Throw in a few actuallys in there and then the plankton will believe the narrative.

microsoft in the early steps of throwing in the towel...at least they are saving themselves energy from the dookie that is the xbox brand and everything surrounding it.

Drugs are bad Mmmkay

You are right. This started with Sony and PlayStation Now. Sony's is even more to the point because there is no downloading. Just click and go. You could make an argument that OnLive (former name of PSNow) is the real catalyst for the whole games as a service thing.

Leave it to Microsoft

Ps now sucks ass.

Sony s*** the bed with PlayStation Now. It's a horrible, laggy, mess that's not worth the price.

Sega tried this in the 90's with the Sega Channel on the Genesis. They were way ahead of their time! It was 50 games a month for $14.95. They were doing broadband through cable before it was a thing.

Honestly, Microsoft has a very poor 1st party infrastructure so the value a deal like this offers is far less than if Sony or Nintendo did it.

I'm sure Sony could probably feasibly do it before Microsoft but technically speaking Microsoft has the advantage because they own the operating system in the first place.

In order for Sony to even do it first with PlayStation now it actually needs to be successful in the first place. As much as I think the idea is pretty amazing for casual gamers and families who may not have the funds to buy numerous games for their children I believe that it's just not taking off and not catching on the way Sony probably thought it would.

The fact that the removing devices from the service kind of shows that it's not as successful as they believed it could be.

I think Microsoft personally can do better going multiplatform because they're the ones that are technically selling less Hardware

not Sony...

As of right now Sony has sold more dedicated home consoles than Microsoft and Nintendo combined..

That doesn't sound like a company looking to go software-only...

I feel every single generation Microsoft just has one costly mishap after the other and I think the higher-ups maybe had enough and can no longer justify putting content only on one device while also catering to another operating system I think you might simply be seeing the beginning of the end and them simply becoming a multi-platform publisher.

@father- I completely agree I believe Game Pass just makes so much more sense than PlayStation now because you're not dealing with latency issues I believe PlayStation now makes more sense theoretically but in regards to how many people will really use it perfectly without any issue remains to be seen

PlayStation Now for it to work basically needs to have a ridiculously strong latency.

Game Pass for it to work simply needs a damn internet connection regardless of quality because once the content is download it it can be played regardless of internet connectivity or latency.

http://n4g.com/news/1773302...

Lmao, anybody remember this? How far we've come...😂

Personally i think It really sucks that MS is pushing in this direction.

Love playstation but ps now doesn't even compare to gamepass. Don't even try to argue it.

Alrighty there DillyDilly calm down. I have both systems and I even use my ps4 more overall but yeah......Playstation Now is definitely not as good as what Xbox Games Pass is about to be and already is.

@SpaceRanger Sony has PSN Now on certain TV's & Blu-Ray players so there you go they beat Microsoft to this

Dilly... Nope they can't sony entertainment barely make profit with 588M profit in 2017 it may seem alot but for the like of sony its alot of finnancial difficulties. Microsoft has the luxury to do this because they made profit of around 30 billions USD (21.2 EUR) its 60x more than sony.

Microsoft is terrible for the future of gaming. They are pushing a GaaS, all digital, no consoles, no singleplayer, service based, loot box, dlc future. They are helping to push the industry into a very unsavory direction. I don't understand how ppl can support this movement? I'll hold onto consoles, physical games, free dlc, and great singleplayer games as long as i can.

Downvotes, seriously explain how this isn't a giant desperation move by MS when they've got no AAA 1st party aside from Forza/Halo/Gears? They can't just give them all away and expect to turn profit without further bastardizing their other efforts. Look at Fable Legends being F2P and getting canceled because they didn't know if it would scam people enough.

It's long been discussed what Xbox could do to pull them out of this gaming slump- buy EA or Activision? Get acquired by Amazon?

No, they've just given up entirely. This is the beginning of the end for Xbox and I expect a replacement for the Xbox brand to enter the market as Xbox fades into oblivion. It's over guys, Xbox Done. Join Sega and Atari it's over Xbox.

Or the ones that make games want digital only thus not needing to pay extra to make disc & covers & cases ? Things are going digital yes there will be subscription service options yes. But they would be stupid to force it & not let us own the games if we felt like it so that will always be there

Like cable.......

@Krib

Agreed, with the current options available, Sony has the strongest lead with PSNow to potentially have a service where you don't need a console or certain hardware specs to play games.

@S2kill

please explain to me how warped my logic is. Because everything i said is truth. One company used streaming to be able to play their games on TVs and Bluray players without needing a console, and one didn’t. Based off of that, which company would you think was gearing more towards a console less future?

They're both new services designed with long term viability in mind. I find game pass a bit better for the immediate present and future, but streaming more viable for a Netflix style of service better for the long term.

I doubt either is meant as a replacement to traditional gaming anytime soon, and ms current services requires they maintain a hardware presence unless they're going back to pushing pc sales for gaming more.

I think they are because they already said it. Don't trust Windows Central. They are know to blatantly lie for the sake of lying. I am pretty sure someone at Microsoft is quoted as mentioning a successor and it is way better proof than WC.

I don't see it, the Xbox One X is Microsoft last console. Xbox game pass on the other hand will become the gaming service Microsoft needs

It seems a lot of people don't want MS making another console. Panos Panay/ the surface team are now in charge of Xbox hardware development, also Windows central isn't the only one who hinted at a new Xbox being made but Phil himself made reference to it late las year.

@Morgan

Lol

@Dilly

How is that even any of my business or related to the topic? Lmao. Such insecurity.

@343

How is Microsoft going to make itself whole? Companies don't spend money to lose it.

While I'm sure that's true the xbox division is the least profitable section within MS. The shareholders have been asking for its closure or chang of direction for years now. You can't compare gaming to being on almost every pc in the world as an operating system.

You are FakeNews

Sorry @all above a was referring to this which was posted not to long ago on n4g November 2017 NPD: Xbox One brings in more spending, but Sony sells more PlayStation 4s but anyway I'm not bothered who sells more I'm a gamer and buy games I want and that's about it.

Why are you trying to lie?

That doesn't mean that Microsoft is going to be in support of continuing to lose money from people not buying Hardware when they potentially could be making more money actually selling software to all platforms.

You are quite right Microsoft's overall revenue is higher than Sonys, however, the XBox gaming division has access to a small portion of that revenue and like it or not Microsoft is still beholden to their investors.

At the moment Microsoft does not make a royalty on PC computer games unless those games were financed and/or developed and/or sold by Microsoft.

what? more games are sold on xbox are you real? because i recall more sales on ps4 than xbox one so