The only reason people complained about MLB not being on PS Now day one (or at the very least PS+) is due to the disparity considering the game is actually developed by a PlayStation studio.
But the problem was not the complaining per se - it was perfectly justified - but people went after MLB for doing a deal with MS behind Sony's back, rather than going after Sony and telling them to put the game on PS+ or PS Now.
It is undeniable that Sony is given a lot of slack (in comparison to Xbox where there is even a running joke is that
Xbox fans are just a different breed of Bungie fans - whatever Xbox does people complain) - but at least now it is changing as we saw with store closure that was stopped due to backlash. Eventually - I hope - people will start asking Sony questions about
why do you consider that stuff unsustainable while paying millions for time exclusivity (with not benefits for consumer).
Though as we see even here, people find various reason to justify paying the full price while publishers make the record profits (not to mention in Europe price increase happened twice during the generation) and Sony even encourages to do that. Even when people argued regarding RE Village and Game Pass, there was a defense force claiming that
the game should have not come to Game Pass because it would be a bad look for Sony. But who cares if you essentially would have got the game anyway and just somebody else would have got it as a part of subscription service. Playstation gamer would have lost nothing, because he would have paid the full price for the game anyway.
Sounds great. So sad that when you have Gamepass, you get your license to buy physical games revoked. Phil Spencer can't keep getting away with it.
Well, Phil Spencer is running the illegal Game Pass business after all
I’m sure Square would have taken the Gamepass deal, if they saw how poorly it would sell.
I think publishers now try various options and collect the statistics - like release the game with or without Game Pass and check sales, release full price multiplayer game in Game Pass and don't release it. Release the niche game and check and so on, and so on. Exciting times!
It would be interesting to get the statistics regarding the % of people who try Game Pass games.
- Let's say out of 20 mil. 20% tried the game and 20% of those purchased the game. 20kk x 0.2 -> 4kk x 0.2 -> 800k copies sold at once. Depending on the game that % may vary as it can be smaller or it can be bigger
- We also have people who would have purchased the game anyway - with or without Game Pass
- We have the people who would not have purchased the game without trying it in Game Pass because they for example did not know a lot of about the game, but got to like after trying (for a lot people Game Pass is essentially a demo for the game). Keep in mind the games are leaving Game Pass so it encourages people to purchase them before they leave (while people still pay for Game Pass!).
- It also encourages them to spend more on DLC because the usual logic is - well I did not pay for the game anyway and DLC is cheaper than the full game. I mean if you did not pay 60$ for the game you are more likely to purchase 15$ DLC. Or spend some money on MTX - and we know from the reports of EA (lol) that they expect to get several times more money from MTX rather than sales. And you see it quite often with all those record profits from F2P games and games on mobile.
- Regarding F2P - we will see eventually - but according to some observations - Outriders demonstrated the behavior of F2P title while being a full priced game. Why? Because F2P is all about word of mouth and people are willing to purchase the game because some else tried it on Game Pass for example, but they don't own Xbox however they have PS or PC so they will buy the game there.
- And we need to remember that the biggest gaming market is the mobile market which is all about F2P, in game transactions and not fully priced sales at all. And we have - and will have - a generation that played only on touch controls and mobile, the generation that doesn't care about sales of the game at all but more into in-game purchases (all those gold, cosmetics and so on)
All in all, it is very interesting and you can see that there are lot of revenue streams in that approach that are not solely rely on sales. Publishers are trying different approaches but I fully expect that most of the games that are not expected to sell a lot of copies at once. Unless of course somebody will try to moneyhat them not to appear there but that's a separate matter. But bigger Game Pass, more expensive money hats. We'll see how it's gonna work out.
I liken it to going to the cinema to watch something specific at a particular time vs staying at home, firing up Netflix and then browsing for something random to watch
Just like with cinema - there is a handful of games that people consider buying full price. It has always been like this to be honest - games are either succeed or flop and now with the situation that making big games is not affordable as you cannot
I mentioned earlier that with Game Pass there are more ways to earn $$$ from the gaming that by selling copies. Just like cinema industry basically died for everything that is not a huge juggernaut or just like it died for smaller movies (usually came on DVDs without releases in theater).
Now if you're going to tell me that the reason for the sales disparity in this instance is because most Xbox gamers don't want to play Nier then that's fine, it's a matter of taste in that case. However if people are not buying games anymore (and a pattern is starting to emerge here) because they are "waiting" for games to come to gamepass then there's a larger problem at play and those people are not sending a positive signal to publishers and developers.
"Gamepass or bust" is a silly hill to die on and it has the potential to eventually result in a scenario where companies will be hesitant to develop for a platform where new game sales are drying up.
Nah, with Game Pass we are highly like to get more games than ever before. After it hasn't launched in asia yet
For now the publishers are experimenting with the model - try to release this game day 1 and this one not, etc etc. Game Pass is a new way to consume the content. Of course some platform holders - except Nintendo - will try to oppose that model, but that is the future anyway.
If you're saying that playstation owners foot the bill then you'd also be saying PC (and even switch owners where applicable) would be footing the bill. Quite frankly that is bollocks and horribly naive. The only company footing the bill for Xbox games that end up on Gamepass is Microsoft.
PC is the interesting case but the market there is incredible diverse. I mean top earners usually is the incredible diverse set of games - strategies, simulators, online games, shooters etc.