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Xbox Game Pass generated $2.9b revenue in 2021

SlimySnake

Flashless at the Golden Globes
What on earth ever possessed you to subscribe in the first place with that view? Did Outriders and The Show really convince you that the service was going to be loaded down with third-party day ones?
I guess you and I both agree that their service has sucked when it comes to AAA games. Glad to hear it.
 

DaGwaphics

Member
I guess you and I both agree that their service has sucked when it comes to AAA games. Glad to hear it.

I wouldn't say it has sucked, no, because I never expected a bunch of third-party AAA games to be on there day one to begin with. I expect most third-party AAA to be added on there when they are 6 months old or older, of which there have been plenty this year. I expect a lot of quality AA type titles to be on there day one, of which there have been a solid number this year. Plus the day one indies.

Regarding first-party, of course I'm a little disappointed in the output this year. How could I not be, there basically hasn't been any. Although I did enjoy the MS published As Dusk Falls and I'll give Grounded a look now that it's an official release and the bugs have been worked out.
 

Ozriel

M$FT
the starfield and redfall delays shouldve forced them to go out and pay $250 million for games like Elden Ring and especially Callisto. Plagues Tale is an indie game at best. I just dont think people pay $180 million for games like that. At least I dont.

ER sold 16 million units with the vast majority selling on PS5 and PC. Assuming Xbox versions sold 4 million, thats $240 million. Less than one month revenue for gamepass. Shouldve been a day one title.

Starfield and Redfall delay announcements were made in May 2022. Elden Ring released months earlier. How would they have made it a day one title to compensate?

There’s no guarantee that Callisto will end up being the better game than Plague’s tale, so this might well be a premature take.
 

Topher

Gold Member
the starfield and redfall delays shouldve forced them to go out and pay $250 million for games like Elden Ring and especially Callisto. Plagues Tale is an indie game at best. I just dont think people pay $180 million for games like that. At least I dont.

ER sold 16 million units with the vast majority selling on PS5 and PC. Assuming Xbox versions sold 4 million, thats $240 million. Less than one month revenue for gamepass. Shouldve been a day one title.

So somehow you think Microsoft is going to sacrifice third party blockbuster AAA game sales and pay those same AAA publishers to put their games on Game Pass?

Kill Me Smh GIF
 
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Akuji

Member
What's the arguments against gamepass? I really fail to see how we don't benefit from it as "gamers"
many fear that single player one and done games will not be profitable with that system. Making games fall even more into mobile games to lenghten ur game time to get a bigger share.

I dont think games like the last guardian would exist in a gamepass only world. But we dont have enough information to have a real answer.
Personally i enjoy buying a physical game and put the disc into my console so iam not interested in a gamepass kinda system anyway.
 

zzill3

Banned
many fear that single player one and done games will not be profitable with that system. Making games fall even more into mobile games to lenghten ur game time to get a bigger share.

I dont think games like the last guardian would exist in a gamepass only world. But we dont have enough information to have a real answer.
Personally i enjoy buying a physical game and put the disc into my console so iam not interested in a gamepass kinda system anyway.

Games that you can buy and own are never going away.
You can still buy movies and tv shows and music when streaming for those products has been around an awful lot longer and have a much higher market share than gamepass has.
 

akimbo009

Gold Member
Why do you post on message boards if you don't want to engage in discussions? Assigning motives to questions related to the topic at hand in squash the discussion is weird.

Then frame the debate... If I care about profit, then say why I should care? So help the discussion - why not frame why profit versus revenue matters in the context of Game Pass. Help me understand - right now I just a bunch of people going in circles or using it as some weird proxy to hate on how people buy shit.
 

sainraja

Member
many fear that single player one and done games will not be profitable with that system. Making games fall even more into mobile games to lenghten ur game time to get a bigger share.
Not sure how or why anyone would reach that conclusion. Single-player games could be very beneficial for the service to have (they'd just need a healthy supply of them). Most GaaS games are F2P so they are not going to add any value to Game Pass unless all of them start doing things like Riot with League of Legends; if they already are, that is great but it doesn't take anything away from my point of single player games also adding value to a subscription service. If a sub service was exclusively reliant on single player then those people might have a point but the solution to that problem would just be to ensure there are plenty of single player games to play and isn't that already the case? It is a mix of content on the service (minus a regular cadence of releases, something their recent acquisitions might help with).

A sub service is nothing on its own. It relies on access to a library of content. In my personal opinion, if MS wanted to double-down on Game Pass, they could start releasing their games [all games, no contract honoring necessary] outside of their own ecosystem (as a publisher) and push people into Game Pass with their own console and PC ecosystems. They have the means to do that but they are still somewhat locked into the exclusive business model of the past, they are just moving that type of thing into a monthly sub model. MS could surprise me down the road but I am not sure as of right now if that is what their plan is. I mean, there is no rulebook out there that says you can't have your own console and be like third-party publisher too. MS has the money to make the change......I don't think they are. We shall see.

