One of the crowning pro-consumer wins of the current generation is undoubtedly Microsoft's launch of Game Pass. It's a service that has already delivered unparalleled value to ten million gamers with its low pricing and regular turnover of titles to play inclusive of each new first party game that Microsoft releases. It's also a service that Microsoft is keen to expand in the coming years via its Xbox line of consoles and the PC market with their current drive being to refine the service before expanding on ways of making it more profitable for the company.
As the owner of a gaming PC or an Xbox console you can currently pay a monthly fee and play multiple new releases at no extra charge. If Xbox is more of a secondary system for you then it's entirely possible to play all of MS's big releases for no more than £15 a year, if you make use of the various rewards systems they have in place then you can play them for free which is a set up that is literally unlike any that has come before it.
Despite the unarguable value on offer though Microsoft is currently looking to launch a new generation of Xbox console with Game Pass at the heart of the experience yet just over three years into the life of Game Pass there are 10m users which at best represents 25% of the number of Xbox One consoles launched showing that a significant proportion of those with the means to access this seemingly irresistible offer are in fact doing just that, and that's before MS faces having to sell the service on the back of selling the need to pick up it's new console just as they look at ways of accessing the service without the need for the console at all as in the PC launch last year.
There's also another curious anomaly. There have been questions about the long term profitability and viability of Game Pass which MS has been happy to dismiss saying it's a long game for them and gamers should just enjoy the current value of the service. That's true from a consumer point of view, there's no way of disagreeing with what is on offer. However, curiosity sets in when in a traditionally competitive market where one hit notion (ala lootboxes, Storefronts, MTX, Online Passes etc) springboard a sea of imitators... no-one wants to imitate Game Pass.
Streaming services like Stadia are a close comparison but typically you'd expect the big hitters like Sony to be diving on this new found revenue stream but instead they're ignoring it in the same way MS itself has ignored the not-too-long-ago VR push others were making. There's only typically one reason as to why this would happen, they don't believe it will work so are unwilling to invest in it.
From the drive to expand Game Pass and the clear marketing even within the Series X showcase it is clear Microsoft is all in on the service but with three years of history now built in, is it right of them to make Game Pass such a central focus for Xbox moving forward or should it be something more akin to PSNow as a supplementary option more focused on smaller and older titles?
Personally, I suspect they've Catch-22'd themselves with Game Pass. In the short term it was a stroke of genius. It monetised games that weren't bringing in money on Xbox One due to how much the XBO userbase had stagnated. The platform had largely stalled and the service was like a shot in the arm bringing in easy revenue and even monetising games like Sea of Thieves were early figures hinted it may have otherwise failed in a traditional launch effort. But - then the onus is on MS to maintain that and even grow it. Largely a lot of the backwards compatibility for Series X games is presumably more for Game Pass's sake as people won't renew if they need to commit to new hardware as well but at the same time B/C makes it more likely they'll wait too which means Game Pass sub is protected but the risk grows rapidly that they spend their next £400 on the rival system instead.
It must be so easy now for people with an XBO to think they'll hold on to it with Game Pass and get a PS5 instead which is great in the short term but means MS is fighting to maintain 10m users instead of the 40m the system sold to. They'd have probably been in a better position if they had built the Xbox brand back up to its X360 levels and then launched Game Pass but they needed a win. Once those belated XBO Game Pass users finally let the One go they will be deep into the PS5 Ecosystem also and then the question arises as to the worth of buying another system for continued Game Pass access.
TBH, I can kind of believe that PC Game Pass isn't widely used. There's not really much of a need for the service on the platform. Indie games, older games etc keys can often be picked up incredibly cheap and there's already a very strong massive user desire to keep libraries under existing services like Steam. For the tentpole titles, they're few and far between and if the user is desperate to play them for super cheap then the platform provides no shortage of methods of making Game Pass look dear even at £3.99.
It's also like the stories from devs about how good the service has been for getting their game noticed and earning for them. That's great but evokes memories of similar tales of the E-Shop before it became a convoluted mess where a lack of competition meant heightened exposure. More people play the games because they have cheap access to them and can see them on the store, they don't however buy the system on the basis of them - it's like a happy byproduct that eventually fades. You also don't get EA, Ubisoft, SquareEnix etc in that mix and without them it means that Game Pass will be perpetually dependent on Microsofts slow roll out of its own first party games to stop the service becoming focused on indie's and old releases unless they continue to cut their own profitability to shell out huge chunks of money to attract big titles temporarily like RDR2 which still won't be there near Day 1 when most want to play them.
