-
Ever wanted an RSS feed of all your favorite gaming news sites? Go check out our new Gaming Headlines feed! Read more about it here.
Daniel Ahmad (ZhugeEX) on the MS Xbox Live Gold situation: Gamepass biggest focus moving forward and MS looking to acquire IPs to bolster the service.
- Thread starter Marano
- Start date
- Status
Good on Microsoft to reverse a poor decision. The Gamepass roadmap is clear and it's clear they're executing it; how quickly they get to where they want to be is the question.
Glad to see they're looking at more acquisitions too. Keep buying. The more content, the better.
Glad to see they're looking at more acquisitions too. Keep buying. The more content, the better.
They're are looking for at having more "casual content with a broad appeal" / "E-rated content" it seems. Phil last October:
Xbox “needs” more E-rated titles, says Xbox boss
Xbox's reputation as the console brand for mature rated games has been an important part of the console's image for a long time, but Xbox boss Phil Spencer is l
mspoweruser.com
I honestly didn't know that! Thank you for helping me understand! Yeah, they should market that stuff much better.
Microsoft has one BIG advantage over Sony in this scenario. Financial might. So, MS is right to acquire well known IP to bolster their service. Why would MS care about Sony?
The traditional model isn't the future. Big companies acquiring third party publishers makes the console less viable.
I don't see much of a future for companies focused on the traditional model.
The traditional model isn't the future. Big companies acquiring third party publishers makes the console less viable.
I don't see much of a future for companies focused on the traditional model.
Last edited:
They can keep their investments in Game Pass, but they shouldn't bet the farm on it. If they want more revenue, then they can do what Sega did all those years ago and just go multiplatform.
They are expanding to all platforms where Game Pass is allowed.
Right now? Most people would, but some wouldn't.
But when Starfield/Halo/Wolfenstein 3/Forza/Indiana Jones start dropping day one there, that's when they will drop the Gold convertion, because value will be more obvious (thanks to the AAA games at launch) and people will be more accepting of the standard price. Again, it's called freebie marketing.
Everyone Microsoft acquired were either already heavily associated with the brand or wanted to be bought. Those that wanted to be bought were either always going to get acquired like Zenimax or close down and the talent would get picked up at random.
That is how the market is and those realities would still exist even if Microsoft had a strong first party anyway.
That's the point though. I won't be subscribing for more than a dollar lol
They are doing just that in every conceivable way possible without actually going away as a platform themselves. Nintendo and Sony excluded, naturally.
Hey, put it this way... your ideas were so good/sensible that they already got done!
It scares me how fast we are moving towards subscription services becoming the norm. I really don't like the prospect of games becoming service exclusive (you know that's the end goal here) and people being forced to subscribe to services instead of buying the individual games that they want.
But before you could play all third party on any platform, now you can only do it on PC (If Sony or Nintendo don't start buying Third Party exclusives).
I guess I mean they haven't produce as many titles yet since most of them are still new.
Annoying when studio acquisition talk leaks into threads. A boiler plate "they're going to continue to acquire IP" something we all know, doesn't really make sense to be in the title of the thread. And you get comments: hurr durr can't wait for the Xbox exclusive jrpg.
These desperate posts always are amusing.
Microsoft is going to acquire more companies, Tencent is going to acquire more companies, Google will acquire more companies, Amazon will acquire more companies.
Nobody is going to gobble them all up but the acquisitions are coming and Microsoft will be ending up with some of them. Gonna have to learn to deal with it.
To those who are concerned about the consolidation of the market I have some unfortunate news....
There will be more acquisitions.
When industries mature the biggest players buy content or capabilities they don't already have. Why? Because it's quicker than building it organically and if they don't make an acquisition on an available target their competitors will.
So if a hypothetical publisher became available it wouldn't just be MS that would be aware Sony, Amazon, Tencent and Google would be on alert. And if one platform holder doesn't get them one of the others will.
That's the nature of mature industries, that's the nature of capitalism.
Personally out of all of those I would prefer it was Sony or MS doing the acquisition, they both have the best experience in building and running gaming companies without the expectation of immediate revenue or ad based models, they're also not interested in free to play or mobile. For the so called traditional AAA high quality experiences a lot of people here enjoy Sony and MS are the best options.
There will be more acquisitions.
When industries mature the biggest players buy content or capabilities they don't already have. Why? Because it's quicker than building it organically and if they don't make an acquisition on an available target their competitors will.
