Megan Salisbury writes:
"DLC is one of those things where you love it or hate it. Those who hate it wish it to go away and unfortunately, that will not be happening any time soon. DLC is a part of a gamer’s life no matter what we say. There are good DLCs and there are atrocious DLCs to be offered. Some DLC offered by companies directly insults the intelligence of gamers while other DLC is just plain terrible."
Starting today, Game Pass Ultimate drops from $29.99 to $22.99 a month. PC Game Pass will also drop from $16.49 to $13.99 a month. Prices may vary by region.
Beginning this year, future Call of Duty titles won’t join Game Pass Ultimate or PC Game Pass at launch. New Call of Duty games will be added to Game Pass Ultimate and PC Game Pass during the following holiday season (about a year later), while existing Call of Duty titles already in the library will continue to be available.
Its nice there is some kind of drop... but is that all they really value CoD to be, a lousy $7 a month?
I was hoping it would drop by $10.
That $7 equates to $84 per year - which is more than COD new ($69.99 + tax).
So - you can get the exact same thing - and save a few bucks - or you can skip COD and pocket the savings or use toward another game - or games if on sale.
That’s how I’m taking it - and is enough for me to sign back up after canceling the day it went to $29.99.
It's unlikely that COD is going to be the only title they stop offering day one, but we'll see how they play their hand.
Including Call of Duty in Game Pass is just leaving money on the table. When the Elder Scrolls VI releases hopefully Microsoft doesn’t launch it into Game Pass. Then it can make more profits and use it give more value to Xbox console owners!
Can’t wait to hear how this will be spun extremely positive. 🤣
I wonder why knowing Microsoft thick head something must has happened in the background in the levels of Xbox one and Kinect 🤷🏿
Any price cut is a good thing in this day and age, but it also reveals a flaw in GamePass' design that we've all been calling out for years... it's unsustainable, especially with day and date releases on new games. COD won't be the only game they exclude, they're setting a precedent with it that they'll likely expand upon in the future.
At least they're being realistic about it now. I bet in the future we're going to start seeing them try to subsidize the high price of new consoles by making you buy 2-3 years of gamepass with it to get the console cheaper. I'm still not sure that'll be enough to save either the hardware or gamepass, but we'll see.
price cuts are good, the removal of Call of Duty is clearly something they are planning to leverage. But considering everyone around N4G claims Call of Duty sucks, it's not a big loss now is it?
Well, they're removing their biggest game from being Day 1 on the service so GamePass users can buy it instead. That's the intention.
They increased the price to $30, then removed COD and dropped it to still be above the old price.
It's an understandable compromise but the consumer Ultimately is getting less.
Think the calculation is that *most* COD users don't play that many games and aren't interested in GamePass. The GamePass users who do like COD would just buy it anyway. MS reportedly lost out a lot of money last year putting COD on GamePass.
Well Call of duty could just be the beginning. What other games can they trim from the service to get the price down? How long before it's just the Xbox core first party studio games and not the one to everquired?
Create an interesting scenario with Call of duty as well. Will people wait a year to play it? Does that split the fan base? Will it hurt to Call of duty more than a benefits Game pass? These are all legitimate questions which we will find the answers to in the coming years
And I don't consider my post negative spin just realistic observation. At the very least this backtracking can be seen as an admittance that the previous strategy of gamepass was not sustainable as most of us said.
I'd get rid of the EA and Ubisoft+ too. That should bring the price down more. The only game from either of those parts of the service i played was jedi Fallen order / survivor. both of which i also bought on disc so it was more of a convenience i didnt have to put the disc in to play when i was playing them via remote play. And really that is why i still use GPU and PS+. its the convenience of having the games ready to play from a remote location. I havent picked up my consoles controllers in at least a few years. I guess that makes me a bad gamer, but so what. i'm still playing the games, just not physically on the machines themselves. GCloud and Portal are my go to now.
They’ll say no one is buying game pass so they had to drop the price , even though it’s been extremely profitable.
Why remove CoD if it's *extremely* profitable then? Why even increase it to begin with?
Always funny seeing those that defended the price hike go "how you gonna spin this now!" after the price drops.
You should be thanking those that called it out. Obviously this is a good thing especially with everything increasing nowadays.
Also, what happened to the reason why that the Activision acquisition was good for gaming was that CoD would be day one on GamePass? Another backtrack on that I guess...
What removing CoD on GamePass shows, is that it's not sustainable for for the more popular and/or bigger budget games because of the sales you lose out on like people have been saying since inception. It never made sense to put CoD on there unless you thought it's popularity would draw in a lot of subscribers which it obviously didn't. And if it was as sustainable as people claim they wouldn't have increased the price while putting it on there in the first place.
In my region, it’s still more expensive than it was before the last price hike, but it’s a far more viable price point.
Losing Call of Duty from the service, honestly, has zero effect on me, and given they chose to make it so, it’s probably not the big seller they originally thought. Overall, it’s really good news, but I still think they have work to do on the tier structure, having Premium and PC at the same price point with different features feels odd.
Yep take COD out. Them waiting a year is interesting but it make sense. They don't want certain ppl waiting 4 to 6 months they want fomo and maximum sales. Wait a year while the new one releases.
Ok so far so good.
Circana data shows Resident Evil 5 as the best selling Resident Evil game in the US, ahead of Resident Evil 4 remake and Village.
So the most successful RE is the one where a white man is killing Africans.
This can't be real.
New leaks from Dusk Golem detail cancelled Resident Evil projects, including a Rebecca focused Revelations game, while stating no Resident Evil 5 remake is in development.
Capcom's willingness to invest in experiments and scrap them sets them apart form many other developers (Nintendo have a similar methodology). Far too often companies push a game setting or game mechanic that is just not that good and the final product is middling or poor.
The COD DLC does not belong on the list. $15 for 5 maps is fine. And it's completely optional.
Online passes, map packs, custom packs, etc.....
These type of DLC are the worst and are made to rip-off people.
Great DLC is like the Undead Dlc for red dead redemption, Old World Blues for fallout, or like borderlands The Secret Armory of General Knoxx and Oblivions Shivering Isles.......
I disagree that online passes are unfair.
If I were a developer/publisher, I would be just as upset knowing that more copies of my games are being sold used, putting money into the pockets of everyone aside from those who actually created it, as they seem to be.
Nothing wrong with the second-hand market. But with companies like Gamestop who do everything in their power to persuade you to keep returning to their stores and buying used, well, I don't blame them for putting something in place that gives them SOMETHING for their efforts.