| SvennoJ said: I'm starting to swing to against again after this news, following TV streaming :/ The hypothetical family plan looks to be offering the full benefits of the current Xbox Game Pass service for five users across consoles and PC for €22 a month, whilst the €3 plan would essentially give a single individual an Xbox Live Gold-like plan that delays access to Microsoft's first-party games for six months after release and would run adverts before you play a game from the XGP library. I have no doubt this is just to soften up the incoming price hike and loophole closures for game pass. I also have no doubt it won't stay at just a few adverts before the game starts (so much for fast loading advantage of SSD lol). A couple additions to the SDK and publishers can insert their own ads on a timer, play when you access the map or inventory. Or like on TV, on the side or bottom during a cut scene. |
Youtube has basically become what TV broadcasters wanted it to be, a place full of ads up the wazoo and it's content creators working for them (via sponsor ads that bypass ad blocks, because they know that we know we don't like seeing ads, so getting a content creator to vocally advertise is the best solution to this).
That being said, seeing the price hike for GP is pretty bad and a sign that they are feeling confident that ppl will keep paying, and as I know ppl do in life, the price will only go higher and you'll just see more ads being added over time.
it's not just MS that does this though, virtually every other company out there desires to test the waters and the fine lines drawn in the sand, and it's not to our benefit, it's to theirs. They only do this every time because the reality of it all, is that they want the biggest benefits with little possibility of them losing out, even if we lose out it's still a win for them, and this is why I don't like any company "testing the waters", because it almost always means "we're making adjustments that benefit us, but fool you into thinking you're getting the bargain of a lifetime".
The buyout does bother me, because I know MS still like many other corps out there, continues to hold onto past ideals (online DRM on their consoles is still a thing, they want to inject more ads like the console is a TV, meaning they still hold that stupid dream of theirs at that blunder Xbox showing years ago), and those ideals haven't really evolved with time, but we have.
At the end of the day though, there isn't much to stop a billion/trillion dollar corp from growing even larger, but I am still far more concerned about the holding's companies getting more pies in the games industry, and I know decades prior, not a single one of them ever had an interest in gaming, but they only do so now because of profit margins and to me that screams pure toxic cancer, so I'd rather Tencent/Embracer not get further involved with the games industry.
I am also of the old belief that we do not need ads in our faces. I know my step-dad loved to play devil's advocate and say "how would you know about something you wanted without an ad?", and I always respond "I simply look for it myself, because I actually ask questions and wonder if X/Y product exists, instead of having it needlessly shoved in my face by random chance that I may/may not want it". I do not think that we need ads at all, and that ad companies are as fake as they come, because before tv/newspaper ads were a think, people simply spoke with words and passed knowledge along, and I see no problem going back to those days, I mean we see streamers and friends talking about how awesome X/Y game is, and they don't have to be paid to advertise or shove a logo in our faces like cable companies and the like do on a 24 hr basis.
Mankind, in its arrogance and self-delusion, must believe they are the mirrors to God in both their image and their power. If something shatters that mirror, then it must be totally destroyed.
