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[James Sawyer Ford]

At least MS says GP is profitable. So that solves that uncertainty.

Cant say the same for Sony sub plans. They've never stated profitability for PS+ or PS Now. And Sony historically dissects gaming data for the public more than MS does. So for them to not say if their sub plans are profitable means they really are losing big time on it. If it was a big money maker they'd say it by now showing receipts.

That’s rich.

If Microsoft gives no receipts or evidence for GP profitability = trust Phil on his very vague comment regarding profitability without even an ounce of surface level analysis

If Sony does not disclose exact profitability data on every little thing (despite not doing this ever at a granular level), it must mean they are losing big time on it. If they are losing big time on subs, why are they posting huge profits? Sony doesn’t hide their gaming division behind the umbrella of the entire company.

The fact is, Sony’s subs do not canabalize their retail sales like is the case with GP. So their title’s profitability can be measured purely by retail alone; the sub service revenue is just icing on the cake.

The mental gymnastics in this thread is hilarious.

 

[StreetsofBeige]

Does anyone in the history of gaming break any of this down? I've never seen anyone request receipts to this level with any other aspect of gaming. Ita a bit extreme imo.

The sliding scale how to fan warrior a competing brand:

1. Make sure to never bring up their own brand's lack of transparency on financials. If someone brings it up, ignore it and hope everyone doesn't notice. Now got to #2

2. Does it sell great? If yes, go to #3

3. Does it have tons of good recent games. If yes, go to #4

4. Is the product or service reasonably priced? If yes, go to #5

5. Is the product or service profitable? If yes, go to #6

6. Does the company publicly state detailed financials for this distinct product line (when even companies like Apple dont go that far)? WE ARE HERE

 

[StreetsofBeige]

That’s rich.

If Microsoft gives no receipts or evidence for GP profitability = trust Phil on his very vague comment regarding profitability without even an ounce of surface level analysis

If Sony does not disclose exact profitability data on every little thing (despite not doing this ever at a granular level), it must mean they are losing big time on it. If they are losing big time on subs, why are they posting huge profits? Sony doesn’t hide their gaming division behind the umbrella of the entire company.

The fact is, Sony’s subs do not canabalize their retail sales like is the case with GP. So their title’s profitability can be measured purely by retail alone; the sub service revenue is just icing on the cake.

The mental gymnastics in this thread is hilarious.

Just taking page from your book. Your assumption is lack of transparency means bad financials. Out of all the games, hardware, sub plans, game pads etc.... how do you know which ones are profitable or not at Sony when they dont disclose details per product line?

 

[Von Hugh]

Why do people care so much?

 

[DenchDeckard]

That’s rich.

If Microsoft gives no receipts or evidence for GP profitability = trust Phil on his very vague comment regarding profitability without even an ounce of surface level analysis

If Sony does not disclose exact profitability data on every little thing (despite not doing this ever at a granular level), it must mean they are losing big time on it. If they are losing big time on subs, why are they posting huge profits? Sony doesn’t hide their gaming division behind the umbrella of the entire company.

The fact is, Sony’s subs do not canabalize their retail sales like is the case with GP. So their title’s profitability can be measured purely by retail alone; the sub service revenue is just icing on the cake.

The mental gymnastics in this thread is hilarious.

Was last of us 2 profitable? Ratchet and clank rift apart? Horizon forbidden west? Gran turismo 7? Have you ever requested these receipts or just been happy that games keep coming and overall that the playstation business posts profit overall and more so keeps delivering games you enjoy?

If you have requested the receipts I apologise, and would love to know your findings also. Please let us know.

If not I'll carry on enjoying the gamepass service until its over.

 

[James Sawyer Ford]

Just taking page from your book. Your assumption is lack of transparency means bad financials. Out of all the games, hardware, sub plans, game pads etc.... how do you know which ones are profitable or not at Sony when they dont disclose details per product line?

But I’m not saying Microsoft has bad financials at all.

