XBOX |OT|

[JRPGfan]

chakkra said:

JRPGfan said:

5 years ago.

"Gamepass is the greatest value for money I've ever seen in my life."

Today:

"We will end this fiscal year at about a 3% accountability margin, down year-over-year. Excluding Activision Blizzard King, over the past five years, we have spent over $20 billion on ongoing investments in our content, platform,..."



Yeah I 100% believe that changes will come to gamepass.
Day1 releases on gamepass is too costly, for AAA games.

I can also imagine that the PC side, of gamepass will see subscriptions match the xbox console prices. 
Like why would the PC one just be cheaper? 


I don't think they will scrap it.... but maybe Day1 goes away.

Remember all the threads about how Sustainable gamepass model was back in the day?

I think Yoshida even came out and stated something like :
"this isn't sustainable for its price, we looked into this, and if we did something similar it would need to be priced much higher".
(not a direct quote, I'm going by memory here, just the essence of what he said)

I highly doubt that the 20 million of customers who left Xbox this gen did it because Gamepass was too good for them. Heck, I'm inclined to think that GP is the only thing that stopped even more people from migrating.

And it was this whole "we need money fast" mentality that led them to increase the price of GP and to put their games on competing platforms in the first place, causing the mass exodus.

And yes, their numbers are bad because now they have 20 million ex-customers who are expending their money elsewhere. So now they have to try to convince those customers to comeback. And no, offering them less value for their money is not the way to do it.

I think the only way Helix has any chance of sucess (or even survival) is if they treat these next two years as total investments, and completely forget about any type of profits at all.

"And yes, their numbers are bad because now they have 20 million ex-customers who are expending their money elsewhere. So now they have to try to convince those customers to comeback. And no, offering them less value for their money is not the way to do it."

^
Losing money isn't a viable option anymore.  Asha Sharma, isn't happy with less than 3% profitability at xbox.
They have to raise prices in some form, to get revenue up.

My point was, that GP was "too good a value" for along time, for the effect it had on xbox's revenue.
They have to change what is offered by GP or the price of it..... its costing them too much not too.
 Phil realized the real cost of things, and did a big price hike (as a quick and dirty solution).
However people arn't willing to pay that much.   The only other option then, is to start removing stuff, and offering less in gp. in future.



"I think the only way Helix has any chance of sucess (or even survival) is if they treat these next two years as total investments, and completely forget about any type of profits at all."

^
They tried that.... for the last 5 years, they spent more than $20 billion and viewed it as "investment" into growing xbox user base.
They have nothing to show for it. That money was just lit on fire.  They cannot keep doing that, spending more on what gamepass costs them, than it returns. It is sinking xbox profit margins.  That was what the whole memo Asha Sharma did, was about. Something has to change, her words.

And that was after spending $76 bn on ABK as well. 
(You spend almost $100bn in total, the last 5years, you want to see "line go up", it keeps investors happy)

Last edited by JRPGfan - on 14 June 2026