New Xbox CEO Reportedly Told Employees That “Game Pass Has Become Too Expensive for Players”

MadMummy76 said:
I have a bad feeling that the industry is heading towards dropping the option to buy games altogether. It will be all subscription and only subscription. You want to play Day 1 title? You pay $29.99 for the first month, then recurring payment of $19.99 second month, gradually dropping to $4.99 / month. If you stop paying you loose access. If the subs drop bellow a certain threshold they drop the game entirely killing it.
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MMOs have been there for decades
 
MadMummy76 said:
I have a bad feeling that the industry is heading towards dropping the option to buy games altogether. It will be all subscription and only subscription. You want to play Day 1 title? You pay $29.99 for the first month, then recurring payment of $19.99 second month, gradually dropping to $4.99 / month. If you stop paying you loose access. If the subs drop bellow a certain threshold they drop the game entirely killing it.
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So you think they will try and Netflix gaming.. investors do LOVE RMR. But I don't think I would sign up for this at all.

Now if they did that for streaming services only.. and that was bundled into that tier of service then maybe. But console owners and pc owners that can run their own compute should be free from that scheme.
 
Brian_B said:
MMOs have been there for decades
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MMOs have a deep social aspect to them of additional value that stand alone games can not equate. That is the value od the MMO sub... well that and keeping kiddie trolls out mostly.
 
Grimlakin said:
So you think they will try and Netflix gaming.. investors do LOVE RMR. But I don't think I would sign up for this at all.

Now if they did that for streaming services only.. and that was bundled into that tier of service then maybe. But console owners and pc owners that can run their own compute should be free from that scheme.
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I would not be surprised if the next console gen would be the last, then it's only thin clients from then on.
 
MadMummy76 said:
I would not be surprised if the next console gen would be the last, then it's only thin clients from then on.
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We are headed that way with everything. Even corporate tools, Office 365 largely is going web based interface only for licenses even. It's bonkers.
 
Grimlakin said:
We are headed that way with everything. Even corporate tools, Office 365 largely is going web based interface only for licenses even. It's bonkers.
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It is, but it isnt, demand is there, people love it, companies, forget it, both feet in.
Its such a weird mentality, before running pcs / hardware to absolute trash, hardware a billion years old, and the whole company crying about not being able to buy anything to make anything better. MS comes in, services! Get your services here!! ... Money suddenly, no object... Becuase MS, and services! The clould is here!... Companies are a funny bunch.
Vocal minority exists sure.
Minority sadly.
 
good take by Paul Tassi


Take Elder Scrolls VI. Microsoft would lose a ton of sales on its own platform if it was day one on Game Pass, and who knows how much that might increase existing subscriptions, given that most Xbox players are either in or out already. So, you might need to give it to Sony where it would probably sell tens of millions of copies, and you would reap at least a lot of that as the first-party publisher. But then your coveted big release is practically a flagship PlayStation title, given its install base.

However, if you take Elder Scrolls VI out of Game Pass, you not only get 100% platform sales instead of a smaller fraction due to the day-one philosophy, but that could be enough to play keep-away from PlayStation and be the only console to have an enormous release like that. That is something that could move consoles in a significant way. Add Fallout, Halo and other titles, and you can see how this could reposition Xbox’s entire place in the market. I don’t think it needs to be every single game, but big ones? Some, at least.
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Marees said:
good take by Paul Tassi





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Cutting out Playstation... you lose a massive part of the console market there. But you may push native sales. And if they are doing a simultaneous PC release. I dunno. It needs to be part of a thought-out strategy, and I think a big part of that has to be where hardware prices are when the game is closer to release. You aren't going to move a lot of consoles if there isn't new hardware to be had and an X Box Series S costs $1k and the Series X is 1.5 times that. A good game will move consoles. I know I've bought a lot of consoles over the years for just 1 game... and many of those I never really expanded very far beyond that 1 game.

But... with that be enough, is the question?

Xbox is in a deep hole right now. Bethesda isn't exactly in a great spot. Starfield did... fine. By all reports, it probably broke about even on development costs, but wasn't a huge cash cow by any metric. It was definitely not "OMG Skyrim in Outer Space" like everyone was expecting. I don't have a lot of faith in anything backed by Microsoft right now, and especially in Elder Scrolls - particularly since Bethesda was hit hard during the summer layoff bloodbath.

If Elder Scrolls 6 can live up to the hype, and Microsoft doesn't shoot itself in the foot with something stupid (neither of which are sure bets) - then yes, this could sell some Xboxes. Or Gamepass subscriptions. Or sell decent console numbers if they allow Sony (or even Nintendo) to play along. But probably won't do any of these simultaneously to any large degree.

Trying to divine what the hardware and console markets look in 1-5 years if/when ES6 does finally release - I have no idea. And that plays a big part in what I think they should do.
 
Grimlakin said:
MMOs have a deep social aspect to them of additional value that stand alone games can not equate. That is the value od the MMO sub... well that and keeping kiddie trolls out mostly.
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There are untold number of games out there with that same, or deeper, social aspect now. Sure, it's not identical to what an MMO used to be, but it's still there. Even single-player games, with Discord and other 3rd party tools. They are just monetizing it differently. What used to be called a subscription is now called a Season Pass. And publishers have gotten very good at unleashing whales via IAP.
 
Uvilla said:
It is, but it isnt, demand is there, people love it, companies, forget it, both feet in.
Its such a weird mentality, before running pcs / hardware to absolute trash, hardware a billion years old, and the whole company crying about not being able to buy anything to make anything better. MS comes in, services! Get your services here!! ... Money suddenly, no object... Becuase MS, and services! The clould is here!... Companies are a funny bunch.
Vocal minority exists sure.
Minority sadly.
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It all comes down to OPex or CAPex. Is it a capital expense (hardware) or Operational Expense (License.).
 
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