Ohhhh..... Ok. I see what the problem is here. You don't understand what I am saying.
NO. I am not saying that since the inception of gamepass, MS gave up anything. I do not even believe that even now, MS has given up on anything. The complaints I have now, have nothing to do with gamepass. Nothing at all. If you listen carefully. To not explain too much, I will try and summarize.
What I am saying is simple, gamepass or not, what MS should have always done is focus on the games. Focus on making standout AAA games that were exclusive to their platform. If you ey want to know, MS dropped the ball on this at the tail end of the 360 era. They shifted focus from the AAA games that made the 360 competitive and doubled down on the fad that was motion gaming (Kinect). So much so that they even bundled a fucking Kinect with the XB1.
Their game output didn't just dry up overnight, the shift they made that started back in 2011, eroded their brand over years. Games were getting canceled, studios were being shut down, they were losing marketing deals (COD 2015), and their portfolio was down to three games, Halo, gears, and Forza. MS let all that happen. That is a clear indication that the company's focus had shifted from AAA games.
In 2015/2016, when they were already being outsold by the PS4 by over 2 to 1, at that point, any competent company knowing they had lost that gen and now planning for the next, would have made smarter choices than what MS still went on to make. That was when MS should have started investing in acquiring studios, that was when they should have refused on just churn out great games. What did they do instead, they started off gamepass. Without even having the library to make a service like that worth it at the time. Hence why I said, games first. Its only now, that they are making this push to acquire everything... and that is what you call the fire brigade approach to solving problems.
Exactly!!
I mean, its not rocket science. If anyone asked me 4 years ago, what a service like gamepass needs to do to become the Netflix of gaming MS wants it to be, I could have told them exactly what needs to happen. If they had asked me if I thought was a good idea or that model would even succeed... well, I would have told them that too.