I think it was a HUGE mistake on MS part to make AAA games available on Day 1. Gamepass is a great deal at like $9.99 a month or $60 a year. Have a handful of solid games on that service. I also cannot see how they can ever come close to making back the $70B they are about to drop ABK/Bethesda without having an unheard of increase in subscribers and not just trial. Those paying the $14.99 a month.
I personally think they will just cheat the system like they did for FH. Ask you to pay £20-30 or something for "early access" meaning they aren't really doing day one releases but just calling the gamepass release 'day one'. People will buy it too.
I don’t think you would be a very good gambler.No one is going to pay a full price subscription to rent 1 game
Expansions have always been separate from the game on Gamepass.It's all nicey nice, until the time comes when they can actually make money from one of their games. Even the early access is a way to get GP subs to pay more.
Which is 100% what MS DOESN"T want. They want people comfortable with the service that they don't cancel the $14.99 per month price. Netflix/Amazon survived on that for years, but producing high quality content has gotten so expensive and prices have risen to the point that people are cancelling. Disney had hoped to capitalize on that, but Disney+ continues to lose subscribers.
Unfortunately, I think the era of subscription services is about to crash. MS is investing a lot in this service at a time when people are unsubscribing.
I’m not a businessman, but day one gamepass seems kind of stupid.
It's all nicey nice, until the time comes when they can actually make money from one of their games. Even the early access is a way to get GP subs to pay more.
I agree but then just don't release it on GPU on day one and do it in 1 year. If you're not confident in your economic model why keep doing that ? I mean the GPU will maybe never be profitable.Not really surprising since their biggest studio are releasing their first new IP in forever. This is the kind of game I want to be able to play regardless of a sub, picked it up on Steam. It’ll be worth it with mods.
There is no doubt that Gamepass is unique compared to those other streaming services. They are the only AAA gaming based service. Gamepass is a GREAT deal for people who are just buying a console. I suspect MS will bundle a year to 6 months of the Core in XSX and XSS for black friday bundles. Then maybe have an upgrade option.It can get tricky when bringing up those other services because it could be easily argued that Disney+, for example, is losing subs because the quality of the content itself has degraded pretty heavily. Not every Netflix show is Wednesday or Stranger Things-tier, and Amazon put out the disaster that was Rings of Power not that long ago. Seems like Spotify might be the only subscription service that can sustain quality, curious if their numbers have dropped or remained relatively stable?
Perhaps some of those arguments can also be held towards Game Pass; there haven't been a lot of big Day 1 AAA drops in the service in a long while, and some of the games put into the service Day 1 have been of questionable quality. People won't stick around if the quality isn't there, so sometimes I feel like a Catch 22 situation is created where a company puts out sub-par product and sees sub numbers drop, leading them to think the model itself can't work when it probably could if the content were better.
That's also why IMO it's so important Starfield be a high-quality game. It can't just be "decent" or serviceable, especially in the context of who's publishing it.
Do you really think Lying Todd has a say in the pricing of GP?
Lol I love that you think Bethesda has anything to do with Game Pass pricing.
Omg it’s just wild some of the comments I see in here sometimes.
When you think about it, why not? He is a first party developer, bought for almost 8 billion. Having one of the highest expecting game this year, why not ask for something in return?Do you really think Lying Todd has a say in the pricing of GP?
Today:
Earlier this month:
Damn, those poor people that were using just 1 dollar trials. They will not get to try the game unless they pony up for a full sub.Damn, those poor people that love to say "But those are all just 1 Dollar trials" when Microsoft announces player numbers.
Did you really think Todd's gonna let you play his magnum opus for $1 ?
profit > subscription count. I guess MS is starting to see that. At least in this case.I think it's safe to say, MS is confident in Starfield and expects it to make bank.
You can't blame them.
Please give this two trillion dollar company more money.
Please give this two trillion dollar company more money.
I think it was a HUGE mistake on MS part to make AAA games available on Day 1. Gamepass is a great deal at like $9.99 a month or $60 a year. Have a handful of solid games on that service. I also cannot see how they can ever come close to making back the $70B they are about to drop ABK/Bethesda without having an unheard of increase in subscribers and not just trial. Those paying the $14.99 a month.
Please give this two trillion dollar company more money.
There is no doubt that Gamepass is unique compared to those other streaming services. They are the only AAA gaming based service. Gamepass is a GREAT deal for people who are just buying a console. I suspect MS will bundle a year to 6 months of the Core in XSX and XSS for black friday bundles. Then maybe have an upgrade option.
I certainl;y hope and expect Starfield to be a high quality game. However, I do not want to Gamepass to succeed as I believe it is long term bad for the industry and I also believe that it will require godly amounts of subscribers to be successful.
Hilarious to see people prophesy MS dropping Day 1 games from the service meanwhile MS is out there plotting to put Call of Duty there, day one.
The service is a gateway to XCloud and games show up there day one, so any talk of the service being scaled down is just crazy talk.
Bullshit. How many AAA games games would you have bought from MS that are exclusively available only on Xbox? Starfield is literally their first big exclusive that isn't Forza. $180 equals about 3 games. MS has never had anywhere near that amount of content in over 10 years to justify that
What?Hmm. You may be on to something. Have you tried shouting out Apple’s market cap in an Apple Store and seeing if that makes them give you a free MacBook Pro?
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Thank me later
COD is not going to Game Pass Day 1. Unless you mean Day 1 "for the service" when it otherwise is available a month ahead of that from Premium Access, like a supercharged version of what they're doing for Starfield. In which case, yes, I'd agree.