So if a hypothetical publisher became available it wouldn't just be MS that would be aware Sony, Amazon, Tencent and Google would be on alert. And if one platform holder doesn't get them one of the others will.
That's the nature of mature industries, that's the nature of capitalism.
Personally out of all of those I would prefer it was Sony or MS doing the acquisition, they both have the best experience in building and running gaming companies without the expectation of immediate revenue or ad based models, they're also not interested in free to play or mobile. For the so called traditional AAA high quality experiences a lot of people here enjoy Sony and MS are the best options.
Then you are not relevant to the discussion, because you wouldn't subscribe at any price anyway.
And besides, you - generic you, not you specifically - might not subscribe now, but might subscribe in 2022-2023 when stuff like Starfield, Wolfenstein 3, Forza Horizon 5, Indiana Jones, Fable have dropped. Like that's the whole point of acquiring studios, so value is more obvious and people are more willing to subscribe even if they weren't interested in the past.
Agreed. I could see a future tho where they all offer there own portable screen for you to use xcloud, stadia, psnow, etc on.
They can keep selling Xboxes and also release games for Nintendo and Sony if they really want their games everywhere.
I was imagining Xbox taking maybe just one of their IP's and making it exclusive, but seeing how DC is pretty much only about Batman they could probably get a few of them lol
Idk, from what we've seen Disney does kind of have a hold on their stuff. We don't really know about Dc because they've kept it all pretty much in house.
I'm really curious to see the market research which suggests that upping the price of Gold would convert those remaining users over to GPU, when there are many people who wouldn't benefit from the conversion (the millions of people who only play the yearly installments of CoD/Madden/Fifa/2K/etc., which are not on GamePass), as it would ultimately cost them more to use their Xbox purchase, while they have no desire to change their play habits.
There must have been some such data suggesting that the price raise would work, or else they wouldn't have even tried it.
There must have been some such data suggesting that the price raise would work, or else they wouldn't have even tried it.
Just out of curiosity, when someone starts a new studio, where do you think they recruit developers from??? This position has never made sense.
Game Pass has grown at a rate of 5± million subscribers a quarter for the last couple quarters. Tuesday we will likely hear that they have surpassed 20 million subscribers. That seems pretty successful to me.
To sustain growth they are going to need to lean heavily on xCloud. I think converting more and more console users helps bide time while they prep xCloud's migration to XSX, adding support to iOS, adding support to PC, and adding support for streaming to TV.
To sustain growth they are going to need to lean heavily on xCloud. I think converting more and more console users helps bide time while they prep xCloud's migration to XSX, adding support to iOS, adding support to PC, and adding support for streaming to TV.
User Warned: Console Warring, Antagonism
Always fun to take a look at the post history of someone who says something like this. And find a desperate post on a Project Athia thread hoping MS will please buy all these studios because apparently you're salty that the game isn't coming to Xbox/GamePass.
Guess you're gonna have to learn to deal with it.
That's false, because Sony did buy a few developers. I think the biggest reasons we are seeing so many acquisition are those:
- Budget: During the PS1-2 era it was incredibly cheap to produce games. Thus, many developers would've been fine with selling 100k or 1 Million copies of a game. Many could afford having a few poor performing games here and there. Today? One big fail for a independent developer and they are in trouble. We all are excited for a new generation, however we seem to forget the downside sometimes and that's budget increases and sometimes exploded with those transitions. This comes at a cost and one of those is imo that many independent developers can't justify those budgets anymore.
- More competition: During the PS2 era, Xbox was starting to get in there and Nintendo was struggling with the GC. Nowadays there are companies like Google, Amazon, Nintendo, Microsoft, Sony, ... in gaming trying to recruit developers and buying studios.
- Focus on services: There are more focused on services like PS+, Now, Gold, GP, ... and those need content.
I hear you and wished Bethesda stayed independent. But it was actually Bethesda going out there and offering themselves to get purchased. If you were Microsoft would you have said:
"Nah, thanks for offering all the studios. But we don't want to purchase you and why you don't try to talk to Nintendo, Sony, Amazon, ... next?"
I don't know if it makes a difference for you, but for me knowing that Zenimax actively searching for someone to purchase them, changes things. It wasn't the big cooperation trying to convince them and the fact Zenimax searched for someone, means that nobody purchasing them wasn't option. So the question becomes who is the least bad option to purchase them?...
