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[Fess]

The service is good and thats all that matters to me and should be all that matters to anyone who doesnt have shares in MSFT. Even if you do have shares you should be happy from the boost this earnings call did to their share price.

The boost wasn't as high as I hoped, when the dust settled after the trumpet had gone off it stopped at 2% up for the week. I was planning to sell and buy a game but nope.

 

[Ozriel]

I don't. I'm pointing out what the typical MS fanboy answer is when asked what gamepass profit looks like.
Reading stuff like this literally to try to look clever is another defensive action fanboys do.

You think it makes sense to ask fellow forum users to detail profit numbers at granular levels of detail that MS themselves have not released?

 

[Ozriel]

'They didn't shut it down so we can infer that it is profitable' is a leap. The decisions on what to cut will also consider the future, not only what is happening right now.

Ah, but we're not considering these things in isolation. You'd add it to the fact that we've been told multiple times by a VP at Microsoft that GP is profitable, the fact that there are zero credible rumors or leaks that the service is unprofitable and Bloomberg's reporting of third party content costs being significantly lower than the annual revenue cited.

I would think Microsoft is always subsidising some parts of its business which are not profitable but which they believe will be down the line.

True. But that's usually heavily focused on ventures they consider truly transformative like Azure and AI.

 

[Fess]

I don't. I'm pointing out what the typical MS fanboy answer is when asked what gamepass profit looks like.
Reading stuff like this literally to try to look clever is another defensive action fanboys do.

Just a guess from another basement dweller, I would assume that they use the money earned for new investments, so even if they got lots of money from GP subs you wouldn't see any big numbers on the bottom line unless they would just stop investing to build some Nintendo warchest.

 

[CircleOfFire]

If it makes things better for both us consumers and the games industry itself (less closures etc), then I'm all for it. But releasing one vanity statistic is not really helping anything at all.

 

[S0ULZB0URNE]

It will be optional, the pro was just the test run.

Multiple skus will be available.

 

[BlackTron]

How do you know its a lapse for Sony? Where is the evidence to prove otherwise?

Also, MS has changed up their entire business strategy in the last 5 years. They've literally pivoted in industry shaking ways into a third party and it seems to be working very well for them.

I haven't seen the future, I've only seen the past where Sony makes mistakes, someone in the company pays for it and they pivot, even if it takes an entire gen to learn from their error. Example, $599 PS3. Microsoft has been screwing up time and again just to push out another obfuscated excuse and fire another department that they just acquired.

How is Microsoft's pivot to a third party industry shaking? The same games selling on PS, only with a MS studios label? Did they do anything amazing with this opportunity? The deal should never have happened. The only change is that now these studios are subject to Phil's illustrious leadership (hey let's make Hexen into Doom) and and thereby doubly at risk of being terminated.

 

[drganon]

And the word "profit" was nowhere in sight...

 

[Ozriel]

And the word "profit" was nowhere in sight...

Plenty of salt in sight, that's for sure.

 

[jm89]

And the word "profit" was nowhere in sight...

It's profitable if you don't include the most expensive costs to make the content

 

[calico]

Ah, but we're not considering these things in isolation.

Sure, and we've already been considering the other things in this thread (the reliance on 'almost' milestones, a range of Game Pass costs being hand-waved, Microsoft's reported creative accounting re Game Pass making their statements about profitability of the service unreliable, Microsoft's desire to be able to describe Game Pass as profitable making their statements about profitability unreliable etc).

You brought up this additional element (we can infer it is profitable because they didn't shut it down) so I addressed the leap of logic this specific argument relies upon.

I think you already demonstrated awareness of this yourself when you referred to 'closing down studios that can't deliver'. 'Can't deliver', not 'are not delivering'. The implication -a correct one imo- of this choice of words being that they shut them down not only because of a current inability to deliver, but because of an expectation that this inability will continue.

Microsoft may well not have shut them down if they were losing money now but they were expecting them to come good later, and there are probably studios which avoided the chop because they fall into this category. Game Pass may also fall into this category, which is why we can't infer that it is currently profitable from it not being shut down. Game Pass not being shut down doesn't inform us either way.

If they are committed to a handheld and new console coming within the next couple of years, my expectation is they see how that plays out before deciding what to do with Game Pass. If they are DOA, it's hard to see a future for Game Pass.

 

[adamsapple]

You think it makes sense to ask fellow forum users to detail profit numbers at granular levels of detail that MS themselves have not released?

My man really said:


Reading stuff makes you look like a fanboy.

It's profitable if you don't include the most expensive costs to make the content

 

[A.Romero]

The issue is that Netflix was verifiably profitable, while the proof for Game Pass being profitable is solely hearsay. Everyone should be suspicious of this claim when Microsoft hides specific revenue and expenses from the public, from the SEC, and from its own shareholders. If Game Pass were actually profitable they would absolutely be showing the numbers, just like the do for Azure, LinkedIn, and Office 365.

Well, it's a bit different because Netflix wasn't proven back then while Microsoft is overall one of the biggest companies in the world.

Shareholders seem to be fine with that as the stock price has been going up. They could sell and make some profit already if they thought Microsoft was playing dirty.

It's reported that gamepass is about 15% of the gaming revenue so they are well diversified, I wouldn't be concerned if I were them.

 

[poppabk]

The issue is that Netflix was verifiably profitable, while the proof for Game Pass being profitable is solely hearsay. Everyone should be suspicious of this claim when Microsoft hides specific revenue and expenses from the public, from the SEC, and from its own shareholders. If Game Pass were actually profitable they would absolutely be showing the numbers, just like the do for Azure, LinkedIn, and Office 365.

Netflix wasn't profitable in the 'we made more money than we spent' way though for a long time. It was profitable in the accounting sense.
Gamepass is profitable in the accounting sense given what we have been told. Whether that means they are making more money than they bring in is unknown.