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[GHG]

Edit: Please disregard classic games from your consideration - this is a question and discussion is regarding (future) new games that are completely new to the market at the time of release.

In recent weeks there have been clear comments and signals suggesting gaming subscription service adoption has stagnated, which will no doubt be a worry to the executives who are dreaming of an all subscription future.

We've had Tom Warren state the following regarding Gamepass:

PS Plus growth has slowed:

Consumer Spending Growth on Subscriptions Like PS Plus Is Slowing

Maybe not the future after all

www.pushsquare.com

Nintendo's growth was only 2 million users Yoy (36 million to 38 million) :

Nintendo Switch Online has 38 million subscribers

Nintendo's online service has seen an increase of subscribers, with the Big N recording 38 million as of September.

www.shacknews.com

Ubisoft's director of Subscriptions is hoping for customers attitudes and habits to change.

Ubisoft subscription boss says consumers are still used to owning games | VGC

Consumers were faster to embrace the model of not owning CDs and DVDs…

www.videogameschronicle.com

Mat from NPD had the following to say earlier this year (commentary on subscriptions across the industry in general):

I stated a few years back that subscription service growth is not linear and tends to be front loaded. During that front loaded period it's easy for companies to get carried away and believe in their own hype (thinking growth will continue that way for the foreseeable future). We've already seen some top level executives take the decision to no longer have their bonuses tied to gaming subscription growth, the next stage is that we will begin to see which companies have overstretched themselves over the last couple of years.

If these companies want their sub services to continue to grow then they will need to make some changes. There have been talks of cheaper ad based tiers for some of these services, but ultimately it is content that drives subscription adoption and we've seen "subscription only" content become prevalent across a number of entertainment mediums.

So the question is, who jumps first and takes the inevitable drastic (and desperate) move to make a game exclusive to subscribers of their service at the time of release?

And secondary to that, what do you anticipate the market's reaction to be?

 

[kiphalfton]

Stadia

 

[bender]

Nintendo has done that already with a lot of their 99 titles. Tetris 99 had a physical release later and it and Pacman 99, I believe, had DLC you could purchase.

 

[Fess]

^ Didn’t realize Nintendo had already done it.

Voted MS.

It’ll be a tough and noisy transition for MS, but necessary. That’s how they’ll calm the fanbase once they start to release their games on more platforms. Gamepass will be the platform, and there will be exclusives.

 

[Topher]

Sounds like something EA would do

 

[Ozriel]

Certainly not possible with MS, since they increasingly benefit from on retail sales on Steam.

Not EA either. FIFA/FC people will riot.
Maybe Ubisoft? Adding to their cloud rights for ABK games, perhaps wrapping everything up in a sub. But it’s VERY unlikely that happens.

I’d vote ‘other’.

Edit: seems I misread the title. It’s about making a game exclusive, not their entire content. Nintendo’s already doing that now.

 

[Quasicat]

Nintendo has done that already with a lot of their 99 titles. Tetris 99 had a physical release later and it and Pacman 99, I believe, had DLC you could purchase.

Yep. Mario 35 was the one that sucked the most. You could only play it on NSO and then it disappeared.

 

[Lupin3]

Nintendo has done that already with a lot of their 99 titles. Tetris 99 had a physical release later and it and Pacman 99, I believe, had DLC you could purchase.

Came to post this.

 

[Skifi28]

There's only been one company so far that seems to be all about their subscription service in the expense of everything else.

 

[joeygreco1985]

Stadia had exclusive games and that shit did not work out

 

[Quasicat]

If this became something practiced in the industry, I would treat the exclusive title like I do exclusive content on video streaming services. I either don’t care, or if I do, I subscribe for a month and watch it…then I unsubscribe. I really hate paying for a bunch of monthly subscriptions.

 

[March Climber]

Nintendo has done that already with a lot of their 99 titles. Tetris 99 had a physical release later and it and Pacman 99, I believe, had DLC you could purchase.

It's insane to me how all Nintendo needs to do is to have a solid AAA/AA game output every year and they can literally get away with almost anything if they want to.

Or at worst, people are too busy fighting over the big 4k twins to pay attention to Nintendo's shadier moves.

 

[T4keD0wN]

Does "Nintendo switch online classic games" subscription count?

