JRPGfan said:
Phil counts a download on gamepass, as a sale. |
What are you talking about? Spencer has given multiple interviews discussing how GamePass has lead to actual sales of games increasing. Not GamePass downloads.
I don’t doubt that a publisher gets less money from XBLG/GamePass/PS+/PSNow than they do from a physical sale. But that’s not what the business model is about. You’re looking at it from a flawed position, similar to how people used to look at 2 million copies of a game pirated and say “oh that’s 2 million sales gone!”, ignoring the fact that most of those two million people were never going to buy the game.
The amount they get from these digital services might be less than the physical cut, but it’s still more than nothing. Plus as Microsoft and GamePass developers have pointed out, people playing it on GamePass leads to others actually buying the game that otherwise wouldn’t have.