I’m simply saying we don’t know and can’t take what Phil’s vague statement is saying at face value, because they do not disclose any data, and instead prefer reporting the stats they feel are important to shine their gaming division in the brightest light possible.

 

[James Sawyer Ford]

Was last of us 2 profitable? Ratchet and clank rift apart? Horizon forbidden west? Gran turismo 7?

We don’t know. It would be nice to get that data as well.

But at the very least you can venture a guess based on:

1) Dev Cost Estimates

2) Retail Sales Revenue

For their titles that sell 10M+, you can easily be assured they are highly profitable. It gets less obvious for those that sell 5M or less.

For Microsoft, it’s even harder because I would not expect their retail sales to be strong since they have day and date with GamePass. It would be wrong to assume that just because one of their games doesn’t do too hot at retail that it’s automatically a bomb.

 

[StreetsofBeige]

But I’m not saying Microsoft has bad financials at all.

I’m simply saying we don’t know and can’t take what Phil’s vague statement is saying at face value, because they do not disclose any data, and instead prefer reporting the stats they feel are important to shine their gaming division in the brightest light possible.

Sure you are.

You're claiming MS and Phil are BS'ing GP profitability because according to you game dev costs should be added to GP financials.

 

[Mr Reasonable]

https://twinfinite.net/2022/10/like-a-dragon-interview-producer/

I mean, sure, a couple of people in games are saying it, but I've just got this feeling that some unfounded nonsense from people with no connection to the industry at all is the right take here.

 

[StreetsofBeige]

But I’m not saying Microsoft has bad financials at all.

I’m simply saying we don’t know and can’t take what Phil’s vague statement is saying at face value, because they do not disclose any data, and instead prefer reporting the stats they feel are important to shine their gaming division in the brightest light possible.

Sure you are.

You're claiming MS and Phil are BS'ing GP profitability because according to you game dev costs should be added to GP financials.

Microsoft has some of the best experience spinning financial numbers to make them appear better than they really are, so I'm not going to take this statement at face value until he actually shows the receipts which we know they won't do. Very easy to claim a service is "profitable" without accounting for all the actual costs (like ongoing game development for all their studios).

 

[James Sawyer Ford]

Sure you are.

You're claiming MS and Phil are BS'ing GP profitability because according to you game dev costs should be added to GP financials.

Claiming GP specifically is unlikely to be profitable when accounting for costs that should be accounted for is not claiming their financials are bad overall.

 

[adamsapple]

To be profitable at this stage, this is only going to get easier and easier.

It's being deemed profitable in a year where they don't have any big AAA first party games either. All the growth is from either third party or 1P content from previous years, or smaller scale games like As Dusk Falls etc.

Next year will be lit as fuck when they start getting the droves of new Starfield subs, and if Activision successfully closes, it's only gonna go up and up.

The mental gymnastics in this thread is hilarious.

 

[DenchDeckard]

We don’t know. It would be nice to get that data as well.

But at the very least you can venture a guess based on:

1) Dev Cost Estimates

2) Retail Sales Revenue

For their titles that sell 10M+, you can easily be assured they are highly profitable. It gets less obvious for those that sell 5M or less.

For Microsoft, it’s even harder because I would not expect their retail sales to be strong since they have day and date with GamePass. It would be wrong to assume that just because one of their games doesn’t do too hot at retail that it’s automatically a bomb.

But how many copies are sold at full price vs say 19.99 or less...how do we know it's profitable? Do they hide the marketing budgets from the game? Do they even share the budget...last of us 2 has been like 9.99 in the UK for ages in the UK on and off....could it be profitable....who knows?

Do you demand this data or comment like you do on gamepass? If not, why?

 

[James Sawyer Ford]

But how many copies are sold at full price vs say 19.99 or less...how do we know it's profitable? Do they hide the marketing budgets from the game? Do they even share the budget...last of us 2 has been like 9.99 in the UK for ages in the UK on and off....could it be profitable....who knows?

Do you demand this data or comment like you do on gamepass? If not, why?

