Don’t know about mainstream gaming industry. But Xbox definitely has captured the entire renting games or second buy industry at the moment 
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slighty related, but Lord Gaben’s words still apply here (even though Gamepass is a pretty big DRM nightmare compared to well, no DRM but the service of gamepass is just a lot more accessible and affordable to offset some of those concerns, especially here in our country).
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Gamepass is definitely changing some hearts and minds. My brother has always been a hardcore Sony fan and he always called Xbox trash and junk, things like that. He’s in a group chat with me and a few buddies and we were talking about Outriders on Gamepass. At Easter he asked me what Gamepass really is (even though I know I’ve had to of already explained this before) So I pulled up my app and showed the games that were on the service and told him about Xbox’s studios and the recent Gamepass rumors and how day 1 games work and all that. He didn’t really say much at that time but yesterday when asked what console he was going to get by a friend he said we will see what happens this fall. He wouldn’t commit to PS5.
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Anyone here have thoughts on Zombie Army 4? I never played a game from this series but it looks fun.
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I have played the first mission and it was fun. I played solo. Not particularly deep and not something I would do long sessions on but good for short bursts of play imo.
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Gamepass Theory!
With Gamepass, Xbox is acting like a pseudo publisher. The biggest publisher out there. They are simply publishing games via Gamepass - advertising it as a publisher would have. Only difference is that they sell these games under a subscription service.
Gamepass checks every point as a publisher.
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They got studios under them to publish.
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They are aggresive with third party studios and publishers to have there games published on Gamepass.
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They pay for development cost and in advance for games coming out on Gamepass.
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They have other means of splliting revenue.
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They advertise there Gamepass games more then anything.
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They strongly believe in bringing games to many people via other platforms (PC and xCloud)
Microsoft has invested in Xbox with two boats.
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The old one - platform centric, console centric. That’s where you see the investment for the console hardware. The features like quick resume, VRR, making sure of full RDNA 2, FPS boost, BC, resolution upscale, auto HDR, smart delivery make the platform look good.
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Gamepass publishing - microsoft started investing suddenly in first party studios. Acquiring more and more of them. Making aggresive third party deals. Last summer there entire show was about Gamepass. Bringing in varities. Now, look at Nintendo and PS, they don’t bring variety by themselves on there platform. So why Xbox is bothered by variety? Because they are acting like a publisher. There aim is to target players with there own games and that requires variety. That requires advertisement of each game being released. Gamepass makes it so easy. Microsoft is investing heavily on this.
Now these boats has an impact each other.
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Gamepass pushed for content - Microsoft aquires more studios - more first party stuff - last i known, exclusives are great for console sales. So here, Gamepass helped console platform.
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For Gamepass, more end points for playing game is necessary. Enters Xbox series S. It makes it easy to get into Gamepass. Series S is best secondary console. Then there is xCloud. Billions of customers can be reached. The platform is trying to merge development of xbox and PC games. So that game’s production cost can be reduced and that’s what a publisher want. So here, console platform is helping out Gamepass.
These boats are gonna work side by side. Console platform gives Gamepass a head start and identity. Gamepass uplifts the struggling console platform against its rivals.
Xbox won’t do anything which would harm the other boat. So yes, services on rival platforms don’t make sense. It will help Gamepass but hurt the console platform. On the other hand, if Xbox can get something from rivals in exchange of services - then there is no problem. Both the console platform and Gamepass will benefit then.
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So with the $70 bucks I’ve saved not having to get the Next-Gen The Show 21 at launch, I’m reinvesting it into the MTX within the game.
My team is gonna be AWESOME.
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No wonder why MS isn’t being shy about getting big games into Game Pass day 1, if right now they are getting only $5 for 18M subs every month they are already making 1.08b per year. If every single Game Pass subscriber did the $180 gold 3 year GP:U trick that still works out to $5 a month so it’s lowballing it by a lot. Game Pass could be pulling in 2B/yearly already, let that sink in.
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Yea and if you got that three year deal by the time your subscription is up between the high amount of quality indies, 3rd party games big and small and XGS/Bethesda games the service will have too much in it to even think about dropping your sub.
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Another thing is people doing the 3 year trick are paying up front too right now if they had to buy more Gold to do the trick, probably helping a little for some fast cash 
What’s the thought on pricing around here? Do you guys think it might go up to 20$ a month?
Personally I doubt that will happen for at least 2 years and hope it doesn’t happen at all. I could see them dropping the lower cheaper tiers and only offering the 15$ version.
To my knowledge the 2 big perks of ultimate over the cheaper version is it allows streaming, and gold is included.
Eventually I think gold will be gone and when they do that I think all gamepass subs will be 15$ a month.
20$ is just too much. But I guess with new games going to 70$ it could be justifiable. Maybe if it’s just an more expensive tier that includes dlc, even then though I don’t like it.
they will probably go up but it will come when they have a stable 25 or 30 million or even more.
yeah at that was a reported 18 million they are probably pass 20 million and with these third party deals it will increase more.
I think were definitely at least a couple years out from a price increase. They are still on growth mode and will want to be aggressive with pricing until people are hooked on the service haha.
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I don’t know what they’re going to do, but I wouldn’t even think about a price increase until after four AAA first party games have released for this new gen. By then IMO, almost everyone will be all in on GP and the complaining will be minimal.
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Their current setup with 10 for Xbox and PC and 15 for Ultimate is just right. But I would not make any predictions only months after the Xbox Live price hike disaster, lol.
I’m gonna say it’d make sense to align an adjustment in price with the time they drop Live Gold. After Live Gold no longer exists, the GPU proposition will become significantly weaker. GPU would then be comprised of Game Pass Console, PC and xCloud. However, most people only game on either console or PC, and I know I could easily give up on xCloud if it meant subscribing only to Game Pass Console for the cheaper price.
So at that time maybe they’d rise the price of regular Game Pass and fold GPU.
I can’t stop playing this!
It’s a mix of tower defense, deckbuilding and roguelites. Give it a try if you are into some of those genres 
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I agree! Really fun game.
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Loved slay the spire so i might check it out. I’ve been playing some Zombie Army 4. It’s fun and mindless, exactly what i want right now.