Building own teams takes years and they are actually building new teams inside the studios bought. Then there is also the fact that none of the studios purchases were hostile takeovers. They wanted to be bought.
Long term leaves the door open for the competition. Had Google come in with their pocket book instead of building studios Stadia might be more of a contender right now.
This all seems logical. What they should have done is slowly raise the price (as opposed to doubling it) while offsetting the negative PR with ancillary announcements (FTP games no longer need paid XBL). This is what Netflix has been doing for years. A sudden onset doubling of price would never have worked.
I remain a bit puzzled that they didn't throw in a trial for Game Pass with every Series X and especially Series S.
Personally, I'm absolutely loving it. Just as subscriptions managed to reignite my passion for music and television through ease of access, diversity of choice, and palatable cost of entry - Game Pass is having a similar impact on my gaming habits. Until recently, I was slowly starting to think that my love for gaming had all but dissipated, but I've put in the most hours gaming I have in quite a while over the last year and a half due to Game Pass - and have loved games I would have otherwise not even experienced due to games not having an up front cost per title.
Aren't we talking about how MS is giving Gamepass away and so the subscription numbers should be higher? That's what I was replying to. When MS releases their numbers soon, I'll be in there, but I won't keep it, so...
No idea what you're talking about to be honest.
Last edited:
Unlike you I realize we live in a capitalist society and understand that consolidation is unavoidable.
You can misrepresent my post history all you want but if you're going to be creepy in your stalking, at least take the time to paraphrase things more accurately, hmm? It really isn't that hard unless you're purposefully being disingenuous simply because the ridiculousness of your post was called out.
As for Microsoft and acquisitions, I've never been shy about saying that I'm okay with them looking to buy. Just as I'm perfectly fine with other companies looking to acquire.
The difference? I don't post ridiculous hyperbole begging for certain companies to be outbid for acquisitions and desperately hoping a certain company isn't able to acquire anybody. See the difference?
How much higher should they be, according to you, when the 1 dollar offer is only available to first time users? I don't get it, how many people do you think are subscribed for 1 dollar, exactly? Of the 15 million they reported in September, all the people who were subscribed for 1 dollar will have their subscription ran out next Tuesday, and the Game Pass subscriber number will probably have grown anyway, meaning most people do pay the standard fee.
They should just put online behind GPU
with that said i look forward to the future acquisitions
with that said i look forward to the future acquisitions
I agree. Not sure where they get flagship content though, the top 10 NPD games always seem to be things already owned by conglomerates.
that said they should also work very hard on filling some of the niche gaps to capture core gamers.
Why series' like Nioh and Persona (The latter being the highest or among the highest Metacritic games), are MISSING seems like low hanging fruit. If they have billions of dollars apparently ready to spend on studio acquisitions, why not pay millions of dollars to supplement the development of these types of games to first, appear on Xbox, and second, eventually add them to gamepass.
To be clear I'm not talking about ports, i'm talking about simultaneous development and release for niche core games that appear exclusively on one platform or another right now.
First 10 hours of Madden, Fifa and NHL are free day one on Game Pass Ultimate and comes to it 6 months later. They should really push this to casuals. It would bring in far more business and good PR.
Me too, but they said at launch that 70% of XSX/XSS had a Game Pass subscription attached to it. That's a pretty good attachment ratio.
Then it will be a disaster and many people will lose their jobs. In the film industry, the traditional model has been able to survive alongside digital platforms because movie tickets still cost less than 10. In the video game industry, triple A's are worth 70 at launch. Will people continue to buy games at full price, if the subscription models are consolidated? I remember Jason Schreier said a while ago that many traditional companies were nervous about subscription services, it would be nice if he did an article about it.
My subscription ends in march. I also had a free month a few months ago.
Then you have those gold conversions that MS tried to stop yesterday.
It adds up. Don't think many of those wouuld pay full price...
I wonder how far we are from Sony and Nintendo allowing game pass to be available on their consoles. MS will have access to tens of millions of potential subscribers and Playstation and Nintendo gamers will have access to all of xbox's library without missing out on anything.
This is probably a pipe dream because owning a game pass will push players to buy less games from their respective stores and i cant see Sony and Nintendo agreeing to this, but who knows.
This is probably a pipe dream because owning a game pass will push players to buy less games from their respective stores and i cant see Sony and Nintendo agreeing to this, but who knows.
- Status