It’s not like that MS hordes profits across divisions and says “you can’t touch this, it’s not your division!”. Sony doesn’t either. So profitability for the Xbox division is hardly relevant as MS is overall extremely profitable. They could run 5 Xbox divisions at a loss if they wanted and it would hardly put a dent on their balance sheet.
You should get on the horn with MS and tell them everything you’ve said here, they’d probably like to know that what they’re doing isn’t profitable.
It is still not relevant at all. That just means Sony is in a more precarious position. Xbox benefits from Microsoft’s overall profitability. $70 billion dollars of benefit to be precise.
You my friend, are 100% correct.Holy hell some of you are in denial.
Sustainable does not in any way shape or form mean profitable. It means you can keep it alive.
If Game Pass was profitable Microsoft would be screaming it from the rooftops. Screaming. But you have chowderheads like Aaron Greenberg who flat out say it's not, and MS reporters like Tom Warren also stating it's not. If Greenberg isn't even willing to bend the truth about it and he says its
But you, Bernd Lauert, know that it is because Spencer, a guy who never shuts up, said the phrase "its very sustainable." What that means is that MS is willing to subsidize it no problem. The key word in business is profitable. They will say that when they can.
But let me ask you this ... do you know what it costs to support these studios? These purchases the MS crowd are so enthusiastic about have running costs and they are extremely expensive. Game Pass is going to become a GaaS/MTX platform at the current rate. And that's fine honestly. But you aren't going to get the kinds of games that Nintendo and Sony deliver on a regular basis because the need to cover your costs with less money means a different model will be necessary. I mean come on, they are about to spend nearly 70 billion dollars, cash, on a company that pulls in around 5 billion revenue a year, where it's biggest series is on the decline. A company that had such little vision for itself, it shopped itself around to find a buyer and MS was the only willing participant! Somehow these massive new studio costs, and removing the need to buy these games on the Xbox platform, combined with MS' noted ability to manage studios and Activision's internal issues is going to result in some new force in the industry? Again, think and use your brains. I will be happy to be wrong, but we've seen stuff like this before. Repeatedly.
We are at 25 million GP users thus far, correct? Look at the complaints for this months games, and people saying they are going to quit the service potentially if output doesn't improve on this very board. I spent one dollar for three years. People are constantly telling others on here how to get multiple years for the price of one month if you've already done that deal. How many people in that number are from a trial over the holidays? Point is they are obviously not raking in cash monthly with this, and it's not this utopia service everyone is thrilled with and will keep forever. Yes of course some people are paying monthly but I bet the numbers in that sense are a lot lower than people think. Which is why it's ... "sustainable!" So again, why does Sony need to scramble on this? I just spent 45 bucks on Sifu and 80 on HFW. I am almost surely going to get GT7 even though I'm not that into racers, but it looks cool to me so I'll get it. That's in the span of less than four weeks that I've spent 200 dollars on PS software. I'm going to buy a bunch of Switch games this year too. How is that not execution excellence on their part? I would have bought Starfield on XSX this year had I not gotten access to it, and absolutely everything else they make, for a buck. What other games does MS even have on that scale for the rest of 2022? Which company sounds the "least smart" in this described scenario? You're saying Sony and Nintendo need to find a way to combat that?
I don't get the MS only crowd on this board, and it's like 5 or 6 people that send everything off the rails, without fail. Go buy some other platforms. Learn that it's ok to think these companies aren't perfect. I can think of plenty of things I think Sony or Nintendo could be doing better, because I'm not into these companies that way. But those two fan bases don't seem to have a cabal of users that jump into every thread to defend every move those companies make no matter which direction those moves are in! I see plenty Sony focused people on this board constantly criticizing what the company is doing. I have no idea what Nintendo focused people are doing, even though I'm one of them. Maybe we've just been so burned by that company we learned to get over all of this long ago.
I just want to talk about what games we are playing and what is fun, and why. Horizon unlocks in less than 12 hours. That's going to be awesome. Sifu is surprisingly good. Mario Kart 8 is going to start getting some new tracks starting next month, and I'm really excited for that. Xenoblade 3 will likely be incredible in September, not to mention all the other great stuff announced for Switch. Halo should be getting patches soon, so hopefully we can do classic co-op with friends again. Starfield in November of course. These are the kinds of things we should be discussing. Not lying about our favorite company because it hurts us to think they might not have brilliant people at the helm, or that they are, *gasp*, losing money . I really don't envy the mods. It's all so exhausting.
