Xbox Game Pass, Game Pass Ultimate now Includes EA Play! [XGP, GamePass]

After having one of the greatest seasons in the history of MLB, Shohei Ohtani is the perfect choice to grace the cover of @MLBTheShow 22 -- launching day one with @XboxGamePass on April 5. Learn more: https://news.xbox.com/en-us/2022/01/31/mlb-the-show-22-cover-athlete-and-xbox-game-pass-announce/

 

All hands meeting today

Spoiler: shh

The biggest Bets
Xbox Game pass
Windows 11
Microsoft cloud

In that order. They are going all in

From FY 15 cloud revenue was 5.8B , FY21 69.1B . Gross Margin 44 cents on the dollar and now 71 cents on the dollar

Moving our old customers to the customer's new. Game disks to digital.

Game pass is part of their business model bravery. Imagine a world where there is an xbox programed into your tv and you just stream from the cloud.

Big Azure Cosmos DB push, Microsoft viva and windows 365

Xbox All access is popular customers increasingly want to just bundle into a single monthly payment.

MS is the worse at Freemium/Free2play catagory.
They have tried with Office web apps , one drive , azure free account, teams , power bi , solitare , halo infinite for pc.
They have failed to make a freemium business with hundres of millions playing the free thing and 10s of millions paying.

$85m revenue from Solitaire a year from advertising.

Engineering 5 seconds to sign up , 5 minutes to wow
easy set up , sharing - look at wordle

Gaming CSA Revenue fy 22 3.9B , 3.8B hard ware aim to subs 6.8B , hardware 7b both FY30

xbox has gone from 30M MAU in fy 14to 55M Mau

adding new initiative - Microsoft Brand Love
Number 1-2 in market cap but ranked 4th of the group . They never make it to the top 3.

Higher brand love - price premium , try more of our products , come back and advocate for Microsoft

Product surfaces are incredibly valuable
Windows spot light reach /mon 5.7B impresion avg ctr 21% awarness , action center , soft landing 300m 1-5% activation , start menu 6B .06% acquistion , microsoft account promo 50M .4% conversion , edge new tab page 6.7B .2% usage
94% of in product game pass gross adds from microsoft account and start menu suggestions.

Sounds like they are really proud of the xbox series about its creation. Sounds like they are going to push more content like that

 

Microsot or specifically Xbox?

 

It was microsoft total

 

Valve Is “More Than Happy” To Help Microsoft Integrate Xbox Game Pass With Steam, Says CEO Gabe Newell (gamingbolt.com)

 

A very good and solid decision from Valve, adds alot value to the SteamDeck.

 

I don't think they have much of a choice. They aren't dumb and they know how popular subscription services in music and movies/tv is. Them getting gamepass on steam will prevent Microsoft from pulling people away from steam. I think a steam pass would be interesting but they would be totally reliant on 3rd party support and while I would love to see Valve bulk up and start releasing bangers every year I don't see that happening.

The only company (outside of sony and ea who already have pass like options) would be Epic and that would come from them adding in a cheaper license fee to become part of the epic store pass

 

Bandai Namco Pacman Museum coming on May 27:

 

I probably should finish Outriders, as it'll likely rotate out at end of March since it's been a year.

 

Good month. Want to try Far, Cloud for Flight Sim at last and would love to give Guardians a go.

 

What would be really helpful is little icons, or possible even overt reminders, of games which you have started, not finished and which are about to leave Game Pass. I mostly play games start to finish but occasionally I get sidetracked and distracted and forget to return and finish games I really do want to finish. Having a solid deadline would definitely be good motivation.

 

MS Flight Sim on Cloud(the service & literally)...





Tommy McClain

 

What do you mean, literally?

 

I think he means the game is known for its beautiful clouds and now its running on the cloud ?

 

Tunic available on GamePass now.

 

love the art style, should of choose this for the title music though (near perfect album)

 

Looks good. I’m getting some Below PTSD flash backs here though. People think souls titles are too hard, play Below original. My god

 

Yeah, original Below was not my jam because of the time sync needed to recover from 1 silly mistake.

Tunic is also available on PC Gamepass too. So if worse comes to worse, I'll load it on PC with CheatEngine to make it suitable for my desired experience. From what I'm hearing, it's not as tough as a Souls game.

 

there's one thing about Dark Souls is that death is trivial loss of souls. That's it, and some loss in progress in terms of getting back to where you need to go.

Below is you lose your body and your entire inventory. You lose your progress. And the levels are randomly generated like diablo so it's not even like you know where to go or have to watch for new traps. And you have to fight your way back to your body with less gear, no lantern, and if you die, it's done before getting your body, fresh restart. If you do survive eventually you'll encounter a really hard fight. ANd that fight is going to eat all of your consumables, all your resources, your gear etc. and then you don't gain anything. There are no level ups nothing. You just keep going except now you have less and now you're going into harder territory. You step into a level where you're not prepared for and you start dying. You constantly need food and water but the deeper you go the harder the levels get.

So frustrating below is.