Why is number 2 more attractive than number 1? Engagement. Plenty of people buy a device one off that never gets used.
But how many people subscribe to a service they never use? Not too many. Especially not in comparison to the above. That’s why Game Pass will get harder and harder to ignore. Google dropping out has given Game Pass a massive shot in the arm and I’m sure is a part of the aggression from MS with all these third party deals.
As an outsider looking in, it seems like Microsoft is trying to snuff out any competition to Game Pass before it gets off the ground.
That’s what I think so too. It’s already really hard to combat them. Every little feature added, every little detail, just builds on top of a massive solid foundation of hardware+software+studios.
Others struggle to get the software right, or the hardware powerful enough or accessible enough, maybe they don’t have the talent or the studios to make their game.
MS already covered all bases, now they’re just patching some stuff. Pruning to make it grow even better.
And well… in my opinion, Outriders is not even that good of a game, but being able to just pick it up and play for “free” just makes its value skyrocket.
Now imagine… Halo Infinite… Battlefield 6… Psychonauts 2…
Gamepass is something else, and I feel we’ll be pretty shocked with it this year, the number are going to be crazy.
Yeah, imagine Gears 5 in today’s game pass with 20 million subscribers and not less than 10 when it launched. If a shallow game like Outriders (it’s not your opinion, critic score is mediocre and everyone who played it said that it was ok, but with countless problems and lack of polish, without GP it would have bombed) can be boosted like this…now imagine Halo Infinite and maybe FH5 and Starfield this fall…XD
There was a lot of hearsay about how Sony treated some of the japanese developers once they got to dominate the market completely. It was often stated as one of the reasons on why Ms managed to get so much Japanese support on 360.
But, it can’t be THAT bad because when Mattrick decided Japan was not worth it anymore late 360 life they went back to making deals with Sony.