Netflix got to the point of signing a fucking blank check to Scorsese and helping him make his movie while no one else wanted to, that’s the kind of potential game pass is looking at. So yeah, it makes sense why Jim thinks 100+ million games are hard to sustain putting them day and date on a sub service, but that’s why you can’t look at gamepass as a short term thing. It’s meant to keep growing over the years and at some point, become so big that it starts paying itself.
I expect Sony to bring a similar service cuz having no competition to gamepass has potential to make Xbox become complacent as well, mind you. That’s what happened to playstation cuz of Xbox one’s setbacks, and it could happen to Xbox on the game sub side if Sony or someone else doesn’t compete in the same space. Sadly, Sony wants to believe its gonna stick to the conventional blockbuster model, its rather self inflected that they can’t seem to make any kinds of other experiences and find similar success. Services like Gamepass allows for a variety of experiences to thrive, not just blockbusters. Hopefully their recent creation and investment into an indie program (the one overlooked by Yoshida) shows them the importance of different avenues and range of experiences that games of all sizes can provide. There’s room for both Psychonauts 2, Battletoads, etc AND Halo Infinite, Fable, Avowed, etc.
Sticking to this one approach shall prove to be archaic to Sony sooner than they realized and Gamepass probably accelerated their road map a bit.
All in all, pretty exciting futures for both Sony and Microsoft. Hope Sony first of all releases PS now in more locations and then make it more competitive. It just fucking sucks to see Control being on a vastly inferior PS now but not gamepass when Sony themselves don’t seem to give a shit about PS now as much as Xbox does with Gamepass.
I dont think its the best business model.
There are advantages to a subscription service.
More creative freedom because theres less pressure to sell 5+ million copies.
Steady stream of revenue
Sonys fear of adopting a game pass style service might bite them in the ass later on if there Ip’s grow stale, they need to keep shawns laydens “Best, first or must” philosophy.
Ehh bad examples imo lol, we especially don’t bring up Game of thrones. The most disappointing ending to a worldwide phenomenon after six phenomenal seasons.
I’d say more like True Detective, Barry, Marriage Story, Klaus, Love, Death and Robots, I Lost my Body, Ozark, Dark, Queens Gambit, so on.
Its natural therefore to expect a lot of stuff to populate game pass in the future that just won’t be top of the line GOTY amazing genre defining masterpieces. For every masterpiece, there’s reason to expect duds and run of the mill stuff just by the nature of the model. I hope it doesn’t get to that in gamepass though, and I’d made an elaborate thread about exactly that back in the early days of this forum.
I don’t think it is due to marketing as much as it is the games themselves. Sony has mastered the AAA game, to the point that they put out very few Internal AAA duds. There are a few, but their success rate is impressive. As for Nintendo, they’ve been putting out quality titles for more than thirty years - and are by FAR the best software house out there. Their hardware is hit or miss, but their games certainly aren’t.
Wait until MS announces a price increase of their own before throwing stones at the others. It’s coming, if for no other reason to drive people towards GP
Game Pass is the way, I’m starting to reach a point where paying 70-80 dollars per game is a waste when I’m sure I can find a quality game on Game Pass to satisfy my need to play.
Its the same concept of buying/renting movies vs Netflix. Netflix has enough content in which I don’t need to waste money on renting a movie.
I’m on GP about 3/4 of the time. There are months it just doesn’t seem worth it to me, which is fine because I buy the 3 month cards at discounted prices and use one when needed. I do not pay full price for GP. I don’t pay full price for games either - always, always wait for a sale
Buying Control UE at $20 for my next few months that I don’t have GP. Probably will buy the TR games again at such an incredibly low price. Still have a few weeks to decide. I won’t be buying any of MS first party games because GP …
But I am the same way with Neflix, and Hulu - I rotate them based on content but never feel like a slave to what they offer. I am careful with all the “subscriptions” I have, except we always pay for Disney Plus.
GP, BC, and quiet hardware were the deciding factors for me.