Other than that i dont see any of these ever making a game only available through a subscription outside of mmos, but if anyone tries out of desperation and not because of excessive greed it would likely be ubisoft since they are the only ones that are even remotely desperate.

 

[samoilaaa]

does the arm architecture mean that next xbox could be a streaming box ?

cloud gaming seems closer than ever

 

[Danny Dudekisser]

Stadia had exclusive games and that shit did not work out

Stadia had Orcs Must Die 3. It wasn't a real attempt at exclusivity. Which I'm kind of relieved by.

 

[bender]

Yep. Mario 35 was the one that sucked the most. You could only play it on NSO and then it disappeared.

Pacman 99 is dead too. Tetris 99 still gets earnable themes alongside a lot of Nintendo's first party releases. F-Zero 99 seems to be doing pretty well too. It and Tetris are easily the best of that formula.

It's insane to me how all Nintendo needs to do is to have a solid AAA/AA game output every year and they can literally get away with almost anything if they want to.

I don't really see it as getting away with anything. They are using these offerings to help push NSO subscriptions and the games wouldn't offer much of an experience without the online component.

 

[Woopah]

While the NSO games do count, they are online only and so would only work with a subscription anyway.

 

[StueyDuck]

None... because that makes no sense for them to do so even if they are desperate. Why devour sales when you can simply have both.

A streaming console however...

So probs MS, since I see them making a streaming console only sooner than Sony or Nintendo

 

[Ovek]

Well let’s see… Ubisoft actively hates gamers, there is no passion for gaming at every level from dev teams to management, the senior management staff including the CEO are not gamers and do not understand gaming.

Sooo Ubishit.

 

[Barakov]

I can see it happening with Microsoft. They REALLY want everything to be subscription based. So I see them as the one who are first going to dip their toes into this first.

 

[March Climber]

I don't really see it as getting away with anything. They are using these offerings to help push NSO subscriptions and the games wouldn't offer much of an experience without the online component.

By getting away with it, I mean specifically that Nintendo will sometimes do something first. People will shrug it off as Nintendo being weird and doing their own thing. Then later down the line once rumblings happen of other companies potentially doing said thing, people will ask 'so who's going to be the first to do ____' without knowing or at worst completely forgetting Nintendo had already crossed the line but were oddly dismissed for doing so.

This hasn't been the first time I've seen this phenomenon with Nintendo.

 

[Solidus_T]

Sounds like a Ubisoft move, considering they have recently told gamers to feel comfortable not owning games. Same goes for Microsoft and their "adorably all digital" op and emails laying out plans to spend Sony out of business by loss leading. EA would do this too.

 

[bender]

By getting away with it, I mean specifically that Nintendo will sometimes do something first. People will shrug it off as Nintendo being weird and doing their own thing. Then later down the line once rumblings happen of other companies potentially doing said thing, people will ask 'so who's going to be the first to do ____' without knowing or at worst completely forgetting Nintendo had already crossed the line but were oddly dismissed for doing so.

This hasn't been the first time I've seen this phenomenon with Nintendo.

Gotcha. In this case, they've backed into it. They wanted to be like Microsoft with Live Gold and Sony with PS+, but really don't have the amount of online releases to justify a yearly subscription, even at a reduced cost compared to the competition. So to bolster the offering beyond Mario Kart and Splatoon online, they brought back VC as part of the subscription and then cam up with the 99 concept. All combined, it makes the cost pretty easy to swallow. That is until you get to the Expansion Pack tier which while neat in concept, just seems expensive in my view.

 

[LakeOf9]

If I’m not wrong, the entire NSO model is this so Nintendo

 

[onQ123]

Sony Heaven game ( maybe)

Sega will probably make a game that's only playable from the cloud also because it's the new Arcade

 

[RoboCain]

Nintendo and Sony already did this with their retro catalog, why y'all want to pin this one on Microsoft?

 

[ShadyAcshuns]

Gotta be Ubishat, but if Crapcom had a sub service they'd be the first to try that shit.

 

[bender]

Nintendo and Sony already did this with their retro catalog, why y'all want to pin this one on Microsoft?

I don't think a retro catalog fits the criteria as they were available previously to purchase and can still be had on the secondhand market. I read this more as offering a new product and only available through a subscription in order to bolster subscriber count which Nintendo has already done.