Now back to work and that horizon countdown.
6 pac fiddy needs to be blurier for the comparison to work.
Lets ignore the $180 upfront. And accuse the company not getting profits from that service.
Sustainability is the 1st process for profit. If the service can pay itself, it can generate profits.
Same for Sony. Sony other divisions helps SIE make those games. How do you think Sony achieves these quality? From dream farms? Both use their other division resources.
How do you reinvest money with a service that is not self sustainable? You are loosing money with the service so you can't reinvest it.
How do you invest in a service, if it loses money?
All people I know that use gamepass once in a while haven't paid the full price for the service even once. And none of them bought something on the ms/gamepass store yet. We've always used gamepass sales for something like 1$ for a month or even less.
An entire wall of text based on the false premise that Gamepass is losing money, when the CEO of Microsoft gaming said the exact opposite. Copium.Holy hell some of you are in denial.
Sustainable does not in any way shape or form mean profitable. It means you can keep it alive.
If Game Pass was profitable Microsoft would be screaming it from the rooftops. Screaming. But you have chowderheads like Aaron Greenberg who flat out say it's not, and MS reporters like Tom Warren also stating it's not. If Greenberg isn't even willing to bend the truth about it and he says its not a profit play ... you can believe that.
But you, Bernd Lauert, know that it is because Spencer, a guy who never shuts up, said the phrase "its very sustainable." What that means is that MS is willing to subsidize it no problem. The key word in business is profitable. They will say that when they can.
But let me ask you this ... do you know what it costs to support these studios? These purchases the MS crowd are so enthusiastic about have running costs and they are extremely expensive. Game Pass is going to become a GaaS/MTX platform at the current rate. And that's fine honestly. But you aren't going to get the kinds of games that Nintendo and Sony deliver on a regular basis because the need to cover your costs with less money means a different model will be necessary. I mean come on, they are about to spend nearly 70 billion dollars, cash, on a company that pulls in around 5 billion revenue a year, where it's biggest series is on the decline. A company that had such little vision for itself, it shopped itself around to find a buyer and MS was the only willing participant! Somehow these massive new studio costs, and removing the need to buy these games on the Xbox platform, combined with MS' noted ability to manage studios and Activision's internal issues is going to result in some new force in the industry? Again, think and use your brains. I will be happy to be wrong, but we've seen stuff like this before. Repeatedly.
We are at 25 million GP users thus far, correct? Look at the complaints for this months games, and people saying they are going to quit the service potentially if output doesn't improve on this very board. I spent one dollar for three years. People are constantly telling others on here how to get multiple years for the price of one month if you've already done that deal. How many people in that number are from a trial over the holidays? Point is they are obviously not raking in cash monthly with this, and it's not this utopia service everyone is thrilled with and will keep forever. Yes of course some people are paying monthly but I bet the numbers in that sense are a lot lower than people think. Which is why it's ... "sustainable!" So again, why does Sony need to scramble on this? I just spent 45 bucks on Sifu and 80 on HFW. I am almost surely going to get GT7 even though I'm not that into racers, but it looks cool to me so I'll get it. That's in the span of less than four weeks that I've spent 200 dollars on PS software. I'm going to buy a bunch of Switch games this year too. How is that not execution excellence on their part? I would have bought Starfield on XSX this year had I not gotten access to it, and absolutely everything else they make, for a buck. What other games does MS even have on that scale for the rest of 2022? Which company sounds the "least smart" in this described scenario? You're saying Sony and Nintendo need to find a way to combat that?
I don't get the MS only crowd on this board, and it's like 5 or 6 people that send everything off the rails, without fail. Go buy some other platforms. Learn that it's ok to think these companies aren't perfect. I can think of plenty of things I think Sony or Nintendo could be doing better, because I'm not into these companies that way. But those two fan bases don't seem to have a cabal of users that jump into every thread to defend every move those companies make no matter which direction those moves are in! I see plenty Sony focused people on this board constantly criticizing what the company is doing. I have no idea what Nintendo focused people are doing, even though I'm one of them. Maybe we've just been so burned by that company we learned to get over all of this long ago.
