What Microsoft should do to stay competitive.

[JRPGfan]

Teno said:

I think this delay of six month would help slightly, but it could also lead to Games selling poorly, because 30 million customer's wait. I think Game Pass has a huge design flaw. They can't sell a platform with a service that doesn't end in building a library. I don't mean just consoles. Even the Xbox launcher has no chance in competing with Steam or even the Epic Games launcher.

Why do players stick to PlayStations, even if the console is slightly weaker? Just because of exclusives? No, they probably built over 10 years a huge library of games on the platform, they just can't take with them moving forward. I purchased 102 games for my Xbox 360. 42 Games for my Xbox One and just 2 games in three years for my Xbox Series X. Maybe the average customer saves a lot of money with Game Pass, but in my case, I just built my library going forward elsewhere. Game Pass turned almost into a "demo" service for me checking games out, before it ran out two weeks ago. I tried games for a few hours and purchased them on Steam or Switch if I liked them and play them there.

I think what Xbox needs to do are two things. First is to add a claim option, for games you've beaten with Game Pass. Helping players to built a library inside the Xbox launcher and on Xbox consoles even when they let their subscription fade for a few month, they'll keep the games they fell in love with. Additionally they should offer games exclusively inside Game Pass for at least one year. Not offering them for purchase. After that year, they sell them for full price digital only with only 33% discounts once in a while adding value to the service like Nintendo does it for their respective brands. They can sell them like this on all platforms (Nintendo, Steam, PlayStation). Making it possible but costly to avoid Game Pass.

Their current strategy leads just to becoming the biggest third party publisher, while Steam, Nintendo and Playstation platforms are going to grow significantly.

Why do players stick to PlayStations?
I honestly do think part of it is the exclusives, weather that be for 1st party or 2nd party games.
Another thing is the genre of games, on both platforms.
Playstation does have more "one and done" type story games (jrpgs f.eks), which xbox users make fun of, but alot of people seem to enjoy.

Xbox needs to do two things (your thinking):
1) add a claim option (keep game forever, even with sub running out), for games you've beaten with Game Pass.
2) offer games exclusively inside Game Pass for at least one year. Not offering them for purchase. They can then sell them like this on all platforms (Nintendo, Steam, PlayStation). Making it possible but costly to avoid Game Pass. 

That seems crazy to me.
You would probably need to increase gamepass prices by a factor of like x3-5 to pay for all that.
Also any game that comes out, flops in reviews, will not benefit from early adopters, that buy it. This would add risk to developements, and you've seen xbox's track record.  Imagine they do that with Call of Duty. That would anger so many users, some might be then forced to adapt, others will just go "I guess this is how CoD dies" and ignore it.  This could destroy alot of valuable IP / studios.  It just seems very risky to me.


Imagine instead of 9.99$ a month, it becomes 29.99$ or 49.99$ a month.
Xbox go, "sure Teno, you can have that, it costs 30-50$ pr month" do you take that deal? Will enough others? will it grow gamepass subs?

Last edited by JRPGfan - on 12 February 2024