@R1spam Forza Horizon 4 is absolutely brilliant and should be even better on Series X. The Medium’s coming out soon too which looks ace. Honestly there are so many great games on Game Pass that you should be sorted for the foreseeable future!
@nessisonett yeah can't wait to give it a whirl, they look like they have done an amazing job of recreating Edinburgh! Driving along the Royal Mile at more than 10 mile an hour is going to blow my mind 🤯
All the Horizon games are brilliant. They are one of those games that you can just come back to at at anytime, very pick up and play. I am currently playing 3 but will eventually get to 4.
RetiredPush Square Moderator and all around retro gamer.
Well my series x arrived today! Have played a bit of forza 4 horizon and witcher 2 with a whole bunch of gamepass delights downloading as we speak! I'm still finding my way around the ui, so far I prefer the ps5 ui but I guess I should take my time to get used to it before comparing properly. Importing saves from my 360 was so much easier though than ps5 save transfer. What I don't need time for is the controller, its good but its no dualsense. Hopefully microsoft do an elite controller with haptics at some stage.
@BAMozzy looks pretty good. I'm playing ballad of gay tony just now on series x, having played the base gta4 on 360 and difference is night and day with 60 fps. Hoping that we see them work on gamepass games with this framerate boost.
So there’s been a lot of discussion in the article comments sections lately about Microsoft and especially how the ZeniMax acquisition is going to affect PlayStation. I’m not as upset as most about the loss of Bethesda, but I have been following along mainly because I wonder if this is going to put pressure on Sony to change their market approach.
One comment posted today in one of the article said something that caught my eye. The user stated that people with a GamePass subscription buy more games than those without it. I found this hard to believe and wasn’t sure if it was just some made-up argument pulled out of thin air. Does anyone know if this is true? And if it is, why would that be?
I look at myself and over recent years since having 4-5 main streaming movie and TV services, I have purchased way fewer BluRay and digital movies. In fact I have a big DVD/BD movie collection and I’ve bought maybe one or two in the last 2 years whereas I used to buy 1 or 2 per month.
I would assume it’s the same for GamePass. If a player has GamePass, why would he/she buy games? Maybe for collector purposes but that’s got to be a small minority of players that do that.
So since I’ve never had an Xbox and never had GamePass, I figured I’d ask the question here to see if that is true. Do you all buy games after playing them on GamePass? Has anyone actually done that, and if so, why? If GP is a mechanism to actually increase game sales then I can start to see how maybe Microsoft does make more money on GamePass than we realize. Because otherwise, what I heard is that they are currently losing money on the service.
@Th3solution Honestly, both the ‘Microsoft are going to keep losing money on GamePass, it’s not sustainable’ argument and ‘People buy more games with Game Pass than without’ argument are flawed. Microsoft don’t actually release the sorts of figures that would allow people to construct some sort of argument on the subject. I like Game Pass, I get a good deal and play a lot of games that I wouldn’t have otherwise. Way I see it, that’s all I can really worry about. People are so focused on the ‘future of the industry’ when in fact, the industry has survived a lot. Video games are making more money than they ever have, especially after the pandemic. Game Pass won’t set that back.
@Th3solution I thought in a similar way until I read this article (https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2021-02-17-is-xbox-game-pass-too-good-to-be-true). I also remember Netflix being cheaper, so I think the price of gamepass at some stage will go up a bit. Its worth remembering lots of dlc are not included in gamepass so people might be buying season passes etc and it's a bit of license for smaller devs to be more out there if they are tied to gamepass as they are not tied to immediate sales. I scored a series x with two years gamepass ultimate and I can't fault the value proposition of that.
@Th3solution "Since we went into Game Pass, our total Xbox sales have tripled." Is just one quote from a few developers who have said something similar, even Phil Spencer has said the same about Microsoft's own games on Gamepass. Effectively it seems to be a word of mouth thing as Gamepass gets more eyes on games that may get ignored or have been forgotten about. So either those playing like and buy it (as they have a discount as part of the subscription) or their friends who may not be subscribers do so.