You can estimate revenue by using an average net revenue per game to the tune of $35-40 or so. Sales of AAA titles are quite front loaded.

I have criticized Sony for not making game sales data updates on specific titles (they didn’t reveal Days Gone for ages)

 

[DenchDeckard]

You can estimate revenue by using an average net revenue per game to the tune of $35-40 or so. Sales of AAA titles are quite front loaded.

I have criticized Sony for not making game sales data updates on specific titles (they didn’t reveal Days Gone for ages)

OK, revenue...but what's the profits? How do you know they are profitable? How profitable are they? What's the budgets for the games?

Are you asking these questions? If not, why? Whats different?

 

[James Sawyer Ford]

OK, revenue...but what's the profits? How do you know they are profitable? How profitable are they? What's the budgets for the games?

Are you asking these questions? If not, why? Whats different?

You estimate cost by dev cycle time X number of devs X annual estimates operating expenses + marketing spend estimates and subtract that from the estimated revenue

Eventually if sales are so big (10M+) they easily dwarf the most extreme estimates of dev costs

 

[StreetsofBeige]

You estimate cost by dev cycle time X number of devs X annual estimates operating expenses + marketing spend estimates and subtract that from the estimated revenue

Eventually if sales are so big (10M+) they easily dwarf the most extreme estimates of dev costs

Great. You seem super skilled in doing arbitrary cost analysis.

It was reported GP did $2.9 billion in revenue in 2021, and Phil just said GP is profitable.

Do you magic to prove Phil's is wrong with your claim MS does accounting tricks and game dev costs should be shifted to GP to show GP loses money. All you got to do is prove GP costs are more than $2.9 billion and youre right.

 

[SenjutsuSage]

It's being deemed profitable in a year where they don't have any big AAA first party games either. All the growth is from either third party or 1P content from previous years, or smaller scale games like As Dusk Falls etc.

Next year will be lit as fuck when they start getting the droves of new Starfield subs, and if Activision successfully closes, it's only gonna go up and up.

Exactly. With nothing considered big and AAA this year from a first-party standpoint Game Pass is still experiencing major growth. I can only imagine what the 2023 lineup of games will cause to happen.

 

[James Sawyer Ford]

Great. You seem super skilled in doing arbitrary cost analysis.

It was reported GP did $2.9 billion in revenue in 2021, and Phil just said GP is profitable.

Do you magic to prove Phil's is wrong with your claim MS does accounting tricks and game dev costs should be shifted to GP to show GP loses money. All you got to do is prove GP costs are more than $2.9 billion and youre right.

Zenimax alone has 2,300 employees with an operating expense of likely 400M/yr

We’d also need to know how much all the other studios cost and how much it costs for Microsoft to sign third party content deals on GamePass

The whole point is we don’t know, because they never give you any of the receipts

 

[Kenneth Haight]

That’s nice. Still no exclusives that make me want to buy a Series X however. Let me know when Avowed, Redfall and Starfield release and if they are good games.

 

[StreetsofBeige]

Zenimax alone has 2,300 employees with an operating expense of likely 400M/yr

We’d also need to know how much all the other studios cost and how much it costs for Microsoft to sign third party content deals on GamePass

The whole point is we don’t know, because they never give you any of the receipts

Great. And how did you get $400/yr and how much if that cost should be baked into GP financials.

 

[James Sawyer Ford]

Great. And how did you get $400/yr and how much if that cost should be baked into GP financials.

https://www.zippia.com/zenimax-media-careers-45263/revenue/

I used estimated revenue and subtracted an assumed profit margin

 

[Heisenberg007]

All those games are also sold at retail. Putting 'a large portion of their development cost' on GP alone would be inaccurate.

That being said, even if you do that, it would still fit into the $3bn, if you take half of that $3bn for all first party development and use a very new AAA game like Guardians at $5m for a 1, 2 year deal to stay on the service.

By "large portion of their development cost", I mean that if a first-party game is available day one on GP, the majority of GP subscribers people would not buy that game (that's the whole point and value proposition of subscribing to GP in the first place after all).

