I mean, this is a good problem to have for Amazon, don’t you see? lol
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Usually that’s “a good problem” for a game to have. But let me explain why it’s a bad showing. Amazon is always boasting about their cloud capacity and yet their own product isn’t scaling.
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It is not about cynicsm. But retail will die. It is inevitable simply because each and every generation has less even physical interaction with retail at all. We have even people who never touched gamepad and used touch controls and that’s a normal for them, and we have much more people who was buying games from online platforms (or get for free on mobile) and never bothered with retail at all.
Then again depends on what retail you mean. I mean for me retail is more about physical though, as digital is slightly different but even digital retail will die it will take much longer time.
Outriders, MLB the Show, Hades, Dungeons and Dragons: Dark Alliance, Dragon Quest XI, Dragon Quest Builders 2, and a lot of other games I can’t think of off the top of my head that fit your criteria. And don’t forget every MS first party game. These were all “Day-1” releases, so it doesn’t even include a figurative shit-ton of huge games that get added later.
Simply put, I don’t get what your problem is? This feels like the classic “Sony did something kind of cool so why doesn’t MS?!” even though they do with much more frequency. 
These numbers are always nature when any new MMO comes out ( MMO Hype )
But the important question is, how will these numbers be after months?
I tried the game and the game is missing a lot comparison with other MMO and i will not be surprised if it die within the next two months
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In the context we’re talking about, retail to me means buying the product and having perpetual access to it, barring licensing and DRM issues. For me, it has nothing to do with digital vs physical, only that its access is not tethered to a subscription service. I’m on PC and it went digital over a decade ago, but retail still remains the primary way to distribute and consume games, couldn’t care less about “physical” as someone who doesn’t own a console at the moment and will probably never make it my primary way of playing games. Digital on PC is gonna be objectively the best way to preserve games long term anyway.
I don’t doubt that subscriptions will become a big part of gaming in the future too, but I’m for Phil’s current admission that retail is gonna continue being an option alongside gamepass which needs to be held by MS to a great degree self-admittedly. I don’t care that the market shifts in the future, when MS themselves are gonna shape it, and if retail is not part of that vision, it’s a fundamentally inferior one for me to the one with a diversity of both options. To me, Gamepass’ value is intrinsically tied to it being an option, not a necessity. So the day Xbox uniformly starts making games that are gonna be only accessible through subscriptions, that’s the day Gamepass becomes fundamentally worse as a result. All this is my opinion, of course.
This, games like this usually always have big hype and big Twitch streamers all playing it, some are paid too so once that period is up the game could drop like a rock. I don’t think the game is gonna flop in a few months time but this big splash isn’t shocking for a MMO.
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I think games of that magnitude will always have launch day issues.
I’m certainly not expecting BF2042 or Halo Infinite to have a smooth launch with that many people trying it at the same time.
Those cloud problems are signs you’re doing something if anything if you’re Amazon right now.
In the near future - sure. Retail will exist for at least next 5-6 years. Maybe 10. But it will eventually die or will severely decline. When more players step in, people will start to contemplate if they really want to purchase games separately or not.
Just like people thought 20 years that nobody plays online games on console, the market will change and people will defend the change by saying that “how could we live without that before?”. It always happened in history. If subscription services in gaming takes off, it will follow movie path. Yeah, some big releases might be in retail (theaters) but everything that is not - will be subscription only. And even with movies, Netflix doesn’t even show anything in theaters no?
Retail will always exist in some shape or form.
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Sure, do it 50 years down the line after I’m dead, lmao
Jokes aside, the problem is games are not movies, nor are they music. There are fundamental differences that makes retail more important and resilient for games than simply audio or visual media. For one, even a grandpa today can just record songs or video on their dusty ass Iphone 2007 model and distribute it, you can’t do that with games. Games are transformative, other media are not.
Also again, I’m talking about what Phil said about diversity of models for Xbox. When MS themselves are arguably shaping the future we’re talking about, why argue for a future that isn’t what Xbox is promising? So you’re telling me either MS is gonna be powerless in preserving retail (when they’re the ones actually leading that space in the market and promises to preserve diversity of access) or that Phil is straight up lying. I hope both scenarios are false, that’s all.
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Zelnick said 30m and I believe that it’s accurate because he would easily know and have access to all their numbers and if they had 18m in January and hit 30m in 9 months, getting to 35m by January is easily doable.
Also, let’s be honest - majority of day one games on Game Pass this year have been indies/AA. Imagine when Microsoft’s first party exclusive blockbusters in Forza Horizon 5 and Halo Infinite release day one. If anything, my 35m estimate could end up being low come January.
Oh, I never said day one Game Pass or even Game Pass in general. In fact, I wouldn’t put it in Game Pass because it’s too big of a franchise and money maker on it’s own to give it away for $10 as a monthly rental. My entire idea around GTA 6 is to sell the Series X/S consoles to where no publisher can ignore any of it and to get back the money spent on the deal. I would want people buying GTA 6 because they would get 30% of $70 on every sale and this would be the game to get casuals and those who aren’t fans of Xbox to jump in and more importantly stay in.
Then, I go the extra mile and eliminate Gold making GTA 6 Online free for Xbox (and of course PC) which would bring in even more people because you’ll also get the COD/BF/etc. crowds as well all at the same time. It would be fucking massive. Also, people would stay in the Xbox eco-system for GTA 6 Online, those other games I mentioned and subscribe to Game Pass for Microsoft’s exclusives.
In my opinion, there’s no single game or even combination of games that can match what a GTA 6 being fully exclusive to Xbox Series X/S and PC could do for the Xbox brand. It would put them on another level.
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50 years ago - it was 70s - we did not even mobile phones so…50 years is a long time. Even 20 years internet is not comparable to what we have and can do now. Technologies develop fast. I think stuff like 5G and fiber will accelerate certain processes.
You think in too short timelines. Within the next 5 years nothing change that much. But it won’t take 20 years to shift paradigm altogether. We will have a generation that have spent all their time on mobile games and haven’t ever purchase a single games aside in-game items. It is basically the same situation like some people arguing that they still need physical while a lot of people haven’t touch physical for years and it is slowly dying.
It is all about whether the subscription services will take off or not. EA for example projected that 70% of their revenue will come from MTX. So they won’t even need retail sales eventually when their revenue split will be bigger. So we will get - for example - FIFA that won’t even need to be sold. Just F2P with MTX.
Zelnick’s voice is pretty damn smooth, peak CEO vibes
good shit . I agree with this completely .
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https://twitter.com/VGC_News/status/1443317229278408705?s=19
One person with knowledge of Lucid’s plans suggested that the revival would be built around a free-to-play model, partly in response to Destruction All-Stars’ last-minute transition from premium game to PS Plus
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Didn’t Nick say that some time ago?
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How was Destruction All-Star? how was the physics/characters/art style?
Mediocre in every regard.
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Pretty sure he did. That was my first thought upon reading this.