I'm enjoying this. I knew it.

Still not sure how you can put a AAA game on game pass when it first comes out without taking a big financial hit. People who already have gamepass will benefit, but will they gain enough new subscribers to make a profit off the game?

So Microsoft has an issue that all but the willingly blind saw for years. They have no exclusive games. All these years with the wait and see, it’ll be different in a year, the games are coming, and so forth. It has been generations of the exact same talk, while Sony and Nintendo fans used the argument that all Xbox was is Halo, Gears, A Forza, then repeat. Sucks to hear but it wasn’t unfounded. It’s undoubtedly true. All these years instead of putting money into their own brands, building teams up, taking chances on new IPs, and looking to create the next best team, they decided to create gamespass. It is essentially other companies older games, a few new titles that the developers aren’t confident in or have been paid extra for, and the same few tired Xbox exclusives that have been in rotation for years. Yeah you get a Ori which was like a flashlight in the blinding darkness, or cuphead which was a payed timed exclusive. (Same thing Sony does for early access call of duty maps or whatever) but man that’s few and far between.

Whats the quick fix after all these years of NOT listening to the fans AND the non fans? Buying companies. Once those games hit for free that should get people happy to pay their sub right? We can skip hiring, searching, promoting, and selecting the right people. We can jump straight into already established series. What do fans do until then? What they’ve been doing for years silly! Wait…. wait…. and wait again.

Microsoft is learning quicker than they'd like to, that GamePass ultimately is NOT the future of gaming.

No AAA 1st party games no subs…simple

Wait until the deal goes through

You guys need to give MS game division a break, Gamepass is only 5 yrs old, it needs 15-20 yrs more to be the best new thing. Just wait...

My advice call up take-two.

As of now GP is a service to rent mostly current/newly released low-budget/Indie games along with classic first-party games,old AAA multiplats & every blue moon a new bigger budget game like Plague:Requiem. GP needs interesting new bigger-budget games such as AA to AAA games.

That's the strategy, release a day one AAA now and then and cool off for a while
In the meantime, people are still having a active subscription and auto renewal
That AAA game is paid in full in the meantime, plus huge profit

i think this great interview will tell you the future of xbox, i dont like it but it makes sense, more service games more phone free 2 play games and more microtransactions with less AAA games coz they cost a lot and take long time to make and dont sell well.

when call of duty alone, 1 game makes more money than game pass that cost a lot, i dont blame them to rethink again,
microsoft is rethinking its strategy
https://www.youtube.com/wat...

If you hit all games option and go down the list there's not much on there as most are just old games. I only check newly added if there's anything good to play but lately newly added games include game previews

I made the mistake of buying a 2 year subscription bundle with my SeriesX and I initially enjoyed playing some older games I had missed such as Gears 5.

After 2 or 3 months though, I found myself scrolling through the lists and not finding much that was 'new'. I genuinely have not turned on my Xbox in around 5 months now and find myself only playing PS5 and Nintendo.

I am a little interested in Plaguetale but I can't say I view it as an essential title that I must play immediately, I personally found the first game to be quite average, especially in respect of poor voice acting and repetitive gameplay. So that is the biggest title they have added in a while, but for me personally, there are other games that are more interesting on other platforms.

Less shovelware, more quality. Simple

As a Series S owner, GamePass is like walking through blockbuster back in the day.

Tons of things that make me think "I guess I can try this?" but few things I would actually pay $50+ for.

I mean, Halo Infinite was my first Halo ever....and probably my last. Microsoft needs decent exclusives and giving away "free" games doesn't fix the issue.

Phil changed the tone of everything once the EU stepped into the Activision deal .

Microsoft just can't launch enough games that make any smart gamer subscribe them for 12 months. That simple. I don't even now if you need to subscribe for more then 3 months and clean any game worthy... That's why they are buying publishers.

The problem for them is that this Gen is even worst then last gen in term of quality and quantity of games. Something unbelievable. That's why they are spending 80 billions in publishers even if it will take them a decades to have profit, not revenue. Profit.

Is not the first time Phil change its tone like that rendering a previous tones in the dust.

"failed to hit its targets around Game Pass subscription growth."

I hate this metric we apply to everything these days. If something isn't growing or didn't grow as much as we thought it would then it is chalked up as basically failing.

Stream games will have lag, and with that in mind, it's hard to play especially in NETFLIX they have lag with pause and play.

Even more evidence why they are desperate for this Activision deal to go through. People are not gonna go flocking to GamePass because of Bethesda rpg's.

Sounds like the they are figuring out you can't give games away and make money. Gamepass would have to be at least twice the cost it is now to be profitable with the number of subs they have out there.

really really surprised that we've heard about 1st party games since before series x released and still haven't seen them. i'm a big fable fan and it sucks that we STILL haven't seen anything.

When you don’t release games what do you expect? It was cool in the beginning with the free games and then reality set in. You’re done playing everything good it had and now that the games have stopped coming, you have no reason left to remain subscribed and no incentive for potential new subscribers.

Games dry up, numbers will follow suit. It’s that simple.

MS's target with GP seems to be in the billion(s) when, as far as I understand, for all the hype they're still behind Sony's version of GP.

I love Gamepass, but 2022 was bad. Some good games coming in the next month finally, but the rest of the year I can't think of many games I played. Next year will be a good year, but it's not surprising Gamepass failed to meet goals this year.

Tell me again how the multiplatform strategy was supposed to fix everything. Look at your results and compare them to Nintendo, which keeps thriving with exclusives. Your loyal fans are gone. And let’s not forget the pile of IPs you purchased only to let them rot.

The worst thing is this is down from last years numbers/expectations which was down from the previous years numbers/expectations. You think about how long “down” has been a consistent part of the communication and you realize those subscriptions are what’s holding that boat together. The price cut of gamespass is still a price raise in a string of price raises. They are trying to use players to offset the missing revenue. Now call of duty is out of gamespass, which is literally WHY they bought the company. To draw people to the subscription. They realized they missed a boatload of money and that wasn’t sustainable. Now you pay for it like you would have if they never bought the company… so why buy the company? Mind you those billions still need to be paid back. Yeah it gives you a chance to say we make the biggest FPS… but the internal conversations must be brutal at high level on topics that really matter. Like revenue. Profitability. And ROI for the shopping spree.

Is this like the 10th quarter in a row they're down 33% on hardware how is that even mathematically possible. You would think their mediocrity would Plateau