I just want to talk about what games we are playing and what is fun, and why. Horizon unlocks in less than 12 hours. That's going to be awesome. Sifu is surprisingly good. Mario Kart 8 is going to start getting some new tracks starting next month, and I'm really excited for that. Xenoblade 3 will likely be incredible in September, not to mention all the other great stuff announced for Switch. Halo should be getting patches soon, so hopefully we can do classic co-op with friends again. Starfield in November of course. These are the kinds of things we should be discussing. Not lying about our favorite company because it hurts us to think they might not have brilliant people at the helm, or that they are, *gasp*, losing money . I really don't envy the mods. It's all so exhausting.
Now back to work and that horizon countdown.
Man, you guys are cute.
How in the hell do the “platform holders” just invent ways to make this work? What a dumb ass attitude. I would absolutely "resist the change" because the change isn't going to work for business. Companies generally don't exist to lose money. While Microsoft can do it because the Xbox division is basically subsidized by the divisions that make money, and always have been, Sony and Nintendo cannot afford that because they are not trillion dollar behemoths.
Sony has already said the subscription model doesn’t work for the kinds of games they make. We know MS loses money on Game Pass. But you think now you are owed cheap games? Your attitude is ... “not my problem.” So you want games at a price that’s WAY below what they cost to make, and you’re proud of that fact. Brilliant. Truly a sharp mind you have there.
Let me ask you this. Do you expect people to pay you for your work? I assume yes. I bet there is even a chance you think you are underpaid. But for some reason you think it’s your right, and Microsoft’s/Sony’s obligation, to have a service they subsidize so you don’t have to pay for your hobby. What a selfish and short sighted perspective. I don't see how you and similarly minded people don't see how this doesn't work out.
I happily pay full price for games, because I like supporting the creators. Just as I expect people who want me to work for them to pay me well, because I’ve worked hard to have rare and high end skills. It's called understanding value and respecting other people's labor. But no, you think "just give it all to me for a couple bucks." I mean, WTF.
But at the very least, we are entering the next phase of this, which of course I've been calling for years. And that phase is people being proud of not paying. I said this model is dangerous because it devalues software. I, and many others, were told we were crazy and got the typical "laugh" responses by the small core gang because that "just wouldn't happen" (much likeDarkMage619 did above, because he has no argument to respond with, and no leg to stand on, so he tries to rely on derision as a rhetorical defense. But he knows I'm right. He knows it). And lo and behold, look at the proud language being used by people saying no way do they want to pay anymore. But at the same time people want more, while demanding they pay less. But at least they are being open about it.
I don't know where this goes at this point, but people are at least drawing their line in the sand. Good luck trying to tell a business you don't want to pay for product though, while they need to figure out how to make it profitable. And then when they pack it all in you'll be standing there whining "but muh video games!"
Dr Bass
. I was in a work.
Im sure this is partially targeted towards me. I’m not mad. I’m in the software engineering business. I know what the value of software is. I also have Game Pass as I’ve said over and over, so being mad is a straw man, and a pretty lame argument in and of itself. I mean that’s what you think you can come back with? Essentially “U mad?” Get a grip.
And your argument doesn’t work here. Because those prices are tied to individual titles. They live and die based on their own performance. It’s not the same thing as an all you can eat software buffet for one price. Again look at the numbers Netflix has in terms of subscribers. Nearly 10x of GP. Look at the struggles they are still having at that scale. Look at how much they charge now!
Your argument is not only hollow in this case, it’s just demonstrably incorrect. We’ve already seen multiple people on this board start to say, after having GP, “I ain’t paying for games.” It’s exactly the scenario I said GP could enable and it’s beginning to unfold on a small scale. That is literally the definition of devaluing games.
Let’s just hope it doesn’t continue.
Weird. Everyone I know pays full price for Game Pass and does it with a smile. And they buy a lot of stuff on the store. Like A LOT. Really. Everyone I know loves Game Pass and they all bought Xboxes because of Game Pass and they'll never unsubscribe. Well, that's everyone I know.
It's a numbers game.
Which is literally what I said no?
Good points, but I was mostly talking about Sony from a first party perspective. I would like to see Sony get a few more first party Japanese developers and back them with a bigger budget and marketing.Great article, even if they forgot that Sony also has the biggest 3rd party support and VR, or that they are also expanding to mobile (where they already have a mobile game outside SIE generating over a Billion per year) and PC (where they sell millions of copies of several years old ports).
