Yeah they all hate it so much that they put their games on the service. Wouldn't have anything to do with Game Pass being a successful formula of Sony's competitor that he said this.
Sony’s sub has been on the market 1/5 of the time of Xbox GamePass and already has ~ 50% of the subscribers with minimal investment compared to Xbox. Sony has achieved that on one ecosystem, not two. On top of that, their users spend more on full priced games games and micro transactions.
The day ones games Microsoft pays through the nose for. A publisher would be happy with that. They like the money, not the service.
Kotick, Ryan and Strauss Zelnick would know better than any of us. Tell me what AAA releases from those publishers launched day and date into GamePass? Why do you think there haven’t been any?
GamePass and PlayStation Plus make absolute sense for catalogue games. The publishers get a lump sum for older titles that aren’t taking in full priced MSRP anymore and give a little marketing boost.
The services are fantastic for consumers. Excellent value.
But - they do devalue new releases if launched into the service. That’s why Sony, Activision and Take 2 don’t do it.
If I’m a publisher, unless Microsoft pay me a lot of money to offset the money lost through day one sales on Xbox and PlayStation (from multi device users) then I’m not going to go day and date on Gamepass.
With PS+ I’d get to take in the front loaded physical and digital sales and then later down the line get a lump sum for a game that isn’t selling well at full price any more. Even better if I have some DLC coming out soon.