I dont think games like the last guardian would exist in a gamepass only world. But we dont have enough information to have a real answer.
Right now it is too early to say anything. Sub services have existed for a while now outside of gaming. I don't think anyone here has seen a game influenced by the monthly payment model — what shape that might take remains to be seen.
 
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DaGwaphics

Member
I mean, there is no rulebook out there that says you can't have your own console and be like third-party publisher too. MS has the money to make the change......I don't think they are. We shall see.

There is a bit of a rule about that in reality. With no exclusive content no one buys your box, they buy the other guys where they can gain access to the other guy's content and yours. Would make the R&D on the box a bit difficult to justify and remove most of the ways to recoup that investment (the cut of third-party software). MS wants to grow beyond the console, but I'm sure they will be careful not to do anything to undermine their console efforts. No real reason to sacrifice one market for the other, position yourself to be the strongest possible in all markets.
 
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Ozriel

M$FT
In my personal opinion, if MS wanted to double-down on Game Pass, they could start releasing their games [all games, no contract honoring necessary] outside of their own ecosystem (as a publisher) and push people into Game Pass with their own console and PC ecosystems. They have the means to do that but they are still somewhat locked into the exclusive business model of the past, they are just moving that type of thing into a monthly sub model. MS could surprise me down the road but I am not sure as of right now if that is what their plan is. I mean, there is no rulebook out there that says you can't have your own console and be like third-party publisher too. MS has the money to make the change......I don't think they are. We shall see.


That’d probably be the dumbest business decision they could make and would weaken Gamepass significantly.
 
A sub service is nothing on its own. It relies on access to a library of content. In my personal opinion, if MS wanted to double-down on Game Pass, they could start releasing their games [all games, no contract honoring necessary] outside of their own ecosystem (as a publisher) and push people into Game Pass with their own console and PC ecosystems.
Sony and Nintendo could provide full fledged web browsers on their consoles and anyone with a Game pass subscription could access the games. In fact doesn't GeForce Now work on Xbox through its web browser? MS games could be on other consoles and all that would need to happen is platform holder action. I don't see that happening any time soon but MS would not have to do a thing.
 

FireFly

Member
The game sales for those who have GP will be zero.
Get back to me when you have answer for my question.

Edit: I re-read your responses and you seem actually to be talking about the value of the revenue model, not the value of Activision. So you seem to acknowledge that Activision has some value under Microsoft.

(It's relevant to your point of course that so far Game Pass users contribute 50% more revenue than regular users)
 
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Chronicle

Member
What's the arguments against gamepass? I really fail to see how we don't benefit from it as "gamers"
I find it waters down the market. I believe games will suffer from it. I just don't see how putting games like Halo, Starfield and COD is a profitable business approach and in the end it will hurt people who look for cool AAA games.
 

DaGwaphics

Member
I find it waters down the market. I believe games will suffer from it. I just don't see how putting games like Halo, Starfield and COD is a profitable business approach and in the end it will hurt people who look for cool AAA games.

I feel like the best way to address all of those concerns is to stick with a retail-only model, but move the launch price of games up to $1k. By doing that you safeguard devs (at that price how could they not make money) and ensure quality (it's not like they'd just take that money and still move in the direction of less polished releases and microtransactions). Everybody wins!
 
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bender

What time is it?
Then frame the debate... If I care about profit, then say why I should care? So help the discussion - why not frame why profit versus revenue matters in the context of Game Pass. Help me understand - right now I just a bunch of people going in circles or using it as some weird proxy to hate on how people buy shit.

I'm not really worried about what you care about, sorry. But your lack of caring is no reason to shut down a conversation. Yes, we have bad faith actors in these types of threads but being the opposite but equal reaction to those bad faith actors is just as annoying.
 

akimbo009

Gold Member
I'm not really worried about what you care about, sorry. But your lack of caring is no reason to shut down a conversation. Yes, we have bad faith actors in these types of threads but being the opposite but equal reaction to those bad faith actors is just as annoying.

Who's shutting anything down? I asked the question why do you care about Gamepass making a profit? If you don't even use it it's a stupid concern and if you fo, I'm not sure why. As a consumer I don't really give a shit about the trillion dollar businesses profitS unless I'm a shareholder.

This has been a thread about revenue anyway, and clearly that's going well.

So it's a genuine question - it's not shutting anything down. If anything, you've made this personal and attacked me versus answering the question.
 
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IFireflyl

Gold Member
Who's shutting anything down? I asked the question why do you care about Gamepass making a profit? If you don't even use it it's a stupid concern and if you fo, I'm not sure why. As a consumer I don't really give a shit about the trillion dollar businesses profitS unless I'm a shareholder.

