMO.

 

[SilentSpecter]

Meanwhile Expedition 33, Balatro, Stalker 2, Blue Prince, Cocoon , Atomfall, Doom dark ages, all quality games also on gamepass

Stalker 2 no.

Maybe it's better now, but at launch it was rough - more bugs and glitches than Cyberpunk for me.

 

[EverydayBeast]

Some gamers grew up with game pass when it was called "Sega channel".

 

[_g h 0 s t]

Why do they call it the Xbox 360? Because when you see it, you'll turn 360 degrees and walk away

 

[ResilientBanana]

Gamepass wasn't a mistake, lack of good content to compel people to subscribe and buy Xbox was. With a user base that was so low in numbers it was a no brained for them to go third party.

 

[Unfortunatecookie]

100% a horrific mistake.

The 'Netflix of gaming' sounded neat until you realized that unlike Netflix, 95%+ of console games can't be completed in 1 or 2 hours. The time investment in gaming is at odds with the 'buffet of software' idea that Xbox had. In hindsight, if Xbox had just thought it through some more, they would have recognized this and not gone all-in on a subscription model.

They now have to keep the thing that's killing their business alive -- further killing their business. Just typing that out sounds insane.

 

[Ev1L AuRoN]

IMHO Game Pass is a Mistake for Microsoft and here is why:

It's become clear to me that Game Pass, despite sounding like a great value on the surface, has had some serious consequences for Microsoft and Xbox:

• It killed direct game sales.
• It limits the budget and ambition of titles.
• It lowers overall quality across the board.
• With small profit, Microsoft starts porting everything to the competition.
• Console sales have been steadily dropping.

For the consumer, it all looks amazing—until you realize you're no longer buying games. You're renting access. And worse, your favorite platform is slowly dying. That's not your fault. Microsoft sold this future to you. They promised that once they hit some magical threshold, everything would be fine.

But the reality isn't playing out that way.

As for me, PS Plus has never been a huge factor in how I engage with PlayStation. 90% of the games I want to play, I've already bought long before they hit the service. Yes, I spend more than the average Xbox player, but that's part of the reason PlayStation is thriving while Xbox is struggling.

I bought Clair Obscur. I'll buy Silksong on day one.
Meanwhile, you'll get those games as part of your subscription.

The difference?
I'll actually finish those games. Most Game Pass users will install them, play for a couple of hours, and move on—overwhelmed by choice and driven by a need to "get their money's worth."

 

[Sinfulgore]

It's easy to blame Gamepass but the real problem is that these game developers aren't making enough products. Go on Youtube and watch a studio tour of Rare's offices, it's massive and yet Rare (not including DLC) hasn't released a new game since 2018. This isn't sustainable and it's the very reason why there are so many layoffs in the games industry right now, Studios either need to downsize massively or have a new game out every 5 years minimum. Blizzard was working on an unannounced survival game for 6 years with nothing to show for it before it got canceled by MS after they bought them. In any other industry, this kind of behavior wouldn't be tolerated, you and your team would have been fired long before it got to this point.

 

[cebri.one]

It will never make any money. Despite all the lies from Phil saying it's profitable.

 

[Unknown Soldier]

Gamepass was Microsoft attempt to spend competitors out of business but they didn't seem to ever realize that the majority of gamers didn't play games like people watch Netflix nor did they ever want to

 

[RiccochetJ]

Gamepass was Microsoft attempt to spend competitors out of business but they didn't seem to ever realize that the majority of gamers didn't play games like people watch Netflix nor did they ever want to

No, it was a mandate from up on high from Nadella to make absolutely everything under the MS umbrella a subscription service. Know why? Because investors absolutely love predictable recurring revenue month after month.

 

[Buggy Loop]

Why do they call it the Xbox 360? Because when you see it, you'll turn 360 degrees and walk away

That's not what a 360 is..