So they are letting go of those sales for subscription revenue. But the operational costs are still there, which will then have to be measured against the revenue being generated by the subscription service rather than revenue from game sales (or the revenue lost because of fewer game sales now that the game is available on GP)

 

[Lasha]

That’s rich.

If Microsoft gives no receipts or evidence for GP profitability = trust Phil on his very vague comment regarding profitability without even an ounce of surface level analysis

If Sony does not disclose exact profitability data on every little thing (despite not doing this ever at a granular level), it must mean they are losing big time on it. If they are losing big time on subs, why are they posting huge profits? Sony doesn’t hide their gaming division behind the umbrella of the entire company.

The fact is, Sony’s subs do not canabalize their retail sales like is the case with GP. So their title’s profitability can be measured purely by retail alone; the sub service revenue is just icing on the cake.

The mental gymnastics in this thread is hilarious.

If you don't believe game pass is profitable when an executive says that it's profitable then the logical assumption is that similar services are also unprofitable barring evidence to the contrary. People are just applying your logic consistently.

Microsoft doesn't hide it's gaming division behind the company. Microsoft is legally obligated to present it's financials as a whole, same as Sony. Both companies provide a breakdown of divisional performance in both their annual reports and the accompanying notes to audited financial statements. Neither breaks down services individually because it's irrelevant to an investor.

 

[CuNi]

https://www.zippia.com/zenimax-media-careers-45263/revenue/

I used estimated revenue and subtracted an assumed profit margin

Is this thread really the hill you want to die on?

 

[Banjo64]

"Just because it's on every console doesn't make it a success"

Man I fucking wish, give me that cloud only, MS games only version of Game Pass at £7.99 on Switch and I’ll sub monthly instead of stacking Gold.

 

[MidGenRefresh]

I don’t care about Game Pass but it’s nice to see the usual crowd lose their collective shit over it. Free entertainment.

 

[Jayjayhd34]

If you want good look at future of gamepass just look at Netflix you get odd couple of good releases ones blue moon then 90% it's just terrible low budge crap. That is the only way it's sustainable. Just look how many AAA games have released on the platform so far.

Am happy with this ? Yes I am it's good enough but if your dreaming of days of having a AAA games released every month or so I've got bridge to sell you

 

[feynoob]

The cost to recoup a project like Halo Infinite is not a mere 5M units.

343 employs 450 people directly. There's also the outsourcing/contracting costs. And the overhead costs plus marketing. 6 year dev time x 450 employees x $150k/yr per employee (counting in overhead and benefits, not what the average employee is making) = $405 million alone, which is actually probably vastly understating the direct development cost. Marketing can cost $100M+ per title, so you are looking at $500M just on Halo infinite alone. That's over $10M in retail sales + whatever hard to quantify GamePass equivalent revenue it generated before earning any profit.

It's why these sorts of accounting tricks can't easily be isolated and you need a holistic measure of all sources of revenue minus all sources of expenses to get a feel for how Xbox software is doing.

All MS needs is to hit 5m sales for that year. 1.5m from steam, and the rest from xbox store. at average of $45 per copy, that is $225m. That is enough to recoup the cost of developing the game. and if gamepass covers up to $200m, That is enough money for them. The higher the sales, the less gamepass would have to provide.

You kinda supported my point.

If halo cost around $500m, and 5m at $45 average is $225m, then gamepass would need around $275m to make it even.

Xbox has a whole has 55+m consoles. Halo 5 past known numbers was 9m total sales. It won't be like PS, because xbox doesn't have 115+m userbase.

Gamepass pool money is there to cover the remaining money. Halo is their only expensive product. The rest aren't above $200m. Which means the higher the copy sales, the lower the money gamepass would have to pay for those games.

All the games you have listed, would benefit massively from gamepass.

 

[feynoob]

Again, where are the receipts? Do they announce sales numbers for their games? Saying its "10-15% of revenue" is vague as fuck when you dont have the numbers.

