It´s yours, D R Fz, didn´t see it until my version was on pending!

Publishers should start focusing on producing fewer but higher quality games. The likes of EA have tremendous resources, but in their haste to release the same titles each year many of the games fail to reach their full potential, scoring in the 6/7/8 range. Compare this with Nintendo who show you can be highly profitable while investing in longer development time to produce top notch games like Mario and Smash Bros.

I hope publishers see the value in offering paid-for patches instead of forcing the consumer to re-buy the game. Shelf life of games would improve considerably and good games would not go unnoticed amongst the swarm of re-releases.

Developers don't have the time to make the best out of a game when they have under a year to come up with the next version.

You know the world is f’d up when you can agree with Michael Pachter

Wouldn't it be the case of Pachter finally agreeing with parts of us rather than we agreeing with him?

I remember vividly that back in the day when GP was introduced and shaped further, many of us were saying that it's a great service on one hand. But were also already skeptical, too, as to how Microsoft would be able to keep the service running financially in the future.

Or/and how it would affect studios and game development in general.

As of March 2026, I think we have the answers some of us anticipated back then, when it was still Pachter who had forecasted «100 million subscribers».

Likely the next Xbox will have a premium price tag so they have some profit margin on the low numbers they sell. We all know that the bulk of revenue will come from 3rd party sales on other devices and perhaps some from game pass.

And even Gamepass flopped. The end goal of Gamepass was to be hegemonic, to kill game purcahses with subscriptions. But that never happened. Game sales are still thriving, Gamepass' subscriber count has stalled, it's costly for MS and studios and its price is increasing.
The purchase of Activision allows them to hide Gamepass' failure. Not suprising that gamepass was removed from Nadella yearly bonus, they knew they would never hit the targets.

I am not a Pachter fan , but I have to agree...who would have though. It used to be to sell cheaper hardware that is subsidised by First party game sales in the first few years until you can reach millions owning the console and by that time you can cheapen your hardware because the tech have been revised. With gamepass on everything and developers losing sales that option is now limited. With the onset of more options for games and developers going for Gass gambling FOMO style games and dlc consumers have become rightfully picky. Add that to growing hardware prices and escalating ram and pandering to society... it kills a brand. Most og gamers are gonna find you out and stay away. Put on the pressure of companies demanding higher revenue for sales, the poor developer has no other option to put a new coat of paint on a copy of another successful game. Innovation , what we are looking for doesn't happen a lot because the danger of failing could lead to budget cuts and them letting you go...so you play it safe and make a copy of a copy. Yes we get genres and types but 80% is the same game we have had for ages. So then because you are scared you let them put it on gamepass and you know you know at least what you get.