 

[Ev1L AuRoN]

There's nothing inherently unsustainable about the model. Just like any business if you don't execute well it's not going to do that well. You set a budget every year on how much you will spend and if you make great enough content people will come. Xbox own output has been mediocre for many years. Is the model the most lucrative with the highest reward potential if you execute well? Definitely not. Is it easier said than done sure but that's all business.

What can be unsustainable is specific choices in the model not the model itself. Things like setting too low of a price when there's practical limitations e.g. months in a year and finite total addressable market.

The comparison to TV is silly because there are factors in that industry that make much harder to sustain than games. Things like unions, backend deals, that make it so even after you spent millions to make the content you have to pay for life for it meaning your library growth means you're paying more and more to keep legacy content. Having long Dev cycles is not a big deal because development cycles can be cascaded. Having high development costs is not a big deal in and of itself because again if you can make great content people will show up. Xbox is currently spending the money to make the content just for it to fail gamepass or not.

If you assumed that Xbox has a $3B/year content spend (I picked it for easy math and to strengthen the point of how far a budget can go), let's assume a 5 year dev cycle for AAA. $300M budget. That would mean a single AAA game cost about $60M a year to develop. Meaning you can have 50 active AAA projects at a time.This would allow Microsoft to release 10 AAA games per year. In practice they won't be releasing that many big budget games and a good chunk will be spent on licensing 3rd party games and smaller projects. So let's say it's 5 AAA games a year and the other $1.5B is spent on all the smaller projects and deals.

Now how many full year subscribers at full price ($12/month for pc gamepass) do you need to break even $3B/year content spend? Under 21 million subs. It's more complicated than that as you will need to account for engineering, sales, marketing not just content spend. But it's basically an entitlement management system built off of an existing entitlement and distribution system so it's not that expensive of an operation itself. The most expensive part would likely be marketing as the $1 promos would likely be billed as a marketing expense and it's expensive to market. If we said they spent $1.5B (which is probably conservatively high)on operating costs putting subs required to break even at around 31 million it's still less than what they have today at 35 million. Now imagine if they actually executed well that people actually bought Xboxes to play their games and they don't have a bunch of games in development hell they just cancelled. They'd arguably be doing better than 35 million.

Apart from budgets growing there's no strong reason why they would need to greatly grow their content spend and there's no reason to believe that they are at theirs limits in terms of market penetration. There's also always opportunity to raise prices like for everything else in this world even if it results in elevated churn, revenue per user would be up.

Saying it's unsustainable is nonsense. Arguing that it's not lucrative or not a good business decision sure. But there's nothing unsustainable about the model itself even in the long run.

You're not wrong that poor execution has hurt Xbox—but it's not just about execution. The Game Pass model itself has some inherent flaws when applied to gaming:

1. It Trains the Wrong Behavior
Instead of buying and committing to games, players just browse and bounce. That kills engagement and makes for those games to have a lasting impact. You can't build a strong platform when most users sample and move on.

2. Execution Is the Model
You say it's about doing it right—but that's exactly the issue. The model requires a nonstop pipeline of high-quality content just to keep people subbed. That's expensive, high-risk, and hard to sustain—especially with AAA dev cycles.

3. Gaming ≠ TV
You can't binge games like shows. People play fewer titles over longer periods, so the Netflix model doesn't translate well. Plus, dev delays or one flop hits harder in games.

4. It Cannibalizes Sales
Game Pass eats into purchases. A $60 sale becomes a few dollars of sub revenue, and over time, it devalues games. Even third-party devs are starting to push back on it.

5. The Ecosystem Is Weakening
If Game Pass was working, Xbox hardware wouldn't be declining, and they wouldn't be porting everything to other platforms. The model isn't expanding the audience—just squeezing more out of the same base.

So yes, it's possible to make it work—but only if everything goes right, constantly. That's not a business model. That's a gamble.

 

[NahaNago]

Gamepass for xbox made sense when they didn't have that many studios. Plus I still think putting the $60 games day one was a mistake. It was nice for gamers but taught folks not to buy games on xbox.