It could be 15% of 1 million copies sold. Would that be enough to pay for dev costs? Revenue from sales is what pay for new games. So how is this not relevant?

And I agree, that leaves a lot of revenue from other sources. But are you going to tell me that having 1st party games Day One in Game Pass havent affected their sales much?

"Gears 5 sold more than 4". Ok, how much?

"Horizon 5 had 10 million players". Ok, how much from Game Pass?

Why don't you do the simple math?

Here is the formula, to help you do that.

Average year copy is $45.

Xbox has 3 places to sell. Xbox store, windows store, and steam. Put an estimate copy numbers on these devices. Multiply by $45. Estimate the cost of production. Then substract the cost, from copy sales. If there are negative numbers, take those from gamepass pool money.

That is how easy it is to calculate.

 

[SenjutsuSage]

Great. And how did you get $400/yr and how much if that cost should be baked into GP financials.

Maybe the scariest part for some is this reality: Microsoft just finished spending $8.1 billion on Bethesda (the full price in the end according to their financial reports) and is about to spend $68.7 billion on Activision Blizzard. More money than Xbox will make even in the next 10 years.

Now, just what if it really doesn't matter at all how much revenue Game Pass or the Gaming division brings in in the grand scheme of things? What if Microsoft is just so deadly serious about being "all in" on gaming - like they keep saying that they are - that they will just bankroll whatever additional budgetary item the Gaming Division ever finds itself needing because Microsoft has now realized just how very valuable the gaming industry actually is to their company's biggest money maker, which is their Intelligent Cloud Segment.

This was once an unthinkable scenario that would be laughed out of the building, but with the kind of money Microsoft has shown itself willing to spend on gaming, it's fair to say it's no longer quite as far-fetched. And there's just absolutely no way in the world I see that Gaming Division not being fully self-sufficient with Game Pass, Bethesda, Xbox Game Studios, Cloud Gaming, and Activision Blizzard King.

Long story short, there's probably no need at all for anybody to be worried about how Game Pass revenue can sustain all the games in development. It appears like it quite literally can based on the economics as we understand them, and that's before even factoring in the rest of the gaming business. It's hard not to be positive about Microsoft's current strategic positioning.

 

[feynoob]

If you want good look at future of gamepass just look at Netflix you get odd couple of good releases ones blue moon then 90% it's just terrible low budge crap. That is the only way it's sustainable. Just look how many AAA games have released on the platform so far.

Am happy with this ? Yes I am it's good enough but if your dreaming of days of having a AAA games released every month or so I've got bridge to sell you

It's called your fantasy. I highly recommend it.

 

[Chukhopops]

Again, where are the receipts? Do they announce sales numbers for their games? Saying its "10-15% of revenue" is vague as fuck when you dont have the numbers.

It could be 15% of 1 million copies sold. Would that be enough to pay for dev costs? Revenue from sales is what pay for new games. So how is this not relevant?

And I agree, that leaves a lot of revenue from other sources. But are you going to tell me that having 1st party games Day One in Game Pass havent affected their sales much?

"Gears 5 sold more than 4". Ok, how much?

"Horizon 5 had 10 million players". Ok, how much from Game Pass?




Change Halo Infinity for any other AAA production and you'll still get my point (if you want to)

But we do have the gaming division revenue, it was 16.175 bn USD last year.

So according to this GP revenue would be between 1.617 and 2.425 bn USD last year.

At least try to keep up with available numbers before claiming there are no numbers.

 

[Cyberpunkd]

Until most have decent internet with low latency......

Most people do not live in the US. Internet for "most people" is perfectly fine for cloud gaming.

 

[SenjutsuSage]

You kinda supported my point.

If halo cost around $500m, and 5m at $45 average is $225m, then gamepass would need around $275m to make it even.

Xbox has a whole has 55+m consoles. Halo 5 past known numbers was 9m total sales. It won't be like PS, because xbox doesn't have 115+m userbase.