I'm still at a point where as a consumer Game Pass is brilliant but whichever angle I view it I feel like in the long run it's probably not sustainable in its current form and more importantly will probably prove to be harmful to the Xbox brand's ability to recover from the userbase drop off seen this gen.
As the owner of a gaming PC or an Xbox console you can currently pay a monthly fee and play multiple new releases at no extra charge. If Xbox is more of a secondary system for you then it's entirely possible to play all of MS's big releases for no more than £15 a year, if you make use of the various rewards systems they have in place then you can play them for free which is a set up that is literally unlike any that has come before it.
Despite the unarguable value on offer though Microsoft is currently looking to launch a new generation of Xbox console with Game Pass at the heart of the experience yet just over three years into the life of Game Pass there are 10m users which at best represents 25% of the number of Xbox One consoles launched showing that a significant proportion of those with the means to access this seemingly irresistible offer are in fact doing just that, and that's before MS faces having to sell the service on the back of selling the need to pick up it's new console just as they look at ways of accessing the service without the need for the console at all as in the PC launch last year.
There's also another curious anomaly. There have been questions about the long term profitability and viability of Game Pass which MS has been happy to dismiss saying it's a long game for them and gamers should just enjoy the current value of the service. That's true from a consumer point of view, there's no way of disagreeing with what is on offer. However, curiosity sets in when in a traditionally competitive market where one hit notion (ala lootboxes, Storefronts, MTX, Online Passes etc) springboard a sea of imitators... no-one wants to imitate Game Pass.
Streaming services like Stadia are a close comparison but typically you'd expect the big hitters like Sony to be diving on this new found revenue stream but instead they're ignoring it in the same way MS itself has ignored the not-too-long-ago VR push others were making. There's only typically one reason as to why this would happen, they don't believe it will work so are unwilling to invest in it.
From the drive to expand Game Pass and the clear marketing even within the Series X showcase it is clear Microsoft is all in on the service but with three years of history now built in, is it right of them to make Game Pass such a central focus for Xbox moving forward or should it be something more akin to PSNow as a supplementary option more focused on smaller and older titles?
Personally, I suspect they've Catch-22'd themselves with Game Pass. In the short term it was a stroke of genius. It monetised games that weren't bringing in money on Xbox One due to how much the XBO userbase had stagnated. The platform had largely stalled and the service was like a shot in the arm bringing in easy revenue and even monetising games like Sea of Thieves were early figures hinted it may have otherwise failed in a traditional launch effort. But - then the onus is on MS to maintain that and even grow it. Largely a lot of the backwards compatibility for Series X games is presumably more for Game Pass's sake as people won't renew if they need to commit to new hardware as well but at the same time B/C makes it more likely they'll wait too which means Game Pass sub is protected but the risk grows rapidly that they spend their next £400 on the rival system instead.
It must be so easy now for people with an XBO to think they'll hold on to it with Game Pass and get a PS5 instead which is great in the short term but means MS is fighting to maintain 10m users instead of the 40m the system sold to. They'd have probably been in a better position if they had built the Xbox brand back up to its X360 levels and then launched Game Pass but they needed a win. Once those belated XBO Game Pass users finally let the One go they will be deep into the PS5 Ecosystem also and then the question arises as to the worth of buying another system for continued Game Pass access.
TBH, I can kind of believe that PC Game Pass isn't widely used. There's not really much of a need for the service on the platform. Indie games, older games etc keys can often be picked up incredibly cheap and there's already a very strong massive user desire to keep libraries under existing services like Steam. For the tentpole titles, they're few and far between and if the user is desperate to play them for super cheap then the platform provides no shortage of methods of making Game Pass look dear even at £3.99.
It's also like the stories from devs about how good the service has been for getting their game noticed and earning for them. That's great but evokes memories of similar tales of the E-Shop before it became a convoluted mess where a lack of competition meant heightened exposure. More people play the games because they have cheap access to them and can see them on the store, they don't however buy the system on the basis of them - it's like a happy byproduct that eventually fades. You also don't get EA, Ubisoft, SquareEnix etc in that mix and without them it means that Game Pass will be perpetually dependent on Microsofts slow roll out of its own first party games to stop the service becoming focused on indie's and old releases unless they continue to cut their own profitability to shell out huge chunks of money to attract big titles temporarily like RDR2 which still won't be there near Day 1 when most want to play them.
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