Ubisoft interested in EA Access like program, thinks it's good for publisher brands

[binary solo]

Landguy said:

bananaking21 said:

Landguy said:
Sounds good to me. Give me the choice and go from there. If Ubisoft doesn't have anything on their service for me, I will not subscribe.

They way it is set up now, it is like cable/satellite TV. I pay for hundreds of channels and only watch 3-5 of them.

Slice up the channels to what people want, and over time, the garbage will be buried and the quality will stay atop.

or you can have one unified account for all publishers to put their games on. 

people are glamoring this "idealistic" concpent that more choices the better, but when it comes to reality and the bottom line, you will end up having to pay every publisher a sub for their old games, and content that was held back to create a false sense of value, like that madden demo. 

Why would you need to buy into so many subscriptions?  Over time, you would only sub to the ones that make sense for you.  The XBlive and PS+ model was never going to last.  THe publishers lose out on those deals.  Just like makers of movies and tv shows.  THey have no way to make extra money in the digital world that way.  So, they need a format that allows them to make money on their content.  THe only way that the XBL or PS+ would work long term is if they provided a XBL+ or PS++ type of service.  It would allow publishers to get some extra $$$ for their game being selected or used(similar to PSNow).   That will be the future anyway.  THe publishers just don't want a bigger chunk of the pie to go to Sony/M$ instead of themselves.

How about making games that are good enough for people to want to buy at $60? The PSN+ / games with gold thing should just be a bit of gravy on already profitable game sales. Or it's a way to get a bit more exposure for an underperforming game. 

It's a pity that the more publishers that pick up this model the fewer that will allow games to be played through PSNow. I can see them playing hard ball with Sony and Sony losing. sony won't be able to make PSNow work with only first parties and indies, and publishers can afford to play a waiting game as long as they bring the access service to PC.

I don't like the TV analogy because it isn't the same at all. PSNow is the direct comparison, not plus, and with PSNow there is no partitioning like there is with TV, all games are available to everyone. With TV you have basic packages where you only get standard channels and premium packages where you get additional channels. Thebindividual publisher access model doesn't work like that. If PSNow was the basic package and publisher channels were incorporated into PSNow as premium channels then we'd have an analogous situation.

I think that a unified system like that is more palatable than each publisher being a walled garden. But the pricing for basic access and premium channels on top, as well as what content goes in a basic package would be hard to balance out in terms of value for the gamer and revenue for business.