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CatGuy on 24 October 2023
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the-pi-guy said:
only777 said:

Microsoft has ruined Xbox, the business decision to push Game Pass above all else is a disaster that is playing out in front of us all.

MS seems to be pulling away from Gamepass being it's primary business. 

https://www.gamesindustry.biz/microsoft-drops-game-pass-growth-target-for-ceo-compensation

I don't think it's that serious though. I don't think gamepass is fundamentally broken. They're still selling games outside of gamepass. 

only777 said:

Starfield not pushing the needle in hardware sales and Gamepass simply doesn't generate the revenue to fund the running and development costs of the Many, many Microsoft Game studios.  I did layout the maths in the video I created, but I'm not linking it again as I don't want to be branded as self promoting.

We saw in the FTC leak the costs of bringing 3rd party games to the service.  We know that games like COD are costing around a billion dollars to get out the door now.  So with all the costs of development and maintenance outweighing what the service is actually bring in, at some point something has to give.

Well it helps that there are only like 3 games like CoD. The vast majority of the industry isn't making CoD. 

"Games like CoD" doesn't really mean much. 

only777 said:

Xbox sales are slowing down, Game Pass is not bringing in new users to the Xbox Console eco system, Starfield actually saw two thirds of its sales from PC users.  So what's actually happening here?  Xbox players are migrating to either PC or leaving the system altogether and going to PlayStation.

This doesn't really mean that much. I would argue that Starfield was always going to be biggest on PC.

only777 said:

In a world where the primary Game Pass platform is PC, Microsoft has a problem.  PC gaming is too entrenched in Steam for Microsoft to realistically find more than 50 million users, and with Xbox console sales stalling Microsoft has to do something.

Microsoft has options: Valve has offered to put Gamepass on Steam

A lot of your post really comes off like not even napkin math. 

Microsoft doesn't need to sell 100 million consoles to think it's worth being in the industry. 

Maybe you're right that MS would look at the numbers and decide that being Activision + Bethesda + Xbox being a massive third party selling high margin games and selling gamepass on PlayStation/Nintendo consoles + PC + mobile or something would be worth it. But that decision wouldn't be based on Starfield or Xbox or Gamepass not hitting some arbitrary number. It will be based on an evaluation where they might come to a conclusion that putting these huge games like Starfield and maybe even putting a cut down version of gamepass on PlayStation is worth losing out on licensing fees they get from third parties on their console.

maybe by "games like call of duty" he means games where recycled content is pushed out the door every year that has all the innovation of reheated leftovers. maybe he means games like that