True, but the Gamepass library on Playstation would be restriced to Xbox/Bethesda/Activision games. It will be interesting to see if this also means a lower subscription price.

Except that games like CoD are now part of Xbox 1st party, you honesty believe that Sony would rather have 30% of a 15$ sub over 30% of a 70$ game that routinely sales over 10 million yearly that also helps their own subscription service since MP is still behind a paywall? Zero chance of that happening and EA Play isn't a good comparison since their games don't come day and date.

This one is a bit odd but I could sort of see it if Microsoft is disappointed in how many consoles Starfield pushed and believe no game until The Elder Scrolls would have the same console pushing potential as Starfield which even that wasn't great, they also gathered multiple polling during the FTC trial that even COD exclusivity wouldn't change much, that may have raised eyebrows, Lol.

So you basically have to hope that years upon years of dozens of exclusives significantly improves things, after already putting billions into Xbox and even that isn't a guarantee, I think Microsoft lost their patience somewhat and decided to say fuck it, we want returns now.

I also think the ABK trial plays a part, they struggle to acquire despite being in a hugely distant 3rd position, exclusives to Microsoft may be seen as a growth via acquisitions restrictor, alongside that, ABK was acquired during better economic times and gaming was booming during the pandemic but lately it's a bit more meh and Microsoft may wish they invested that money into AI now, Lol.

Xbox Hardware basically slashed tens of millions from themselves since 2013 and those were never returning.

I wonder what their revenue will look like...But I do think this move will make them more profitable, however, Xbox doesn't report fucking profits of individual units, so all we may see is revenue declining, or increasing, Idk, I always thought the revenue from hardware + 30% cut would exceed the revenue of being fully multiplatform.

Unless you're Tencent but Microsoft doesn't have a monopoly over the American market, Lol.

Funny how I didn't even mention CoD in my post which makes it much worse, that is a game that has pushing power if Xbox gets a clue and starts getting serious about marketing with GamePass and that is a yearly release. They have even yet to announce past CoD coming to GP to see how big of a push it will gives sales.

Yeah, I said 1st party only Tbf

XGS + Bethesda + ABK is still a lot of content...Plus this would open the door for further acquisitions...Not saying whether they should acquire more, especially after recent layoffs, but releasing a bunch of stuff on PlayStation would definitely make it a lot easier to acquire say, another major publisher.

I do think there could easily be some version of Game Pass on PlayStation if Xbox hardware ceased to exist, yes. In addition to PS Store, it can be on Steam too, as Gabe has straight up said he would like to see it happen. What form that takes, I'm not 100% sure on.

I also don't think MS will abandon their xCloud plans, which include Game Pass. Microsoft is entirely about services and cloud nowadays, so I think the suggestion that they will abandon their cloud and service related features in their gaming sector is unlikely to say the least.

That's why I mentioned COD though...Microsoft performed their own internal survey and conduct one by YouGov (a 3rd party) precisely to show that COD going exclusive would not cause a drastic shift in the market and many regulators agreed with Microsoft on this assessment (aside from crackpot FTC) that not even COD as an exclusive would significantly change things.

So COD Marketing + Game Pass may sell some consoles and provide a decent push but it will be nothing big if even exclusivity wouldn't change things and used as a reason as to why COD can be acquired (again, by independent 3rd party polling companies and regulators).

The issue with COD specifically, tens of millions of COD players have already swapped to PlayStation 4/5. Why on Earth would they switch back to Xbox for marketing? COD is basically a platform now thanks to the shitty COD HQ, all their purchases are PlayStation, all their stats are PlayStation, all their friends are PlayStation, they have zero reason to switch.

ES6 is really the only major individual console pusher left and Starfield failed to push Xbox hardware in a significant way, everything else has to be added together for a collective effect - And why Microsoft may be opting for this move, impatience, don't want to wait for that.

Btw, these are some of the tweets liked by Studios Operations at Xbox which kind of show that the rumours are true, haha.

I swear I feel like I'm on a time loop with each game that supposedly gets rumored to be coming to PS5. Hi-fi then SoT now Starfield. Hopefully, Xbox says something to put these rumors down; they're getting a bit annoying now at this point.

Oooof, guess time will tell. Just kind of tired of all these rumors over the past month plus if they're true MS should just come out and say something (or if they're false). Although, I guess if they were false they definitely would have shot them down by now maybe...