When games get put on Gamepass they get great coverage all over social media. Think how many people online are now talking about the likes of Dishonoured, Prey, Oblivion and Bethesda games in general because they've just gone to Gamepass
One thing to note is that sales of games on Xbox are usually significantly lower than on other platforms, so just take when the odd developer says they have seen a jump in numbers with a pinch of salt. And that just it, we are not hearing from a load of developers about this. But some people see this as proof that Gamepass is the second coming or the savior of the gaming industry. I'm not throwing shade at the service, it is obviously offering good value for some people, but sometimes perspective is needed when looking at these things and not to be so hyperbolic.
Life is more fun when you help people succeed, instead of wishing them to fail.
Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak and remove all doubt.
@R1spam Wow, you didn’t warn me that article was so incredibly long! 😂 But honestly, it was a very interesting read and highly detailed. It does a good job at debunking a lot of the concerns about the service and the potential ramifications to the future of gaming. It does seem a little one-sided at times, but all the interviewed publishers and developers seem to give good logical reasoning and data to support the virtues of the GamePass model. It would have been nice to give some counter points from Sony, for example, as to why it their opinion that the model was unsustainable, other than the high cost of game development. I think perhaps Sony is thinking only from the standpoint of their own ecosystem, because all things point toward long term sustainability for Microsoft. Also, I would have liked to hear something about how the growth of Stadia, Luna, and Apple Arcade will affect the trajectory of GamePass. It’s a point that was glazed over and if we follow the TV/movie streaming model, the success of the subscription service is going to spawn all these competitors and how will that affect things. Right now the MS success is largely dependent on this enormous market share they are shooting for. If that gets diluted, how will it affect things?
After reading that article I am now more convinced that Sony will need to respond, in time, to the economic pressures of GamePass. Honestly, all that probably needs to be done is folding PS Plus into PS Now and then adding day 1 releases to the service. So the blueprint for a GamePass service is already there and Sony will probably just need to tweak it to be more competitive, which will be easy enough to do once they feel the pressure mount to do so.
And to answer my previous question, I do see now how having GamePass is kind of like an extended trial period for multiple games and that it will prompt purchase of certain games once they drop off the service, in particular games that have add-on content or are replayable. I could see playing, for example, Bloodborne on a service like this for a month and then buying it later with the discount in order to play the DLC or do a run on a different build. Something like Concrete Genie, however, would be unlikely to be bought and played again unless it was a few years later.
What I don’t know is how long a game typically stays on GamePass, which will definitely affect purchasing potential; and do some games stay on there indefinitely, if so then I’d like to see a breakdown of those game sales, because they likely aren’t as positively affected.
Also, like the article suggests, game sales might be higher with those who are GP subscribers, but not necessarily buying the games they played, but rather it introduces them to a genre that they end up buying other games in. So it benefits Microsoft (because they get a cut no matter what game it is, so long as it’s bought through their digital storefront) but maybe not directly the developer who made the game. But I reckon ‘a rising tide raises all ships’, so in the long run what comes around goes around so all developers eventually benefit from the free promotion.
It is noteworthy also to see that they cite the subscriber goal needing to approach 50 million to be hitting the same level of profitability they had before the service, and they still have a way to go there, since it’s currently at 18 million. They cite the 47 million PS Plus subscribers as evidence of viability of that 50 m goal, but it’s taken Sony many years to get to that PS Plus subscriber number. If this is going to be a 5 year ramp up, it is true that a lot can happen in that timeframe with the economy and streaming competition to affect the numbers, either positively or negatively.
@carlos82 Yeah the power of the word-of-mouth advertising is definitely key to this model’s success. As I said above, I think I better understand now how GP actually pushes people to purchase gaming content.
