WAT? Third place for game subscription services on XBox and PC?
Business aspects of Subscription Game Libraries [Xbox GamePass, PSNow]
- Thread starter iroboto
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WAT? Third place for game subscription services on XBox and PC?
Haha no, third place for consoles sold. The foundation for XBOX game pass. The marketing has been all about how the console is so important. And that no they don't wan't xbox to just be an app that you run anywhere. Then on the other side of the mouth, their actions are all about anything but an xbox console, and indeed xbox as an app (again, game pass, crossplay, xcloud, PC, steam, switch, and the list goes on)
Things can change in console market. At some point last-gen Sony was in third place behind Nintendo and Microsoft. Look at where they are now. Markets change. Game Pass is a probably hedged or aimed at adapting to potential major market changes.
With some games being +40% without gameplay thats kinda becoming a thing
me too, WIndows store was not in my radar at all as i bough games from steam and humblebundle. But now i use 1 dollars gamepass PC, and bough 2 years of xbox live gold (still in dispute with the seller tho, the code didnt work) to be converted to 1 dollar gamepass ultimate.
But after 2 years... will i continue gamepass at normal price? i'm not sure.
Long term, no-one knows. Short term, no, but that's only because the business model involves funnelling so much money in that it can't die. Netflix, Spotify, et al, have never been able to pay their own way. The plan was to grow and grow them until they could. However, that may not work as intended as we get hop-in, hop-out usage without the traditional yearly-lock-in subscriptions.
Putting it another way, up until Netflix, contract entertainment was pricey and contracted. Netflix is cheap and contract-free, seeing huge adoption, but not much money, leading the likes of @DSoup to question how long such businesses can go on for. Will they last forever, or will we see a dot-com bust where this new, experimental business model just fails?
Same goes for PSNow. When Sony bought Gaikai and released PSNow, it was presumably priced at something that was a money maker on limited use. Now competition has driven down pricing, perhaps it's a loss leader, or barely making any money?
We also have the likes of EA Access. At $30 a year, it's cheaper to use than buying the annual FIFA and Madden. However, unlike GO or PSN which serves up third party content, EA is only serving their stuff, which means if someone wasn't going to buy an EA game one year out of the three games they would have otherwise bought, EA are quids in if that person has an EA Access sub. For the console companies, they lose the sale on every single title played on sub.
But then, reports from MS says the purchase rate for GP subscribers is higher than non-subscribers, suggesting the relationship between 'free' games and purchasing is a far more complicated one.
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That's only for Vault games. It's $100 a year for premium to get access to the latest games.
Ah, right. So that's the sort of pricing I'd expect to make money, as opposed to the $60 a year all-you-can eat offerings from elsewhere.
Have to wonder if the companies are offered reduced/nil store fees on digital purchases while a customer is playing via the subscription (active subscription discount).
e.g. "We'll pay you for something something playtime quota for # of gamers something quota (??????), and you get more $ of the purchase if the person buys with the subscription."
For instance, Xbox Game Pass users get a 20% discount -> is that basically extra 10% to the publisher (vs standard 30% of the pie)?
Edit: done edit
Says ModEdit
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D
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Yup. Whether Game Pass good (or bad) for Microsoft should not factor into this for consumers. Even if this is not good for Microsoft, consumers would be silly to ignore it. While not directly equatable, PS+ last gen where I was getting PSP, PS3 and Vita games, was just stupid. I often went months without paying for a game, just the PS+ subscription which could be had at ludicrously low cost due to cards, exchange rates and so on.
Competition is good. Owning the platform that isn't no.1 in terms of total sales = cheaper game because everybody not at no. 1 are generally trying harder.
Let this never change!
I just there was more visibility on the economics of this type of business. I don't we can assume the Netflix economics translate to videogames.Agreed. I can't understand the relentless need to Microsoft fail at this. If only to spread FUD for your arch rival. If it succeeds(even if a little) then consumers win. Like I said before the rhetoric just screams anti-consumer to me.
Tommy McClain
Where are people stating they want this to fail?
Side note here :
Google has posted for the first time ever their ad revenue from YouTube.(15.15 billion)
Case in point in that even if you are Uber successful, companies may not want to outline the success of their product. Useful consideration for everyone always asking for numbers as gloating them as being the requirement to prove success.
https://www.theguardian.com/technol...urce=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf
Google has posted for the first time ever their ad revenue from YouTube.(15.15 billion)
Case in point in that even if you are Uber successful, companies may not want to outline the success of their product. Useful consideration for everyone always asking for numbers as gloating them as being the requirement to prove success.
https://www.theguardian.com/technol...urce=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf
I dunno.
I don’t know what will happen to Netflix in the long term but I highly doubt it’s service model goes anywhere.
Netflix generated $20 billion in revenue with almost $2 billion in net income in 2019. It got an easy break with cheap content in its formative years. However, it’s sub base is large enough now where it can afford to pay market price for content.
I think consoles can definitely support similar services because those services are simply filling a void. Where as Netflix was a disruptive force. It delivers the same content in a slightly different fashion. It’s value lies with removing cable companies as gate keepers with their practices of bundling content providers and driving up costs to consumers. Game content will be relatively cheap at least at the start because the services mostly represent new revenue streams for existing content.
Game Pass and PSNow are more synonymous with TV while traditional game sales are akin to movie ticket sales. There is more than enough room for both because for the most part they don’t inherently compete for content.
Netflix generated $20 billion in revenue with almost $2 billion in net income in 2019. It got an easy break with cheap content in its formative years. However, it’s sub base is large enough now where it can afford to pay market price for content.
I think consoles can definitely support similar services because those services are simply filling a void. Where as Netflix was a disruptive force. It delivers the same content in a slightly different fashion. It’s value lies with removing cable companies as gate keepers with their practices of bundling content providers and driving up costs to consumers. Game content will be relatively cheap at least at the start because the services mostly represent new revenue streams for existing content.
Game Pass and PSNow are more synonymous with TV while traditional game sales are akin to movie ticket sales. There is more than enough room for both because for the most part they don’t inherently compete for content.
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Anecdote, due to gamepass, I purchased 2 years of Xbox live gold. Something that I never plan to do.
Did you use your Rewards points to get the subscription?
A week or so I cashed in $90 worth points to get 1 year & 4 months worth of Game Pass Ultimate.
I'm already back up over 8300 points or $10 with the Hot Deal going on.
Tommy McClain
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