This has been a thread about revenue anyway, and clearly that's going well.

So it's a genuine question - it's not shutting anything down. If anything, you've made this personal and attacked me versus answering the question.

Not the person you were talking to, but profits helps in determining if something is a success or a failure. I don't like Game Pass for my own reasons, but I'm still going to keep an eye on it as its success or failure will help determine where the industry is heading.
 
Not the person you were talking to, but profits helps in determining if something is a success or a failure. I don't like Game Pass for my own reasons, but I'm still going to keep an eye on it as its success or failure will help determine where the industry is heading.
Spotify has over 150 million paying subscribers and it doesn't appear to be making a profit. So your conclusion is that it is a failure correct? Game pass is associated with Microsoft and Microsoft itself is incredibly profitable so that means Game pass is a success then right? I like how your mind works.
 

DaGwaphics

Member
Spotify has over 150 million paying subscribers and it doesn't appear to be making a profit. So your conclusion is that it is a failure correct? Game pass is associated with Microsoft and Microsoft itself is incredibly profitable so that means Game pass is a success then right? I like how your mind works.

It's important to note with Spotify that their lack of profitability is a choice since their marketing spend far outstrips the revenue they need to break even. They are choosing to make the loss in an effort to get the maximum number of customers they can. If they went the Netflix route and started to back off the marketing push they could easily be in the black.
 

IFireflyl

Gold Member
Spotify has over 150 million paying subscribers and it doesn't appear to be making a profit. So your conclusion is that it is a failure correct? Game pass is associated with Microsoft and Microsoft itself is incredibly profitable so that means Game pass is a success then right? I like how your mind works.

Maybe learn how to read before you make your sarcastic responses. At no point did I say or imply that profit is the only factor in determining success. In fact, I intentionally phrased my sentence the way that I did so that people wouldn't misconstrue what I said. Here you go:

...profits helps in determining if something is a success or a failure.

Maybe ease up on the snarky responses so you don't come across as a douche as well as someone who lacks reading comprehension.
 
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StreetsofBeige

Gold Member
Not the person you were talking to, but profits helps in determining if something is a success or a failure. I don't like Game Pass for my own reasons, but I'm still going to keep an eye on it as its success or failure will help determine where the industry is heading.
If you dont like GP, then you surely dont like PS+ mid/high tier plans. A portion of PS+ Premium is streaming only, has no day one first party games, and the remaining games are older than GP. PS+ has lots of legacy games from 20 years ago. I dont know if it even has EA Play part of the PS+ Extra/Prem service.

Sony doesn't communicate sub plan profits either.

Yet I have never seen you criticize PS+ sub plans.
 
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IFireflyl

Gold Member
If you dont like GP, then you surely dont like PS+ mid/high tier plans. A portion of PS+ Premium is streaming only, has no day one first party games, and the remaining games are older than GP. PS+ has lots of legacy games from 20 years ago. I dont know if it even has EA Play part of the PS+ Extra/Prem service.

Sony doesn't communicate sub plan profits either.

Yet I have never seen you criticize PS+ sub plans.

I also don't like the PlayStation Plus mid/high tier plans. As I have said repeatedly, I like buying and owning the games I play. I do not like subscription services where the games I want to play can be removed at any time. I haven't argued with people about PlayStation Plus' higher tiers (argue being a strong word since just pointing out facts, which is what I have been doing, shouldn't be considered arguing) because there tend to be far fewer threads about the PlayStation Plus tiers compared to Game Pass.

But even if there were more threads for PlayStation Plus, and this is an important point that you should take note of, I am under no obligation to balance my posts between Game Pass and PlayStation Plus threads. Where I choose to post is my business, and as long as I'm not being a lunatic or console warring it doesn't matter if 100% of my posts are in Game Pass threads. That you went this route in your response to me speaks volumes about you rather than being some smear campaign against me.
 
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Maybe learn how to read before you act like a jackass. At no point did I say or imply that profit is the only factor in determining success. In fact, I intentionally phrased my sentence the way that I did so that people wouldn't misconstrue what I said. Here you go:



Maybe ease up on the snarky responses so you don't come across as a douche as well as someone who lacks reading comprehension.
I apologize for missing your lengthy description for what makes a service successful. All I saw you say was profit. Why don't you explain why Game pass profit is supposed to be a determinant in its success considering the much larger company and infrastructure behind the service. Would you classify Spotify as a success or failure using whatever logic you are using with Game pass? Profit is low after all.

