It seems to work for games that are lower in price or indie as it gives them more recognition. However, not $60-$70 AAA games.

These guys flip flop everything. What a disaster.

It will always depend on the game, and it is up to developers to negotiate a deal best for themselves.

At the very least, it is another option for a studio to recoup losses on a game that didn’t get the attention it deserves; sometimes that can allow a studio to avoid shuttering over subpar marketing (which happens all of the time to great games).

Why wouldnt it depend on game to game anyway.

Hahaha,

All these armchair analyses in this thread are trying to debunk an actual company that actually put out a game, and attributed an increase in sales due to GP. Only on the internet, and specifically on N4G can you find such lunacy, devoid of facts and straight presenting biased opinions as fact. The man and company have made a product and tested it and can produce real results, but you gonna tell him he is lying?! wow.

As for MS saying it cannibalizes sales, no shit Sherlock, but the goal is to offset physical game sales with subs! I fail to see why people are still hanging onto something MS said that is a fact, you have to look at the context. All digital media with sub-services are looking to not sell copies but to get people paying each month...if they fail on that that is a different story.

You guys are repeating the same-ish about cannibalizing sales; individual games, physical or otherwise are not their prime strategy. That's like saying oh shit, Netflix aint selling DVDs or Blu-rays, and trying to hold them to that goal each time when it's not their strategy...they would escort your silly ass out of the building lol.

These guys are jokers. They probably got their money up front.

This is what it will look like over the next 10 years: Game Pass will eventually cost as much as MS Office $70 to $100 a year. So they will make up for the losses. They just need to take more space by buying up territory. This way, like Windows, everyone will be forced to use it for the most consistent experience. It will not be the best experience, because once MS gets everyone, they will lower the quality to barely tolerable and then raise the prices even more.

Sounds like fun...

Ofc you're a small developper.....
You would NEVER turn down the money MS gives in exchange for putting your games on Gamepass.
But for A/AA/AAA developpers, Gamepass eats away a part of their sales because nobody is gonna subscribe to Gamepass to play Everspace. They will subscribe to play those A/AA/AAA games. Everspace and games like it is just going to be an added bonus in players' eyes.

I actually buy a lot more games since getting Gamepass, however counter intuitive that is, but I almost never buy a title for full price now. Not sure what positive effect that trend can have on gaming as a hobby.

Then why are more and more 3rd party developers skipping xbox and are now supporting switch and ps5 much more? Is it sonys fault?

I can see Game Pass reducing sales of triple AAA games on release while increasing lifetime sales of games especially games that don't have much media exposure.

I've bought games I've tried on Game Pass, mostly for PC but some on Xbox including seventh and eighth console generation games (physical and digital, I prefer physical but that's not always an option).

Such statements defy logic. Most consumers will not buy something they have access to for free as a part of monthly subscription service. There may be some special exceptions to this rule but the majority simply will not spend money if they don't have to.

Except I would've bought plague tale requiem if not for gamepass...so there you go.

“This is quite interesting for sure, although it should be noted that this applies to EVERSPACE 2, and might not be reflective of game sales in general. Also, EVERSPACE is currently only available on PC, and the stats shared were from the game's Early-access period”

Wow jackpot.

yea we know thats not true.

Game sales <=> Game Quality
It can be both,,,,, A Great game and also a good game that sells a service..
Both the promise or IP to be.

Impact of Gamepass on a game’s sales probably varies from title-to-title.

Head\line,,,

Come on let's have some brains here. One developer's experience is just that, their experience. It may have worked for them.

Overall however it does not.

So MC lied...

Totally agree, all them 95% Xbox gamers not buying software not affecting sales since GP/S

How can 1 company have such inside info?
Or is this like "Russian roulette isn't dangerous, I pulled the trigger twice and I'm alive" kinda thing

but phil said games sales are a disaster on xbox

If a game is on GamePass I generally won’t buy it. The exception was for Shredder’s Revenge, but I bought it on PS and platinumed it there.

The PR campaign doesn't make any sense. Gamers aren't all stupid.

To a degree it does affect game sales. I probably would’ve bought the persona games, but hey-thank you game pass. Likewise there’s games I’ve actually bought that I wouldn’t even had tried-Vampire survivor and Prodeus.

It also saved me money-Now I know Soul Hackers 2 is trash-I probably would’ve picked it up on a sale or something.

....... Giving your game away for free doesn't effect sales.... I guess not if your games look like they're on SNES. But look at games on PS4 and PS5 that look like God of War or Horizon, then sure, I guess that's worth paying money for. Thank you for validating my opinion that indie games should be given away for free which is what Game Pass is.

In fact, Xbox is so bad and developing games, that they have to take them from Sony (MLB The Show) and give that away for free, even. Yeah

Gamepass does affect sales look at HiFi Rush imo

All this spinning. Are these people not getting dizzy?

It doesn't when a game is available on other plateforms where gamepass is not.

HiFi Rush wasn't a huge hit (in sales).

The lies, the beautiful lies.

I like game pass. Can't see how it is sustainable, but I like it. I will enjoy while it lasts.

now say that again on camera and pan around the studio so we can see the gun to your head

Games I played thanks to PS Plus Extra:

Shadow of the Colossus REMAKE
It Takes Two
Telling Lies
Overcooked 2
Bloodstained
Stray
Uncharted: Lost Legacy
XCOM 2
Spiderman: Miles Morales
Yakuza Kiwami
Kingdom Come Deliverance
Dragon Quest Heroes
FF7R Intermission
Guardians of Galaxy
Trials of Mana
Ace Combat 7 Skies Unknown
Far Cry 5
Star Ocean First Departure R
Scarlet Nexus
Ghostwire Tokyo

Games I didn't need to buy thanks to PS Plus Extra:

Shadow of the Colossus REMAKE
It Takes Two
Telling Lies
Overcooked 2
Bloodstained
Stray
Uncharted: Lost Legacy
XCOM 2
Spiderman: Miles Morales
Yakuza Kiwami
Kingdom Come Deliverance
Dragon Quest Heroes
FF7R Intermission
Guardians of Galaxy
Trials of Mana
Ace Combat 7 Skies Unknown
Far Cry 5
Star Ocean First Departure R
Scarlet Nexus
Ghostwire Tokyo

Imo it does effect sales in the long term. I don't think the subscription model can hold onto customers in the long run, once they have played the games they wanted they may not want to hang around and wait for new games to be added.

Gamepass is a good service. Love it.

The hostility here is astounding. GamePass is fantastic.

To smaller devs maybe not, money guaranteed and enough but lets see if starfield comes winning, dont think so

Game pass doesn't negatively effect game sales on playstation, pc and switch, that's pretty clear to me. Cant say the same for xbox though...

Affect*

We already know this is false from Microsoft's own documentation. Yes it probably helps some indie games but for most other games it hurts their sales, especially big AAA releases.

Yeah, sure, and video streaming services haven’t impacted sales of movies and TV series ;-)

I'm lucky that I only game share gamepass,there's no way I would pay for it.
There's just to much cartoon crap and 8 bit shovelware imo. EA access is just old sports games and launch day flops like anthem.Yes there are some good AAA games on there,but I purchased them all years ago before gamepass was even a thing🤷...I would rather just go bk to paying £50 per year just to play online but MS got rid of that option long ago ✌️

Bullsh_t

Super tired of all these individual examples. What is the trend? Microsoft says consumers are spending less on individual titles. They’d know.

🤷‍♂️ pc gamepass tho... a platform where most gamers would prefer to use Steam over any other gaming service

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