Otherwise there's 0% chance Microsoft gives up Day 1 B2P sales revenue for a game like COD for subscription revenue, when the former is much easier to project for, and has more favorable projections, based on past data.
And also agreed on Game Pass as a model that ultimately isn't sustainable for the industry. Day 1 AAA game releases in such a model doesn't work for 3P which is why MS didn't get virtually any, and had to buy a couple 3P publishers to get that type of content. It's why they are now doing 1-week early releases for people who preorder the games. They'll have spent tens of billions of dollars in M&As of content and publishers just to get Game Pass to a point where maybe it can start generating real profit for them.
Which is 100% what MS DOESN"T want. They want people comfortable with the service that they don't cancel the $14.99 per month price. Netflix/Amazon survived on that for years, but producing high quality content has gotten so expensive and prices have risen to the point that people are cancelling. Disney had hoped to capitalize on that, but Disney+ continues to lose subscribers. This will be a HUGE challenge for MS as well. They don't need to 10-20M subscribers to be successful. If the ABK deal goes through, then they will need a 30-40M $14.99 a month subscribers.
Unfortunately, I think the era of subscription services is about to crash. MS is investing a lot in this service at a time when people are unsubscribing. MS still has the advantage of being the only game service though. Will that actually protect them? WHo knows, but I have my doubts.
When the deal clears, Call of Duty games from 2024 will appear on the GamePass service day 1.
Lol @ 0% chance. They’ll get their revenue boost from PlayStation, PC and Switch 2 retail customers…and then a significant Gamepass subscriber boost.
There were probably people like you doubting when MS killed their retail revenue from Office suite in favor of 365.
Makes zero accounting sense for you to put the billions they’ve spent on first party growth solely on GamePass. Especially when multiple revenue sources like retail and mobile exists.
They’re hardly the first publisher to offer premium Tier based early access for games.
Once my 3 year sub runs out in 2025, I will not be resubscribing unless they have like a $100 a year rate. Otherwise, I will stay with Core at $60 per year and just buy games like I did back in the pre-GP days.Msoft knows people subscribe for big games and then unsub periodically. I’ve done it like a half dozen times myself.
Of course any company with a subscription wants people to stay locked in all year and never unsub, but the fact of the matter is I don’t play nearly often enough to justify the price most months out of the year. Msoft may not like it but they are keenly aware that a lot of Game Pass users sub in and out based on what’s added into the library or taken out. There is no benefit to staying subbed indefinitely outside of personal taste. Most of my precious time playing console games on Xbox or Switch is on owned games.
You can still buy a lifetime Office license that is not part of a subscription. I use Office 365 because I like the Onedrive cloud storage.New COD releases? No, they will not be Day 1 in Game Pass. But if you're right and they do, I would personally say anyone buying those games Day 1 on the other platforms fools. COD isn't really the type of game that's timeless, or adds much to a collection, or something most people will replay multiple times years later.
It's not like a GOW Ragnarok or TOTK in that respect. So I wouldn't get the idea of buying them annually vs. just subbing to Game Pass for even a month to play the campaign and drop it after the month.
Good for Microsoft, bad for customers. Productivity software going to a sub-based model sucked because at least in the past you could buy versions of those products for sale, and sometimes older versions provided better implementation of features than newer ones. But again, at least with productivity software, the subscriber makes their own income off its use, so they're getting something back for their money that's material and useful elsewhere.
Subscription-based entertainment was always a weird idea in concept; you get entertainment in return, yes, but the rate of that depends on the medium. Multi-game subscription services genuinely don't make a lot of sense because the average game will take multiple hours to play through and with largely undivided time (you can't really do chores or cook while playing an intense AAA game, for example).
The average person may not even play through more than 3 AAA games a year. On the surface a gaming sub service looks like it'd cover that, but they could've just as easily bought those games on sale and played them throughout the year at a cheaper price. Multi-game subscription services are useful for people who probably just dip their toes into a lot of different games but don't really finish most any of them.
I know that. EA does for their titles, but it's just the first 10 hours of the games. Other 3P do things similar to what MS are doing, yes, but I'm just bringing up the fact MS are doing it because they realize Day 1 (actual Day 1) AAA game releases into a multi-game subscription service, at least with their current data, doesn't work.
Not if you want to maximize revenue off those games.
Which is 100% what MS DOESN"T want. They want people comfortable with the service that they don't cancel the $14.99 per month price. Netflix/Amazon survived on that for years, but producing high quality content has gotten so expensive and prices have risen to the point that people are cancelling. Disney had hoped to capitalize on that, but Disney+ continues to lose subscribers. This will be a HUGE challenge for MS as well. They don't need to 10-20M subscribers to be successful. If the ABK deal goes through, then they will need a 30-40M $14.99 a month subscribers.
Unfortunately, I think the era of subscription services is about to crash. MS is investing a lot in this service at a time when people are unsubscribing. MS still has the advantage of being the only game service though. Will that actually protect them? WHo knows, but I have my doubts.
Did you really think Todd's gonna let you play his magnum opus for $1 ?
I'll be playing it for $0 thanks to Microsoft rewards. I have almost 50k points to redeem.
I'll be playing it for $0 thanks to Microsoft rewards. I have almost 50k points to redeem.
come on, try harder than thisSeems like a red flag and shows low confidence in Starfield's ability to impress customers enough to buy it, or subscribe to game pass after 14 days to keep playing it.
This is the same issue all the streaming services have been having BTWNo one is going to pay a full price subscription to rent 1 game
I prefer to just buy the game
Sensible move.