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Ryuu96 on 21 April 2023
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Zippy6 said:
Ryuu96 said:

Issue is though, Game Pass on Console has a limited ceiling, I doubt many are playing their Xbox One's still so Game Pass growth is restricted by Xbox hardware and they've got to be disappointed by PC Game Pass but it's no surprise when the Windows Store was awful for years, if they want Game Pass to continue growing they have to do 3 things.

  • Improve console supply.
  • Release AAAs consistently.
  • Release Game Pass on Steam

Some will pushback on Steam/Game Pass but I think it's too late to convince people in large numbers to come over to Windows Store even if they made it brilliant, Steam won their position in the market fairly and people like Steam for good reason, they're entrenched in the Steam ecosystem, Game Pass on PC needs Steam, Imho.

Yes with Xbox console sales declining this year it does hurt the GP audience. GP has a very high potential on PC I don't really know how well it is performing there. The problem with PC subscription though is literally anyone could become competition. Epic, Valve even Sony could release a subscription service for PC games, at least with Xbox it's only GP and whatever MS choose to allow on their platform and also the advantage of bundling gold with it.

Looking at player numbers on a site like exophase could give an indication of GP PC performance compared to Steam, but most games combine xbox+windows player numbers so only works on a few.

Game Windows (GP) Players Tracked Steam Players Tracked
Age of Empires DE 6,417 5,323
Age of Empires II:DE 26,912 31,923
Age of Empires III:DE 6,604 10,140
Age of Empires IV 17,333 12,679
Microsoft Flight Simulator 39,389 7,237
The Outer Worlds 20,841 16,022
Wasteland 3 4,909 9,796

If MS did release GP on steam it would not doubt have to be a separate "Gamepass for Steam" subscription like EA Play for steam is separate to the sub on other platforms. Valve will want their cut after all and if Valve determine the money they'll get from GP will be less than what they'd get from the cut from game sales they also wouldn't allow it. A 1st party only sub for steam would be more likely to be approved by Valve.

Yeah. Microsoft did say to CMA that they're 7th place in PC Gaming Stores which sounds pretty awful to me, Lol.

Steam just craps all over the competition, although Battle Net is popular so maybe linking Game Pass to that helps. I think Valve would only accept a 1st party only Game Pass. There was a rumour that Microsoft is considering doing a 1st party only Game Pass IIRC. They'd definitely have the content once ABK is under their belt to justify it.

What Microsoft should do is promise to put a native version of Game Pass on SteamDeck...I wonder if Valve would go for that, a bit of work for Microsoft but it would be beneficial to both parties, in effect you make SteamDeck an Xbox handheld without Microsoft having to make one, should make SteamDeck even more appealing and Microsoft receives an increase in subs.

You could get some real nice ads out of that, Lol.

Last edited by Ryuu96 - on 21 April 2023