After Tencent Sony is the gaming company that makes more revenue.
They are also the company with the biggest console userbase (111MAU).
Their console is where more games are sold (over 1700M on PS4 before the PS5 release).
They have the biggest games subscrpition service.
They are the ones with more exclusives in the GOTY winners or candidate lists of the last decade.
They have the biggest 3rd party support.
With PS4 and PS5 frequently break many gaming history records for any console platform in many areas.
They have 2 internal development Japanese studios plus a Japanese 2nd party publishing team. Plus basically all known Japanese 3rd party company has at least a PS4 exclusive and also publish most of their other games on PS too as multi or after a timed console exclusive elsewhere. Their console is the one with the biggest amount of Japanese games. They don't lack Japanese games.
Most games published by PS Studios aren't open world games, and their console is the one with the biggest amount of RPGs, both exclusive and multiplatform.
Regarding FPS, in addition to acquire Bungie who in addition to Destiny 2 seems they may publish a couple of new IPs in the next couple of years or so, they a 2nd party game made by former Bungie, Apex Legends or Bioshock Infinite folks and another one by former CoD BO, in addition to a multiplayer Guerrilla game being directed by the Rainbow Six Siege and Killzone 2 MP director. Plus also have all the multiplatform big guns, where their console is the biggest platform for them.
Seems that subscriptions will continue growing (looking at Xbox and MS console userbase/fanbase until maybe doubling their corrent size), but still are a very small part of the business. Games sold or F2P generate most of the revenue in the business.
Dude. Did you read the post I responded to? Whoosh
When Sony says Japan is very important for them, more than thinking about their potential sales on this country (which is only ~8% of their global sales), I think they mean about the potential worldwide sales of Japanese publishers and developers.
This is the tip of the iceberg. Sony have been very slow to synergies their various divisions. Sometimes downright stupid. They should have had gaming TV's ready years ago. Same with PS phones. Mobile games? Toys and merchandise for their various IP. Their is massive potential for growth. But they need to invest software programmers for their various divisions because they are too slow to roll out latest updates and functions for their devices. They should unify their products under one software etc.
Yep, they have a lot potential for synergies and growth, and seems they are already targeting and working on some of these areas:
Totally agree with you, but I can see MS going this "unsustainable" route for a long while. These first 5 to 10 years will be about expansion and eventually you will get their service anywhere, just like Netflix.Holy hell some of you are in denial.
Sustainable does not in any way shape or form mean profitable. It means you can keep it alive.
If Game Pass was profitable Microsoft would be screaming it from the rooftops. Screaming. But you have chowderheads like Aaron Greenberg who flat out say it's not, and MS reporters like Tom Warren also stating it's not. If Greenberg isn't even willing to bend the truth about it and he says its not a profit play ... you can believe that.
But you, Bernd Lauert, know that it is because Spencer, a guy who never shuts up, said the phrase "its very sustainable." What that means is that MS is willing to subsidize it no problem. The key word in business is profitable. They will say that when they can.
But let me ask you this ... do you know what it costs to support these studios? These purchases the MS crowd are so enthusiastic about have running costs and they are extremely expensive. Game Pass is going to become a GaaS/MTX platform at the current rate. And that's fine honestly. But you aren't going to get the kinds of games that Nintendo and Sony deliver on a regular basis because the need to cover your costs with less money means a different model will be necessary. I mean come on, they are about to spend nearly 70 billion dollars, cash, on a company that pulls in around 5 billion revenue a year, where it's biggest series is on the decline. A company that had such little vision for itself, it shopped itself around to find a buyer and MS was the only willing participant! Somehow these massive new studio costs, and removing the need to buy these games on the Xbox platform, combined with MS' noted ability to manage studios and Activision's internal issues is going to result in some new force in the industry? Again, think and use your brains. I will be happy to be wrong, but we've seen stuff like this before. Repeatedly.