Gamepass pool money is there to cover the remaining money. Halo is their only expensive product. The rest aren't above $200m. Which means the higher the copy sales, the lower the money gamepass would have to pay for those games.

All the games you have listed, would benefit massively from gamepass.

And as I mentioned before, all a game's development costs are already being tackled by Game Pass and the rest of the Gaming business years before the game actually launches. Development costs don't suddenly come due the day the game is launched. Halo Infinite, for example, has been getting paid for consistently each year since 2015 after Halo 5 launched. 2016-2021 are all years in which revenue was coming in to support and fund that game's development. And on the off chance those years weren't enough, revenue to support Halo Infinite has never stopped coming in. And it's safe to say no game is going to cost upwards of $2.9 billion or even just $1 billion a year, at least certainly not all at once.

If Game Pass growth is anything like what it was last year, then Game Pass is staring at a realistic scenario where it breaks $4 billion this calendar year.

 

[Jayjayhd34]

Thought is debunked that halo cost half billion

 

[Mr Reasonable]

If you want good look at future of gamepass just look at Netflix you get odd couple of good releases ones blue moon then 90% it's just terrible low budge crap.

Makes sense, or it would if Netflix had bought some of the most acclaimed studios in the world to make exclusive content for them.

That's sort of where they're quite different.

 

[feynoob]

And as I mentioned before, all a game's development costs are already being tackled by Game Pass and the rest of the Gaming business years before the game actually launches. Development costs don't suddenly come due the day the game is launched. Halo Infinite, for example, has been getting paid for consistently each year since 2015 after Halo 5 launched. 2016-2021 are all years in which revenue was coming in to support and fund that game's development. And on the off chance those years weren't enough, revenue to support Halo Infinite has never stopped coming in. And it's safe to say no game is going to cost upwards of $2.9 billion or even just $1 billion a year, at least certainly not all at once.

If Game Pass growth is anything like what it was last year, then Game Pass is staring at a realistic scenario where it breaks $4 billion this calendar year.

You have to recoup the cost of spending from launch window. Xbox division pays for the cost. Then the launch windows generates that money back. You have 1 year to get all those money back.

 

[DenchDeckard]

Zenimax alone has 2,300 employees with an operating expense of likely 400M/yr

We’d also need to know how much all the other studios cost and how much it costs for Microsoft to sign third party content deals on GamePass

The whole point is we don’t know, because they never give you any of the receipts

Now please do naughty dog, Guerilla and prove to us that they are profitable studios with profitable games in last of us 2 and Horizone Forbidden west.

Also, please bear in mind that its been a few years since last of us 2 launched so we need to know what ND's and GG costs are per year. It's not just the titles we need to think about, clearly.

 

[midnightAI]

And as I mentioned before, all a game's development costs are already being tackled by Game Pass and the rest of the Gaming business years before the game actually launches. Development costs don't suddenly come due the day the game is launched. Halo Infinite, for example, has been getting paid for consistently each year since 2015 after Halo 5 launched. 2016-2021 are all years in which revenue was coming in to support and fund that game's development. And on the off chance those years weren't enough, revenue to support Halo Infinite has never stopped coming in. And it's safe to say no game is going to cost upwards of $2.9 billion or even just $1 billion a year, at least certainly not all at once.

If Game Pass growth is anything like what it was last year, then Game Pass is staring at a realistic scenario where it breaks $4 billion this calendar year.

Where do you get your info from that first party games are funded by Game Pass?

 

[Hugare]

Why don't you do the simple math?

Here is the formula, to help you do that.

Average year copy is $45.

Xbox has 3 places to sell. Xbox store, windows store, and steam. Put an estimate copy numbers on these devices. Multiply by $45. Estimate the cost of production. Then substract the cost, from copy sales. If there are negative numbers, take those from gamepass pool money.

That is how easy it is to calculate.

Considering your average of $45 that you pulled from your ass, since you are not considering many variables like used copies, sales and etc., how the fuck would I estimate the amount of sold copies on those marketplaces?

