"Success begets success." Just like Jim Ryan said.
I understand it, but that's exactly how all companies grow their userbase. That's the only way.
Yes, those games will not sell as many copies, but if they become a "must-have" for a platform, they will still be decent enough. For example, if 10% of the Xbox users buy that big game (a very common attach rate for popular titles), it can sell 5-6 million copies on Xbox. And applying the same 2/3rd sales split as Starfield, that game could sell 10-12 million copies on PC.
If an Xbox game collectively sells 15-18 million copies, that will create a positive ripple effect. That may encourage, say, 1 million new users to buy into Xbox.
So the next game, of the same quality, may sell a few more hundred thousand copies than the previous one.
Then Xbox can go from strength to strength and build this userbase big enough so it is selling 20 million copies like PlayStation. The Xbox + PC userbase are pretty much the same as PlayStation's anyway.
The problem with Xbox is that (1) instead of doing the hard work and building the foundation brick by brick, they are always looking for shortcuts, and (2) they have trained their audience not to buy games.
The problem goes further than that though. The only way Sony can afford to make a game like God of War Ragnarok is because they know they can eventually get it to ~20-30 million sales, thinking across PS4, PS5, PC. Spider-Man is a PS5 only game because now the PS5 userbase is getting to a point where it can sustain higher game sales and they know it'll have legs like Miles Morales did.
Microsoft can't afford to make 200 million dollar games year in and year out with the userbase they have on Xbox. That's also why their games release day and date on PC. They need that PC revenue in order to account for operating costs. Sony doesn't NEED the PC money, they just like it, which is why games release 6 months to 2 years later.
GamePass makes the equation even more difficult because you can get significantly less revenue out of a 200 million dollar title landing on GamePass. If anything Microsoft is going to want to REDUCE operating budgets. The reason why they landed on 4 large titles per year is because if someone buys a 3-month subscription to Game Pass Ultimate, that's 42 dollars on Amazon. If someone cancels GamePass after 3 months, you've sold them a AAA game for 42 dollars. They need the next release to ensure someone stays, but that's another problem Microsoft doesn't understand.
Just because someone buys Spider-Man doesn't mean they're going to buy Uncharted. Just because someone buys Ghost of Tsushima doesn't mean they'll buy Gran Turismo.
The reality is Microsoft probably needs 12 games a year to make GamePass even somewhat work. Look at Disney+ and what they added this year (albeit not great quality)
Movies
Indiana Jones 5
Elemental
Little Mermaid
Ant Man and the Wasp
Guardians of the Galaxy 3
Haunted Mansion
Black Panther 2
TV
Mandalorian season 3
Loki S2
X-Men 97
High School Musical S4
Marvel What If S2
Tiana
Ahsoka
There's probably a fairly large movie release every 6 weeks and there's probably a large tv show every 6 weeks.
Ultimately the price of GamePass is going to skyrocket though. They'll probably start with tiers though. You can't afford to put a 200 million dollar game (Starfield probably cost way more than that) on GamePass.
People like Adamsapple point to it being #1 or #2 on a lot of charts (with basically no competition) but it also fell off entirely during its launch month and in October. Normally a game like this would have legs, but we're not seeing that and that's probably because of gamepass. Everyone who really wanted this game has bought it now and the rest of just people who are curious about it and if they have gamepass, they'll play it there.
until the next COD where they get to try their hand at marketing it as an Xbox game. And then if the whole “PlayStation sells because they have the marketing for COD” doesn’t transfer to Xbox, then what? Wait for next Gen.