We are at 25 million GP users thus far, correct? Look at the complaints for this months games, and people saying they are going to quit the service potentially if output doesn't improve on this very board. I spent one dollar for three years. People are constantly telling others on here how to get multiple years for the price of one month if you've already done that deal. How many people in that number are from a trial over the holidays? Point is they are obviously not raking in cash monthly with this, and it's not this utopia service everyone is thrilled with and will keep forever. Yes of course some people are paying monthly but I bet the numbers in that sense are a lot lower than people think. Which is why it's ... "sustainable!" So again, why does Sony need to scramble on this? I just spent 45 bucks on Sifu and 80 on HFW. I am almost surely going to get GT7 even though I'm not that into racers, but it looks cool to me so I'll get it. That's in the span of less than four weeks that I've spent 200 dollars on PS software. I'm going to buy a bunch of Switch games this year too. How is that not execution excellence on their part? I would have bought Starfield on XSX this year had I not gotten access to it, and absolutely everything else they make, for a buck. What other games does MS even have on that scale for the rest of 2022? Which company sounds the "least smart" in this described scenario? You're saying Sony and Nintendo need to find a way to combat that?
I don't get the MS only crowd on this board, and it's like 5 or 6 people that send everything off the rails, without fail. Go buy some other platforms. Learn that it's ok to think these companies aren't perfect. I can think of plenty of things I think Sony or Nintendo could be doing better, because I'm not into these companies that way. But those two fan bases don't seem to have a cabal of users that jump into every thread to defend every move those companies make no matter which direction those moves are in! I see plenty Sony focused people on this board constantly criticizing what the company is doing. I have no idea what Nintendo focused people are doing, even though I'm one of them. Maybe we've just been so burned by that company we learned to get over all of this long ago.
I just want to talk about what games we are playing and what is fun, and why. Horizon unlocks in less than 12 hours. That's going to be awesome. Sifu is surprisingly good. Mario Kart 8 is going to start getting some new tracks starting next month, and I'm really excited for that. Xenoblade 3 will likely be incredible in September, not to mention all the other great stuff announced for Switch. Halo should be getting patches soon, so hopefully we can do classic co-op with friends again. Starfield in November of course. These are the kinds of things we should be discussing. Not lying about our favorite company because it hurts us to think they might not have brilliant people at the helm, or that they are, *gasp*, losing money . I really don't envy the mods. It's all so exhausting.
Now back to work and that horizon countdown.
MS can definitely sustain it indefinitely. It might even become profitable in conjunction with MTX, but then that doesn't really end up giving gamers a good deal if you have to pay for content inside games. But that seems like clearly the direction they want to move in.
Clearly. I think they might have one or two games, focused more on Single-player with reduced number of MTX. But yeah, GaaS will be their bread and butter moving forward (and Sony too, let's not forget).
Sure, Sony will have GaaS games. But I also think they will continue to have plenty of single player games. I think crafting high quality gaming experiences is deep in their DNA, and right now, I don't think MS has that. I think the people that founded the Xbox division had it, but has since been taken over by MBAs and bean counters that don't know what a great game can actually mean to a person. I could be wrong, but their products certainly haven't reflected them having anyone like that since the 360 days.
Don't need to. They already know. But I appreciate that you care.
Basically yeah. That's why I gave up on Xbox. They have my favourite franchise (Halo) but I really don't like the way they are going with this. But Sony will strongly focus on GaaS, with a couple of single-player games coming out every year, but that's pretty much it.
No Gamepass is so profitable it paid for the acquisition of Zenimax and AB. Am I doing it right? MS insiders have already stated it's losing money. It's quite obvious by using common sense that it's losing money. If it was soo profitable MS would have shared the information a long time ago.
Xbox fanatics act like you're insulting a family member when you bring up Gamespass current profitability. People are going to discuss its pros and cons, regardless of how much they want to deflect any criticism.
That's not how accounting works. Gamepass didn't buy Zenimax and AB.
You trust people who don't know anything and are just speculating over the CEO of Microsoft gaming, who knows the exact numbers and is legally liable if he lies to investors. That's called coping
No, it's not. "Common sense" isn't an argument anyway.
Why would they? They don't share profits of any of their subdivisions, even the extremely profitable ones like Office and Azure.
While what you say is true, it has nothing to do with Gamepass.
Why? The games Microsoft currently has in their pipeline from their own studios aren't GaaS. Unless you mean that from the moment a game has a MP component where you can buy something, this automatically turns the whole game into GaaS/MTX. I would always exclude that in case there's also a SP experience without MTX.