Not, its not something easy to calculate because Microsoft doesnt share the information needed. All we have are Phil's words from the source "trust me, bro". Thats why this topic about how profitable Gamepass is always generate discussion.

The total revenue from gaming division doesn't show the whole picture.

Without data we can't calculate. Its that simple.

 

[SenjutsuSage]

Where do you get your info from that first party games are funded by Game Pass?

I'm not literally saying that it is lol. I'm just entertaining the crazy hypotheticals from those who THINK Game Pass has such a sole responsibility with no other help from the rest of the game division. But even in the craziest scenario, Game Pass is more than capable of helping fund first-party game development, and I'm quite confident it does more than just a bit. The margins on something like Game Pass will be high.

 

[Mephisto40]

It might be profitable for Microsoft, but it's becoming a huge problem for Microsofts first party developers, who seem unable to make a decent game with the budget they are given

 

[Skifi28]

It might be profitibale for Microsoft, but it's becoming a huge problem for Microsofts first party developers, who seem unable to make any game with the budget they are given

Fixed for "xbawx haz no gaems".

 

[feynoob]

Considering your average of $45 that you pulled from your ass, since you are not considering many variables like used copies, sales and etc., how the fuck would I estimate the amount of sold copies on those marketplaces?

30+35+40+45+50+55+60=315/7=45.

That includes any discount sales, or 30% cut.

Not, its not something easy to calculate because Microsoft doesnt share the information needed. All we have are Phil's words from the source "trust me, bro". Thats why this topic about how profitable Gamepass is always generate discussion.

The total revenue from gaming division doesn't show the whole picture.

Without data we can't calculate. Its that simple.

You get that, by using logic, which you aren't displaying it at the moment.

 

[Jayjayhd34]

Makes sense, or it would if Netflix had bought some of the most acclaimed studios in the world to make exclusive content for them.

That's sort of where they're quite different.

That would good point if Microsoft didn't have reputation of ruining good studios

 

[anthony2690]

I think with the decline of first party day one games coming natively to Xbox one, subscriber growth will slow down, till the series S/X user base increases significantly.

As Starfield, Redfall, Forza Motorsport, Tokyo Ghostwire and I assume many other games we don't know about will be series X exclusive.

 

[Hugare]

Now please do naughty dog, Guerilla and prove to us that they are profitable studios with profitable games in last of us 2 and Horizone Forbidden west.

Also, please bear in mind that its been a few years since last of us 2 launched so we need to know what ND's and GG costs are per year. It's not just the titles we need to think about, clearly.

Dont know about Forbidden West, but you are aware that TLOU Part 2 sold more than 10 million copies, right?

If that is not enough to make some profits, then holy fuck.

30+35+40+45+50+55+60=315/7=45.

That includes any discount sales, or 30% cut.



You get that, by using logic, which you aren't displaying it at the moment.

Maybe your "logic" you make some sense if we actually had numbers to work with instead of assumptions

 

[midnightAI]

I'm not literally saying that it is lol. I'm just entertaining the crazy hypotheticals from those who THINK Game Pass has such a sole responsibility with no other help from the rest of the game division. But even in the craziest scenario, Game Pass is more than capable of helping fund first-party game development, and I'm quite confident it does more than just a bit. The margins on something like Game Pass will be high.

Well I'm pretty confident that, other than some marketing, Game Pass does not fund any of the development of the first party games, why should it?

You see, that's the problem with saying Game Pass is profitable, he isn't lying, it will be, but that isn't the whole picture and that's what people have an issue with. I think Game Pass has been profitable for a while IF you take first party games out of the equation, but include those and I personally don't think its even remotely close.

Think of it this way, every time MS buys one of these huge publishers then why doesn't the Game Pass profits massively drop? they would have to start paying for the development of all of Bethesda's games for example, and soon all of Activision/Blizzard.

 

[feynoob]

Maybe your "logic" you make some sense if we actually had numbers to work with instead of assumptions

And actual numbers look like that.

45$ is our lowest price point, with estimated copy sales. We can't use $60, because that is impossible.