The fact that they BUY more games is interesting, but I wonder if that will last. MS said GP was increasing their retail sales of first party titles a few months back too, but then we have Gears 5 that was heavily cannibalized by GP. My personal expectation is that subscription services will lead to more reluctance to purchasing games outside of subscriptions in the long run, especially as more of these competing subscriptions come up.
To give a personal example, when I first got Netflix it felt like an embarrassment of riches. It was great! I threw on movies all the time, tried things I never would have tried otherwise, and even purchased / rented more movies than before, just from the excitement of it all. After that novelty wore off, my habits normalized to roughly what they were before, or I probably watched a few more movies than usual still due to ease of access, but I certainly stopped purchasing more movies. Then, as the amount of content grew on the service, I became more selective about what I do watch. And as other services started becoming available, and I started subscribing to Amazon Prime and HBO, I tend to find it harder to justify spending money to purchase movies anymore, unless it's a REALLY special one to me.
I'm just really curious to see how this whole thing develops. I feel like the games industry tends to move faster than the film or TV industry, as consumer habits seem to change faster too. I don't think Game Pass will have a relative monopoly on this kind of service for very long, and I expect current customer habits to change over time. It'll be interesting to see what happens. I think it'll undeniably be successful, I just don't think the current metrics of success will be as valid in the longer term.
To give a personal example, when I first got Netflix it felt like an embarrassment of riches. It was great! I threw on movies all the time, tried things I never would have tried otherwise, and even purchased / rented more movies than before, just from the excitement of it all. After that novelty wore off, my habits normalized to roughly what they were before, or I probably watched a few more movies than usual still due to ease of access, but I certainly stopped purchasing more movies. Then, as the amount of content grew on the service, I became more selective about what I do watch. And as other services started becoming available, and I started subscribing to Amazon Prime and HBO, I tend to find it harder to justify spending money to purchase movies anymore, unless it's a REALLY special one to me.
I'm just really curious to see how this whole thing develops. I feel like the games industry tends to move faster than the film or TV industry, as consumer habits seem to change faster too. I don't think Game Pass will have a relative monopoly on this kind of service for very long, and I expect current customer habits to change over time. It'll be interesting to see what happens. I think it'll undeniably be successful, I just don't think the current metrics of success will be as valid in the longer term.
