Machiavellian said:
How is it nickel and diming you. I always wonder about a statement like this because nothing makes you or require you to get Gamepass. Its a service you either see value in paying a monthly sub or not. If the base standard service does not have enough value for your money then by all means its not worth your money. If Ultimate is priced to much for what it gives you then by all means its not worth your money. It really doesn't matter if MS sees success or not because they still have competition between Sony and to a certain extent Nintendo and they will probably be 3rd place for a good bit of time because neither of the other 2 companies are having issues selling their games, services or consoles. I am not sure what tactics you are really complaining about. Its all just business and trying to find the right price point. Just because you do not know the finer details in what it takes to make and sustain a successful service that gives you all of their games on both PC and console for a sub price and maintain over about 40 studios does not have a cost then I am not sure what to tell you. Nothing is ever free in this world and you must always believe that every one of these companies isn't in the business to make you happy as much as they are in the business to make money. MS, Nintendo nor Sony have ever been a good consumer friendly corporations. They are only good and friendly when they need to compete with other companies for your money. So no, MS has nor will they ever be a good and friendly consumer company but as long as they have competition, they will always strive to please customers to a certain extent as long as they can also continue to make money. |
Still have competition between Sony? According to who? All Xbox have talked about is wanting to offer people the best value and that everyone should be able to play everything regardless of system, then they go ahead to promote their games on PS consoles while more games are being kept away from Xbox consoles. Sony now feel emboldened enough to price their products as if they can get away with anything, not like someone operating in a competetive market.
Right now their business isn't making people happy nor is it currently positioned to make any sort of worthwhile return on the huge investments they've made, so what exactly are they in the business for? If you're gonna make it out like they have their own rationale behind all these anti-consumer moves, you have to actually show some clear proof that it's actually leading to something positive. Right now all we know for sure is their market share is rapidly declining, Gamepass growth is not where they projected it to be and their brand image has arguably never been worse (up there with the Xbox One reveal/Kinect Overlord days).
No one expects any corporation to be naturally consumer-friendly, although when it comes to Nintendo specifically they've set themselves apart from every other publisher in video games when it comes to their business philosophy. But as you've mentioned it should be common sense for a brand to please customers to a certain extent if they want to actually have some sustainable and long-term success in the market, yet right now Xbox are definitevely doing neither well, so what exactly have they been doing other than emptying out their Microsoft inheritance fund?
