Charlietus
Regular
Oh absolutely, the deal is done. It was just fantasy land what if.
Xbox Business Update Podcast | Xbox Everywhere Direction Discussion
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If MS have violated their conditions of sale, wouldn't (and shouldn't) the regulators pull them up on it and force their hand/penalise them?
I dont think you could tie any company down with a 'you can never raise prices' condition for something like this. Microsoft were simply making an argument, not making a promise. I'd be absolutely shocked if any regulators felt this was enough to pull them back into court over, even just for a big fine.
Not an expert on this by any means, though.
They can still be forced to divest it at their own loss. It depends on how they run the division over the next few years. Something similar was done to Meta yet they didnt even do anything anticompetitive with their acquisition. Here MS has actually gone back on a guarantee. If they continue like this, they could get in trouble
actually, that's a good move. People used to call it the poorpass -meaning it was something for the poor-.
Charlietus
Regular
Lmao
Frenetic Pony
Veteran
Microsoft has not, in a purely legal technical sense, lied a single time in a recent anti trust case. They pay their lawyers way too much for that too happen.
Charlietus
Regular
I didn't say they lied. Just that even if they are clearly upping the price because of it, they can literally say that Spencer saw a black cat and so he decided to do it. Regulators can't really prove it either way, unless they launch an investigation.
Charlietus
Regular
Either way, subscription based entertainment is just not sustainable across the board. There is literally one single company that could benefit from subscriptions (Netflix) and right now they have 14 billion of debt.
In gaming it should be treated as a secondary source of income, and Microsoft agrees now, since they have removed day one games from the base tier. Getting day one games goes from 11$ to 20$, that changes the value proposition significantly.
In gaming it should be treated as a secondary source of income, and Microsoft agrees now, since they have removed day one games from the base tier. Getting day one games goes from 11$ to 20$, that changes the value proposition significantly.
That doesn't prove your point. It drives up the value of the higher-tier sub and will prompt more users to upgrade to the more expensive option. At that level, the subscription platform might be worth far more money.
If you look at other products that have become subscriptions, like Office and Adobe, they have done very well, far better than selling standalone software. Of course, they production costs are far lower than populating games or TV, but it shows that subscriptions can generate far more revenue. Heck, even Sony's financial are only as amazing as they are now because of ongoing subscriptions. Subscriptions == consistent, reliable wonga.
D
Deleted member 2197
Guest
They "hope" more users will upgrade to the more expensive option but in reality people are getting tired of the "nickel and dime" strategies designed to empty your wallet, and IMO is the true nature of the subscription scam approach.
I'm not entirely certain in the current subscription setup the largest subscriber percentage is in the highest tier, where supposedly you have the highest value. Currently it is just conjecture to think any future scheme will be different or that consumers perception on tier value will somehow mysteriously change.
Given the option to buy games outright (whether physical or digital media) many might opt that route for any "need-to-play-now" games.
Charlietus
Regular
Those are not the moves of a company that wants to expand it's userbase.
And increasing the cost for day one games by almost 100% means that it wasn't viable to offer at those prices anymore.
Subscriptions services have stagnated:
So users have made their choice, unless cod somehow miraculously brings subscriptions back to growth.
I'm not saying it's going to work, only that it doesn't prove Charlietus's point that MS agrees subs should only be seen as a secondary income. There are other possible outcomes and we don't know MS's expectations. We don't know whether those who used the lower subscription were (and will be) willing to pay the higher amount as still great value or not. Before this change, there was no reason to buy the higher tier so consumers would choose the lowest price that gave them the day 1 titles.
I doubt it ever is. I expect it's always the cheapest tier that's most popular and then decreasing from there. Maybe the 2nd tier will be most common in some situations where the lowest tier is really quite limited, like, say, one user only versus tier 2 being a household with 3 concurrent devices.
yeah, I am not that happy with paying a couple of euros extra a month for PC gamepass, but I don't understand why people are getting angry over this, the value proposition is still incredible.
I dont understand why they didnt do a price increase after releasing some of their bangers. The roadmap looks good at the moment but making a price increase before releasing any of the expected titles, just seems like the division is under pressure to deliver a return on the acquisition. Generally we should expect the subscriber numbers to increase because of COD later on in the year. This better work out.
Well Office and Adobe are industry standard software and get by hugely on business deals, knowing that they have little choice but to fork over the money.
Consumer video game market is a very different thing. And I think they were probably referring more to 'media content' subscription stuff rather than just any kind of subscription.
Only if you were already on GPU. If you were on XB GP Core, you had Day 1 games for £8/$10 a month, and now access to those Day 1 games is £15/$20. The cost of the service has effectively doubled.
Charlietus
Regular
Core never had day one games. Gamepass and (now just) ultimate had them.
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Deleted member 2197
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Game Pass Users Should Expect More Price Bumps in the Future, Says Analyst
We've spoken with MIDiA Research games analyst Rhys Elliott about the recent Game Pass price increase. He believes there will be more.
wccftech.com
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For those expecting Series X2 and S2 in 2026 and in 2028 Series X3 and S3, Seems like Phil is pushing to phase out console sales in Europe. A classic case of killing something and then wondering why it isnt performing well. Making consoles isnt the same as buying some PC parts and assembling them. Seems Phil's business strategy of launching two consoles at the same time backfired if Tom Warren's sources are not lying. So he's slowly pushing cloud gaming as the way to play Xbox with hw being something sold in North America.
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