 

[jroc74]

Nintendo and Sony already did this with their retro catalog, why y'all want to pin this one on Microsoft?

According how I'm interpreting the OP, retro titles wouldn't fit the question.

 

[Quasicat]

Pacman 99 is dead too. Tetris 99 still gets earnable themes alongside a lot of Nintendo's first party releases. F-Zero 99 seems to be doing pretty well too. It and Tetris are easily the best of that formula.

I never really think about Pac-Man 99 being dead since I still play it offline. The only way to do that was through the dlc packs and I don’t think you can even buy those anymore. I know it’s not online with other people, but with the way it’s set up, you really can’t tell the difference. Unlike something like Apex or Fortnite where you interact with other players/bots directly.

 

[Kdad]

Apple

 

[Belthazar]

Nintendo already did... Twice actually, with F-Zero 99 and Mario 35.

 

[ShadyAcshuns]

Gimmicky and quaint online titles are one thing, but what about major releases? That's when you know shit is getting real.

 

[ChorizoPicozo]

"Pay 100 USD to Play Early".

 

[IDKFA]

I could see Microsoft making a AAA Gamepass exclusive to test the waters.

 

[adamsapple]

Nintendo has done that already with a lot of their 99 titles. Tetris 99 had a physical release later and it and Pacman 99, I believe, had DLC you could purchase.

 

[GHG]

Gimmicky and quaint online titles are one thing, but what about major releases? That's when you know shit is getting real.

Yeh this is more what I'm referring to, not smaller online only games which would require a console online subscription to play them regardless.

 

[Three]

According how I'm interpreting the OP, retro titles wouldn't fit the question.

That's a fair point since it has 'at the time of release'

"Which company will be first to make a game exclusive to their sub service at the time of release?"

I don't think you can count streaming an old incompatible game a release.
Somebody has already done this too: Netflix. Laya’s Horizon and some other games got a Netflix subscribers only release. Other Netflix games like Stranger Things 3: The Game even got delisted from PC stores.
I personally think none of the big 3 will do this because they have robust distribution channels and it's more likely to be some other small subscription only company which doesn't have any store/distribution channels.

 

[Hanzaki]

Nintendo and Sony already did this with their retro catalog, why y'all want to pin this one on Microsoft?

You can buy most of the retro catalog games on Playstation. Its absolutely not exclusive to PS Plus...
I bought several PS1 rpgs on PS5 and I only have PS Plus Essential.

 

[Mr Hyde]

Nintendo is doing this with their retro catalogue on NSO. At least MS and Sony are offering a purchase option along with their sub service. Sony even has it for their classic catalogue they add to PS Plus. But Nintendo? Nope, they are giving you the middle finger if you want to buy their old games. It's so fucking infuriating and makes me resort to emulation instead of supporting them.

 

[TrebleShot]

Ubisoft or Sony,
Ubisoft pushing plus hard and it’s good but they will do it at some point on pc, they already don’t sell on steam so slippery slope.

 

[GHG]

Nintendo and Sony already did this with their retro catalog, why y'all want to pin this one on Microsoft?

At least get your facts straight if you're going to leap to the classic persecution complex.

 

[LordCBH]

I honestly think Ubisoft might be the most likely.

 

[digital_ghost]

Nintendo already did. All those nintendo 64 games and gba games on their subscription can't be purchased from Eshop correct?

 

[poppabk]

Don't see how this would be desperate, this would be a move you make when you are confident that your sub service is strong and new subscribers would stick with it. Hence, why it hasn't happened yet.

 

[Crayon]

Gee I said Microsoft without thinking too much because you're getting game pass rammed down your throat every day. Didn't even realize Nintendo was doing it already. And I think that counts, cuz I was going to say sure Microsoft would do it, but I really think it would stick to smaller games.

 

[SmokedMeat]

Both Apple and Nintendo have done this already.

 

[RoboFu]

Not in a move of desperation.. but Nintendo released BS Zelda back in the day on their satellite service sub.

 

[simpatico]

If you guys think Take2 is just going to let you have a GTA6 disc for $70 you're crazy.

 

[GigaBowser]

people says beer made me retarded and even I knows that subscriptons are dumbo i buy consoles and games who gives a crud about subscriptons??