Xbox Game Pass |OT| Our Backlogs Are Doomed

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2011

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.

  1. They got studios under them to publish.

  2. They are aggresive with third party studios and publishers to have there games published on Gamepass.

  3. They pay for development cost and in advance for games coming out on Gamepass.

  4. They have other means of splliting revenue.

  5. They advertise there Gamepass games more then anything.

  6. They strongly believe in bringing games to many people via other platforms (PC and xCloud)

Microsoft has invested in Xbox with two boats.

  1. 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.

  2. 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.

  1. 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.

  2. 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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