Maybe back during the pandemic times. It’s clearly not going to be as big as the console business anymore by the end of the generation. The consumer has largely rejected it.
Still hasn’t sunk in for me either.
That new COD day 1 on gamepass is going to be a moment in time.
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Actually i do believe Phil already mentioned to the FTC they are expecting it to be even larger even earlier and is one of the major reasons they bought Activision.
Maybe you’re confusing it with mobile ? There’s no feasible way that the cloud gaming aspect will be bigger or bringing in more money than the console side of things.
It’s borderline impossible unless we see a complete change in consumer habits within 3-4 years.
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No. Cloud. They already have more customers on mobile than the console market.
There’s no feasible way that the cloud gaming aspect will be bigger or bringing in more money than the console side of things
He was talking about the number of cloud customers vs console ones. He said this earlier this year.
I do think cloud is the future but yeah, it’s going to take longer than expected
xCloud works extremely well for me but it’s going to take a long time for it to be viable for others but also just for people to learn wth xCloud/cloud gaming even is
and it’s going to take massive franchises like CoD and others to help with that more mainstream interest
GTA is the only thing in that realm and even then it’s not as big a deal purely because it’s not releasing a new one every year
The true impact of GP isn’t going to be truly felt until it finally comes, the biggest game every year for the past 15 years releasing day 1 on a subscription, unprecedented times ahead
https://x.com/hazzadorgamin/status/1716854889190662570?s=46&t=O_AGT9SEnlptKOF_2SxtqQ
Take a good hard look at the last bundle from PS and Activision.
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MS have occasionally been a bit too far ahead of the curve and I think that, for cloud, they might be willing to play the long game.
I don’t remember where I read this, but I believe Gates bitterly cited the mobile device market as one that slipped through his fingers because it was just one of a hundred folders on his desk. They want to have their fingers in as many pies as possible because what if that pie ends up being THE pie?
There’s a limit to everything of course, and it scales with the potential profit and market and all that jazz. Regardless, I think that the gaming market is a sweet enough plum that they’re willing to lose some (read: a reasonable amount) money on a more out-there venture like cloud in order to have an established presence.
I don’t remember the specifics of the cloud deal they struck with Ubisoft for the ABK acquisition, but I think it’s something along the lines of surrendering the next ten years of cloud licensing to them and letting it be rentable? That would align with what I’ve said about taking the long view.
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That’s just it: Cloud IS the long-game. @Zedox and I have gone around the globe time and time about this very argument, and I’ve long said that I see this playing out in 20-30 years, assuming net availability changes of course. More important though is the fact that I’ve long argued, and Phil confirmed in court, that diversification of playing games (buying, subscription, cloud, etc) are ALL part of Xbox’s plan: some of you see things as this/that binary, zero-sum games, but the point is to get as many people as possible in part by OFFERING onboarding versatility.
You want to buy your Xbox games? Okay, you can do that. Want to pay $15/month to access all first party and plenty of other games without owning them? You can do that too. Wait… you only play on PC or Xbox or Mobile? That’s covered too. Don’t own any devices but have net access and want to play games? That too. Consoles will be there for those that want; same with mobile and PC, xCloud is literally JUST another option of consumption.
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What a nice gift. -FTC
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I think so too, and I think that they want to use it to make their ecosystem that much more attractive. That’s why I think they’re willing to put up with some short-term losses and hamstringing. They never had the “first-mover advantage” for mobile devices or consoles, but they got it in Game Pass.
I believe that the intent is to expand the Play Anywhere concept to include cloud licensing as well, with one unified storefront:
Gamer X only gets Call of Duty on PS every year, and now MS gets 70% of their spending on it.
Gamer Y used to get Call of Duty on PS but now that there aren’t any platform-specific advantages, they’re open to getting it somewhere else and here’s Microsoft, saying
"Hey friend, if you buy Call of Duty in the Xbox ecosystem, you can also play it on your PC (through our store) or stream it to any device (through our app), or hell download it to your phone (from our app store) since we’re doing Resident Evil games on iPhones now apparently, all with cloud saves and everything at no extra cost.
Or you could subscribe to Game Pass Ultimate for all that goodness, you don’t have to worry about paying for online, you get access to a ton of other games like last year’s FIFA or a bunch of first-party GaaS which will be here forever and hey you get some GPU-exclusive skins or whatever. Oh is Ultimate too expensive? Get some of your buddies together and split the cost with the family fire team plan."
That changes the calculus significantly for Gamer Y. It becomes much more cost-effective to get the Xbox version of the game, especially if they’re interested in playing other games.
Why do people stick with a platform? Because that’s where their stuff is, because that’s where their friends are, because they’re used to it, because that’s what they know.
Gamer Z is a young adult, just starting to make their own money. They don’t have an existing library, their friends don’t either and cross-play makes the second point irrelevant. They’re used to whatever they had access to growing up (almost certainly a mobile device and hey what’s the cheapest entry point in current gen?). They’ve definitely heard of PlayStation but they’ve also definitely heard of Call of Duty or Candy Crush or World of Warcraft or Halo or Skyrim or or or.
Microsoft have been very upfront about their “making the player the center of the experience” initiative. Breaking down as many of the barriers as possible so it’s dead easy to give them money to play games. Owning enormous IPs with flashy “welcome to the family” videos. Supposedly the next Xbox controller will have extra wireless protocols so you can use it for different devices. Adding touch controls to cloud streaming-enabled games.
It’s all in the service of being THE way to play wherever. I’m sure they’re thrilled at the idea of getting 70% of revenue from ABK stuff from Steam, App Store, Play Store, and PSN (and maybe the eShop) but 100% is even better 
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Great news. I’ve been busy with daily life so was not here to celebrate.
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They’ve done that with Bethesda so I don’t see why ABK would be any different.
I think the most interesting takeaway from this is Blizzard may get some independence from Activision.
Personally I was hoping they would split ABK up into their own segments which it sounds like they might do.
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https://x.com/hazzadorgamin/status/1716943762826633457?s=46&t=O_AGT9SEnlptKOF_2SxtqQ
My God. Look at the graphic. It’s like watching an army that cannot lose.
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