Ryuu a great leader

I take back most bad things I said about him.

I'm sure someone is looking at each release and saying "ok how much did we spend making this and how much did it make back?". With the gamepass model this may give a very negative look at the return. They could think "Ok it sold very little and we didn't see an increase in gamepass subs so it's a failure." But of course you also need content to maintain existing subscriptions. If they're expecting an instant return on investment from their released titles then they don't understand the own business model they've created, and if they were expecting Hi-Fi Rush to provide a decent boost of new subscribers they'd also be mistaken. Basically success for them now should be based on hours played by subscribers.

I do wonder what is happening with Gamepass numbers though, we haven't had an update in a long time and NPD is saying subscription sales are down this year, though this number includes PS+/NSO too. It wouldn't surprise me if the number of GP subscribers are lower now than they were a year ago.

MS reported 18m subscribers Jan 2021 and 25m subscribers Jan 2022 just after Halo but have not reported the number of subs this year which isn't a good sign, but expected when you have a year without producing 1st party content for it. It'd be like Netflix not releasing anything for a year and just getting shows that are available elsewhere instead.

Bold is funny and true.

Cause yeah, if Xbox is disappointed then I'm lost. Hi-Fi Rush wasn't going to sell gangbusters, it was perfectly designed as a Game Pass drop (marketing wise) and for a number of other reasons that I've mentioned, it would have never sold a ton.

I'm at a loss, I think either Grubb was told this by some lower position dude just looking at financial data on a piece of paper or it has to be Bethesda who were disappointed in the sales because they aren't in the Game Pass mindset yet, for Xbox to be disappointed it would completely go against the business model they created and defy logic.

Hell, I think even if it's Bethesda who are disappointed, they've being a bit dumb, Lol. But they probably aren't feeling good as a company after a series of multiple flops, even if they don't have to worry about that so much under Xbox now, it's maybe still a bit disheartening if you aren't looking at the bigger picture (I.E. Game Pass).

Game Pass has definitely stagnated but no surprise when there's been no AAAs for 16 months, they could do things to combat it but they seem okay with waiting for ABK to close so they can shove CoD, Diablo, etc. into Game Pass and Starfield should provide a boost.

Issue is though, Game Pass on Console has a limited ceiling, I doubt many are playing their Xbox One's still so Game Pass growth is restricted by Xbox hardware and they've got to be disappointed by PC Game Pass but it's no surprise when the Windows Store was awful for years, if they want Game Pass to continue growing they have to do 3 things.

• Improve console supply.
• Release AAAs consistently.
• Release Game Pass on Steam

Some will pushback on Steam/Game Pass but I think it's too late to convince people in large numbers to come over to Windows Store even if they made it brilliant, Steam won their position in the market fairly and people like Steam for good reason, they're entrenched in the Steam ecosystem, Game Pass on PC needs Steam, Imho.

Something ain't adding up!

Maybe you guys shouldn't put in a lot of text on rumor and speculations.  Most of these rumors are probably just people throwing out stuff knowing it gets a lot of hits.

Xbox Game Pass で、次のお気に入りのゲームを見つけよう - YouTube

I don't think there is generally a point to address these kinds of rumors. The people who have heard the rumor in the first place are going to be a small number of enthusiasts. Nothing worth correcting unless it goes much further, particularly if it were affecting their stock, which in this case it certainly wouldn't. 

On the rumor at hand. Grubb frequently shows that he is definitely plugged into the industry. He's frequently the first to announce various showcases.  At the same time, he also often makes guesses that don't even make sense. He's not as accurate as Schreier is. 

Hi-fi Rush would certainly have some kind of sales expectation/engagement expectation. And it certainly could have fallen short of that by some metric even if it was the biggest success they've had in a while. But it seems unlikely they had extremely high expectations. 

Yes with Xbox console sales declining this year it does hurt the GP audience. GP has a very high potential on PC I don't really know how well it is performing there. The problem with PC subscription though is literally anyone could become competition. Epic, Valve even Sony could release a subscription service for PC games, at least with Xbox it's only GP and whatever MS choose to allow on their platform and also the advantage of bundling gold with it.

Looking at player numbers on a site like exophase could give an indication of GP PC performance compared to Steam, but most games combine xbox+windows player numbers so only works on a few.

If MS did release GP on steam it would not doubt have to be a separate "Gamepass for Steam" subscription like EA Play for steam is separate to the sub on other platforms. Valve will want their cut after all and if Valve determine the money they'll get from GP will be less than what they'd get from the cut from game sales (mainly in regards to non-ms titles here) they also wouldn't allow it. A 1st party only sub for steam would be more likely to be approved by Valve.

Yeah. Microsoft did say to CMA that they're 7th place in PC Gaming Stores which sounds pretty awful to me, Lol.

Steam just craps all over the competition, although Battle Net is popular so maybe linking Game Pass to that helps. I think Valve would only accept a 1st party only Game Pass. There was a rumour that Microsoft is considering doing a 1st party only Game Pass IIRC. They'd definitely have the content once ABK is under their belt to justify it.

What Microsoft should do is promise to put a native version of Game Pass on SteamDeck...I wonder if Valve would go for that, a bit of work for Microsoft but it would be beneficial to both parties, in effect you make SteamDeck an Xbox handheld without Microsoft having to make one, should make SteamDeck even more appealing and Microsoft receives an increase in subs.

You could get some real nice ads out of that, Lol.

MS: Shadow drops a niche game in a niche genre.
Jeff: “so I’ve heard from my ass that it flopped, MS big sad”