That's why I've told people it's going to be a rough year for Microsoft.
Ask your nieces and nephews, sons and daughters if they've ever heard of Starfield. Now ask them if they've heard of Spider-Man.
Spider-Man 2 is going to sell units like we haven't seen in a while. Sequel to the best-selling Sony 1st party game of all time and unlike Ragnarok this is going to be a full-fledged sequel of a game and PS5 exclusive.
Starfield is going to sell mainly to Bethesda fans already on Xbox and GamePass is going to blunt its sales, especially on Xbox. Microsoft needs to shift to a one-year commitment before Starfield comes out and I doubt they do it.
Between now and the rest of the year PS5s are going to fly off the shelves
Facts. There's a slice of people overhyping and in some cases even overpromoting (Colteastwood) Starfield like it's the 2nd coming. I was surprised to find out most of Skyrim's sales were actually on console, not PC, and the same being the case for Fallout 4 IIRC. Granted, maybe PC gaming was smaller back then, and in the time since it's possible a good chunk of those players on console for Bethesda games have transitioned to PC. Very possible.
And MS/Bethesda better hope that's the case for Starfield sales, because unlike on Xbox, Game Pass is more or less a non-factor on PC. Meaning people on PC have a much larger incentive to actually buy the damn game, helping with revenue. Which they will need in large effect because on the console side, they no longer have PlayStation to sell the game on, and PS gamers are going to be well-fed in terms of big games to play throughout the year to the point they may not feel the need to buy the game (or an Xbox, if they don't already have one) to play it on.
Any such owners who still want to play the game, they'll very likely just do it through Game Pass. But MS's problem with Game Pass is that there are SO many ways to get it for way cheaper than the average price is advertised plus, as you said, you can drop it at the blink of an eye since it's month-to-month. There's going to be at least some portion of would-be Starfield players who play it through Game Pass, and use one of these methods ($1 month trail deals off a Doritos bag, MS Reward points, etc.) to play it for cheap, get their fill that month, and move on.
Honestly I don't see Starfield doing more than 14 - 15 million lifetime. That's not even a bad number; it's higher than most games actually! But some of these people thinking it'll hit Skyrim or Spiderman, or Elden Ring #s lifetime are in for a rude awakening. I think it'll probably do 3-4 million the first month, up to 8 million first year. 14 - 15 million by five years. 60% of sales on PC.
I wouldn't say that it hasn't affected the PS4 or PS5. North American sales aren't nearly as good as they would have been had the PS3 not stumbled. Sony is going to have to spend the rest of the generation accounting for that. If the PS5 Slim releases for 400 dollars, it's probably game over for that NA advantage for Xbox. 400 dollars + Spider-Man... even in a bad economy that will be difficult to compete with. Even at 500 Microsoft is in trouble with PS5 demand and library.
IIRC it's not really a "slim" so much as a discless version that's about the same size as the current system, but they you can attach that fit-to-form drive to it for physical discs.
But they'll be able to produce a lot more systems this way, meaning more digital systems and yeah, at $399 with Spiderman 2 out there, even without bundles, that's going to move a lot of volume.
They will never shutdown gamepass until xbox business is on.
But when they have enough content(abk and more) price will go heavily up.
I think microsoft longterm deal is to charge 50-60% of a full game every month.
Oh they're definitely pushing that way with the rumored tier revamps. The ad-based tier, where they'll probably only have the smaller games pop up there Day 1 but hold off on the bigger games until a few months after release. Keep the current GP & GPU tiers but restructure a bit to where they get a few more games Day 1 but, again, the big ones? They're kept months out. And maybe push a new Premium tiers at $25/month and, I think, they copy Sony's Game Trails strategy for Game Pass starting at that tier, for all 1P games.
They save all Day 1 games for a $30 or $35/month tier, but they spread out availability for Game Pass perks (free DLC & MTX drops, bonuses etc.) for all the available tiers. Maybe they strike some deal with Paramount+ or Discovery (or some other streaming service) to bundle them into the higher tiers to pad out the value.
