SvennoJ said:
Machiavellian said:
I do not know what the price is because I do not have the numbers that MS has. Why would I make a incomplete assessment like I see most people doing when we have absolutely no ideal on the numbers. Even now you are making an assumption based on nothing because you have no clue the internal structure of GP. You are looking at the surface and trying to come to some type of conclusion but in reality its all just guessing. A guess on limited information is not an educated guess, its just an opinion thrown out in to the wild. Here is what I do know because I work in software development and have worked for MS and IBM at points in my career. MS has business analyst who's job it is to crunch the numbers. MS is a software company that changed their business to a subscription service when their new CEO came on board. At the end of the day, MS knows exactly what they need to do to sustain the GP service. There are all kinds of sub models that they can employ and cost to the consumer will only go up depending on what the market can take. The key is that MS must continue to provide the games that keep the subs going which is the primary issue in any sub or retention rates will drop. As for the fears you have, I actually believe its not realistic. A service must have a diversity of games. Diversity is what get you to big numbers and retain customers not just providing to one segment of users. So no, I do not believe it means more grinding games or pay to win, I believe it will do the absolute opposite. The thing is, the gaming scene has already changed. Your fears is a day late and a dollar short because subscription services just like TV and movie content subscription services are here to stay. At the moment you still have no clue if GP is sustainable at its current price because you do not know how much it generate compared to how much is used to sustain the service. You do not know the gameplan of MS and what their aim is as far as GP is now and what they want to reach in subs. You do not know how long MS is willing to wait to reach a certain level of subs or what MS views as positive growth in the service. Really, none of us have a clue what MS plan is with GP besides that they want to make it the game service of choice. Why make a conclusion when you really have no clue on the numbers. |
My conclusion that it's not sustainable in its current form and subscription numbers, is that MS has said themselves that it is not profitable yet. I've not heard of that being different now. At some point the service will have to get in the black to become sustainable.
And you are correct, I have no idea what the game plan is and uncertainty is what generates fear and doubt.
Anyway, do you have any idea what a realistic monthly cost will be or target number of subs? Or are you just as much in the dark as everyone else.
Btw my fears aren't a day late, they've been there since digital downloads became a thing and I've seen what subscription services have done to tv. (Which I watch far less nowadays, quality has gone down hill imo) |
This part we all can agree on that GP at this current date does not pay for itself, what we do not know is what do MS feel is a decent rate of subs each year to get out of the red. Only big companies like MS could even afford to do something on this level because they have the software, money and infrastructure to make it a reality. The goal is to get as many subs as possible, that would suggest keeping the price at a level for easy adoption while pumping out a diverse amount of content to keep the rate of adoption strong.
I still do not have the numbers to make any educated guess. This is why I am not making any. I am not making any guess on the direction of the content, the quality or the amount because we are still way to early in the development of the service. Currently the developers who are under MS has gone on record saying that nothing has changed, they are in control of what they want to do so I would just take their word for it. I am sure if MS want to have games like the ones you describe, they can purchase studios that are good at making those types of games. Currently that does not seem to be their direction.
I stopped watching TV way before subs started and I highly doubt from my experience subs has anything to do with the quality going down. Not sure why the 2 would be related to be honest. TV shows from the network do not go directly to subs and if so the networks still make a killing in advertisements etc. Instead a sub is just another delivery method and if quality has gone down its because of bad quality on those shows.