Sony’s method is still working, but I wonder if we’ll be having more conversations surrounding sustainability in the future.
The PS2 is still their best selling console at approximately 155 million units. Sony’s install base is not getting smaller per se, but it’s not getting bigger either. Every generation they’re selling an average of 100 - 150 million consoles.
Meanwhile, these big budget games are becoming more expensive to develop. At what point do these titles become too big and expensive for an install base that is not growing at the same time?
I think this is why you are seeing Sony experimenting with bringing more titles to PC. A lot of people have asked how Game Pass could possibly be sustainable, but I do see how Microsoft is trying to tap into that larger gaming market through Xbox, PC and XCloud.
Videogame consoles are only a piece of the global gaming pie; there are millions and millions of gamers who play games primarily through their phones for example.
Also - a side note. I am not a Jim Ryan fan. Sony picked him for a reason, and I understand that end of the day these guys are all corporate executives, but he just seems out of touch with gamers. I feel Jack Tretton and Shawn Layden did a much better job with PR.
The reason Sony isn’t doing it because they have people willing to spend $60 and now $70 for their games and they sell 10m-20m copies if they announced tomorrow all games will hit PS+ Collection they would lose so much money in a short amount of time it would really screw up their margins.
All this and we don’t know how many people will sign up straight away, it’s not a guarantee even if their games are amazing. Microsoft took the massive hit on the chin and pulled the bandaid of fast because they have the fat stacks from MS but I’m not so sure Sony could do that.
It’s why I feel like they’re slower at doing big moves like that because they need to do a lot more business planning because if they screw up Playstation it would be a huge hit to the whole company. Sony will 100% have a Game Pass equivalent for sure, but I think they’ll do it differently. I have a feeling they won’t release their games on the services for at least 6 months so they can double dip.
I could easily see people paying for the sub but also buying games because they can’t wait 6+ months. I really hope they do push a Game Pass service because it’s great for everyone, will push MS to do more.
PlayStation is Sony’s most successful division. They can’t afford to start loss leading with a PlayStation Game Pass, whereas Microsoft has enough “fuck you” money and other revenue streams that they can invest into Game Pass as long as necessary for it to start sustaining itself.
If only there was a way to get a constant revenue stream from your user base to a point where the individual performance of a single game doesn’t matter.
Costco sells these $5 rotisserie chickens that they use as a loss leader. Someone may go to Costco to get a chicken but also browse the aisles, buy some wine and a salad etc…
Its possible that MS intends on GamePass to be a loss leader since they confirmed that they see an increase in sales for their games
Also sales from DLC, MTX, expansions etc
Then if you’re in the ecosystem you’ll buy COD and AC on Xbox and Xbox will get their 30% cut
This is why Game Pass itseof doesn’t have to be profitable (although it currently is sustainable) and that’s why I always laugh at these armchair business execs who scream that Game Pass isn’t sustainable and that MS isn’t making a profit etc
Github is another big acquisition MS made a few years back and Satya also confirmed that its going to act as a loss leader
Back in 2014 WWE launched the WWE network where they would have all of their PPVs (that normally would cost 30 to 60 bucks) on the service for 10 bucks a month. They said they would lose sales on bigger PPVs ie Wrestlemania but make up for them with smaller B tier ones like Backlash etc
In Game Pass say the next Doom comes out and doesn’t sell as well as Eternal but smashes 10 million players and gets 5 million of them to play Sea of Thieves or Grounded for the first time…thats a steal for the loss of Doom sales to get players on other games
I mean does anyone think Wasteland 3 would of hit 1 million players without Game Pass? Brian and InXile where probably popping champagne when WL3 hit 1 million players and now it has people keeping an eye on Inxile
I wouldn’t have touched Sea of Thieves or Wasteland 3 had it not been for GamePass. I was pleasantly surprised. Man I get the business side of things but as a patron of box, I’m a happy camper. GamePass is a god send especially in my country where God of War is still being sold for $250 which is roughly $125 USD. Nobody retails xbox games here which makes my argument for digital even better.