@nessisonett Very true that the industry is just too big now to have any doom and gloom outlook. The market will adjust itself, as you say, to keep things coming for the benefit of the consumer. I think the catastrophization many gamers are feeling, especially Sony players and those who like high budget single player self-contained experiences, is misplaced. But like I said up there, I’m starting to think that Sony will respond with a move before too long to compete better with GamePass.
@JohnnyShoulder It is interesting that the article above posted by R1spam had interviews mostly with small developers or publishers (Double Fine, No Brakes Games, No More Robots, and Fatshark were quoted) who are high on the service, and like you say I think they have the most to benefit from increased access and exposure to their products.
“We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.”
@Th3solution I think that considering the industry has survived thousands of copies of E.T. in the desert, Game Pass is a minor threat in comparison. There’s probably feelings of FOMO in a lot of PlayStation players’ reactions, given that Game Pass is a great deal without many drawbacks at all. It’s as if they have to poke holes in it to feel better about themselves. It wasn’t that long ago that digital games were the threat, and now streaming and subscriptions are the problem.
@nessisonett I think you’re right, that fanboyism FOMO is largely part of the criticism. As a Sony gamer, I hope I’m right about the eventual imitation of the service on PlayStation. I really don’t want to have to juggle two or three systems. I know a lot of people like yourself enjoy living in the Xbox ecosystem in parallel with PlayStation, Nintendo, and PC, but I prefer to stay in one or two systems if I can help it, just for personal convenience.
“We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.”
@Th3solution Honestly the only reason I pay attention to Xbox is because they saw PC as a market to tap and it totally worked. I have my laptop for Uni anyway and that way I have access to Xbox and Steam, along with plenty of things like emulators and such. I’ll always have Nintendo consoles just because I’ve always had them, I couldn’t do without certain series that I’ve followed since I was 3 years old. So essentially I have a Switch and a PS4 that the whole family play and then my laptop that I’m on for a whole bunch of things, but includes the Xbox and PC ecosystems. I think that’s the future, to introduce Steam and Xbox on more devices through streaming. They’ll always make physical devices like the Xbox in the same vein as Microsoft’s Dell PCs but I could see it becoming a platform across different devices.
Sony did well with Fall Guys as a day 1 on PS+ and that game blew up massively because of it, and the success on PC probably came off the back of that.
Some PS+ games I’ve picked up have probably done well off the back of it with DLC purchases; Borderlands 2 I got as a freebie but picked up a couple of DLC packs as I enjoyed it so much.
Merging PS+ and Now is a no brainer. I’m not sure I can see big games dropping day 1 on PS+ as I think it would need to be a regular thing to get people to sign up who wouldn’t otherwise.
The PS+ Collection is a good move but will need to keep expanding or rotating games to make it worthwhile.
GamePass still seems great but is still a fair gamble but one that will hopefully force Sony to respond.
@Thrillho Yeah, and maybe the PS Plus Collection will be the thing that evolves into the GamePass competitor and PS Now will be a separate thing. If the Collection gradually increases in size and adds PS5 games, and starts to rotate, then it’s basically become a miniature version of the GP idea, with again the only major change being the lack of new games. Right now many might argue that 20 high quality Greatest Hits — some of which are hundreds of hours of content by themselves like Monster Hunter, P5, and Fallout — is actually every bit as good a deal as having access to 200-300 games which includes the likes of EA sports games that are several years old and small indies that are charming diversions for a couple hours.
“We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.”
@Th3solution my bad, it is wordy!! 🙈 I agree the article is one sided and your points about Sony are really interesting. I think plus, now and the base ea subscription combined is actually around the same price as gamepass ultimate but sony messaging around that is not great. Plus is better than games with gold. Tbh, it's the streaming thing I don't get about sony. Switch is partly so big in Japan because of portability and the WiFi is meant to be one of the best in the world. With 5 g becoming available as well, Ps now on smart phones, with a handset like Microsoft has for xcloud play, would do pretty well I think. That and pc are probably Microsofts best chance of hitting that 50 million mark rather than just consoles alone.
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