Thanks. It’s looking like part of a longterm plan by MS to change their branding to be just Xbox (meaning their entire ecosystem of console, PC, and cloud) and Game Pass.
They don’t want users thinking in any other terms so there is a stronger brand and brand association. This is further evidenced by how they decided to name their Series consoles, with the console just being Xbox, and the series just being subtext instead of a unique brand like “360” or “One”, and how they named their streaming service as a generic term of cloud gaming with Xbox (moving away from the project name of xCloud), and not giving it a new brand name.
This will ultimately help them strengthen their brand instead of segmenting it with different Xbox console generations and services (that they’ve struggled with in the past), and will help with service integration like with the potential Discord acquisition, so it’ll again be a singular unifying brand of Xbox, with everything else being subtext.
Cloud saves are free
Voice chat is free
Messaging is free
Playing 100 player games is free
But you need to pay $60 a year to play bleeding edge online?
GWG isn’t as good as gamepass and never will be, until now it was just convenient for Ubisoft games… Who may well be joining the service more significantly soon.
No real growth to come. Halo is free. Call of Duty is free. Fortnite is free.
Assuming there’s 30 million paying gold members not using Gamepass ultimate Microsoft needs 15 million gamepass member to offset that revenue…something they will add in the next 12 months.
Wouldnt it be better to abolish gold entirely and get Gamepass above 40 million by applying the $1 upgrade universally?