As an aside I didn't hurl any ad-hominems at you yet you tossed out douce and jackass at me. Perhaps if you better clarified your post I could have better understood whatever point you were trying to make. If people aren't understanding you it absolutely could be because you failed to make a coherent point and not because of whatever personal attack you choose to use.
 

sainraja

Member
There is a bit of a rule about that in reality. With no exclusive content no one buys your box, they buy the other guys where they can gain access to the other guy's content and yours. Would make the R&D on the box a bit difficult to justify and remove most of the ways to recoup that investment (the cut of third-party software). MS wants to grow beyond the console, but I'm sure they will be careful not to do anything to undermine their console efforts. No real reason to sacrifice one market for the other, position yourself to be the strongest possible in all markets.
There are plenty of ways they can differentiate their box (e.g. quick resume, controller) while also publishing content on their own box and other platforms. Who do you think the money people are going to spend for their games on other systems is going to go? They will get money from their own ecosystem and other ecosystems. Regardless, I have already acknowledged that MS isn't going to be the company that does this BUT they have money and influence to be the ones to do it.
 
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StreetsofBeige

Gold Member
I also don't like the PlayStation Plus mid/high tier plans. As I have said repeatedly, I like buying and owning the games I play. I do not like subscription services where the games I want to play can be removed at any time. I haven't argued with people about PlayStation Plus' higher tiers (argue being a strong word since just pointing out facts, which is what I have been doing, shouldn't be considered arguing) because there tend to be far fewer threads about the PlayStation Plus tiers compared to Game Pass.

But even if there were more threads for PlayStation Plus, and this is an important point that you should take note of, I am under no obligation to balance my posts between Game Pass and PlayStation Plus threads. Where I choose to post is my business, and as long as I'm not being a lunatic or console warring it doesn't matter if 100% of my posts are in Game Pass threads. That you went this route in your response to me speaks volumes about you rather than being some smear campaign against me.
Just as I thought. Selective criticism pending the platform.
 

akimbo009

Gold Member
Not the person you were talking to, but profits helps in determining if something is a success or a failure. I don't like Game Pass for my own reasons, but I'm still going to keep an eye on it as its success or failure will help determine where the industry is heading.

Still doesn't tell me anything. The industry is just fine - China just was measured at $41B annually. Nobody is concerned about the industry - and GamePass's profit, or lack of it, is hardly a canary in any cave.

And profit also says nothing about the health of a business like MS who is taking profit from other parts of their business to acquire customers. It's not even in the realm of mattering - especially when they are literally spending $70B on funding this engine. It's quite clearly a stupid question, and totally orthogonal to viability of the overall gaming industry.

You've got a bunch of responses here, but you're drawing conclusions to fit your narrative versus what's actually being discussed or reported.
 

IFireflyl

Gold Member
I apologize for missing your lengthy description for what makes a service successful. All I saw you say was profit. Why don't you explain why Game pass profit is supposed to be a determinant in its success considering the much larger company and infrastructure behind the service.

If a service is profitable that is generally an indicator that the service is a success. It's not the only indicator, and sometimes something can sell well but still be considered a failure. It would be helpful for you to understand that I have only been referring to Game Pass in this discussion, not Xbox or Microsoft as a whole. It is possible for Xbox/Microsoft to profit while Game Pass is simultaneously losing money. And again, I'm not saying that's what is happening. I am only saying that since we don't know whether or not Game Pass is profitable it is still a possibility that it is not.

Would you classify Spotify as a success or failure using whatever logic you are using with Game pass? Profit is low after all.

My thoughts on this are irrelevant.

As an aside I didn't hurl any ad-hominems at you yet you tossed out douce and jackass at me. Perhaps if you better clarified your post I could have better understood whatever point you were trying to make. If people aren't understanding you it absolutely could be because you failed to make a coherent point and not because of whatever personal attack you choose to use.

No further clarification was needed in my post. You skimmed my response and then responded sarcastically. I'm not going to apologize for your inability to comprehend the words that I typed. That's on you.

Just as I thought. Selective criticism pending the platform.

I said I feel the same way about PlayStation Plus' subscription service as I do with Game Pass' subscription service. If you see that as selective criticism then you have serious issues.

Still doesn't tell me anything. The industry is just fine - China just was measured at $41B annually. Nobody is concerned about the industry - and GamePass's profit, or lack of it, is hardly a canary in any cave.

And profit also says nothing about the health of a business like MS who is taking profit from other parts of their business to acquire customers. It's not even in the realm of mattering - especially when they are literally spending $70B on funding this engine. It's quite clearly a stupid question, and totally orthogonal to viability of the overall gaming industry.

You've got a bunch of responses here, but you're drawing conclusions to fit your narrative versus what's actually being discussed or reported.

None of this had anything to do with my response to you. Also, can you please explain the conclusions that I am drawing? And can you explain my narrative? The only narrative that I know that I made is that we don't know for certain if Game Pass is profitable or not because the only reported figures are revenue, and revenue isn't the same as profit. That's the ONLY stance I have taken in this thread, and that isn't a statement that is up for debate. It's fact.
 
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