Core being Game Pass + Online Play is effectively free online (or free Game Pass, however you want to look at it).
Game Pass Standard + Online Play for the $1 more than Game Pass Standard is effectively free online.
Xbox Game Studios + Bethesda + ABK |OT30| Why So Series X|S?
- Thread starter Andrei Rublev
- Start date
- Microsoft OT
Core being Game Pass + Online Play is effectively free online (or free Game Pass, however you want to look at it).
Game Pass Standard + Online Play for the $1 more than Game Pass Standard is effectively free online.
I personally agree with vix and don't think they're going to lose out on as much as some would think. It's something like 70% of all revenue for COD comes outside of buying the actual game. It's so heavy in MTX and tbh the more people you get in, even if you are getting the base game free, the more likely these people are to get on the MTX train imo. I would imagine they are going to have the most players ever for this year's version and if that means MTX goes up for cutting off some box sales of the lesser selling version iunno.
i mean it's just $1 and isn't an additive tier and you do gain other benefits (day one access, larger library). Console is a *separate* plan.
Okay but if you look at it that way, online play is already free with Game Pass (just with Core not with Standard).
The current structure is:
Game Pass Core - 25 games and online multiplayer ($10)
Standard - Full library and no online multiplayer ($11)
Ultimate - Full library, online multiplayer, PC-Console cross platform and game streaming ($17)
The reason it doesn't make sense is you shouldn't be paying more to lose benefits (in this case paying to lose online multiplayer). Literally no subscription service in existence other than Game Pass makes you lose a benefit included in the previous tier for a higher or middle tier.
I don't think they will do that. As long as EA Play and Ubisoft+ basic are on the platform, they will always be charging more for one tier over the other, which is essentially what Ultimate is over the regular.
They have to come up with a way to minimize and try to convert people with CoD. Give away access to the zombie mode or something for ultimate members or something.
I'd think overwhelming majority of people rhat are in GPU are for the Game Pass + Online. So you'd be eliminating the reason most people go to Ultimate (or cutting the price by $6)
I feel like the admittedly poor naming scheme is making things more complicated. If it was still called Xbox Live Gold would it still feel that way?
I feel like the admittedly poor naming scheme is making things more complicated. If it was still called Xbox Live Gold would it still feel that way?
Right, so then you can get rid of standard game pass and just have Core for $10 and Game Pass Ultimate for $17. Instead of Core for $10, Standard for $11 and Ultimate for $17 and have two tiers instead of three. No subscription service eliminates benefits by moving to a higher tier, that isn't how the subscription service business works.
No but it's not Xbox Live Gold anymore, when you go to the Game Pass site, they advertise Core on the front page. It is part of Game Pass. It's the cheapest tier of Game Pass. Games with Gold doesn't exist anymore, it's just a limited selection of 25 games from Game Pass that are in rotation every quarter.
Off topic, but have you heard anything about anything Tony Hawk related? Grubb said he heard their might be something happening with the IP, so I was curious if you're heard anything about that.
It's Xbox Live Gold with a dumb rebrand. The core focus of Live Gold was online multiplayer, the core focus of Game Pass Core is online multiplayer.
While that may be true, Xbox Game Pass social media accounts actively advertise "the new games" coming to Core and so it is treated as effectively another more limited tier of Game Pass. If you want to convert people to Ultimate, even more reason to get rid of the standard tier for $11.
View: https://x.com/xboxgamepass/status/1780234699656384709?s=46&t=5q2U08gXVStIC0OkwBKlhA
Maybe, maybe, I just don't know that any amount of money left on the table is acceptable anymore.
Aye, and it's all made worse by how rushed it is and how incredibly short sighted it looks to close those specific studios.
I'm not trying to make out like it would have been better if they'd closed other studios or laid of different people, but it's an absolute clown look to close Tango after praising HiFi Rush and publicly stating a desire for Japanese first party developers for years, and to close Arkane Austin after their first multi-player game was a bomb, after publicly regretting doing almost the same thing to Lionhead a handful of years ago.
This thread is moving insanely fast right now so I feel like it's already blasted past me and I've missed some news, but it's not hard to imagine a world in a few years where Microsoft is again talking about a lack of Japanese support or talking about wanting to revive Prey and wishing Arkane Austin were "still a viable studio" or whatever it was that Loftis said about Lionhead. And on top of that it's not a good move for trust. Yeah most customers aren't even gonna know or care this happened, but it's definitely going to make some developers think twice about working with Xbox, and it all but removes them from a fairly major talent market, one in which they already struggle.
It just smacks of a last minute decision made without a ton of thought to better alternatives, and one that probably could have been avoided with better or different long term thinking. It's not quite Embracer bad, but it's almost still worse because no one expected anything good from Embracer, everyone was just waiting for them to start blasting.
I don't think Gamepass is "broken". Everything in the industry has stalled.
I guess the main thing would be to put compelling games on it to drive growth to slowly turn the "Xbox has no games" crowd or people who don't even care Xbox exists or more regions where Xbox brand isn't strong. However, if no one cares about your games anyway, what's the point? I think that's what the leadership team is seeing, and could be pretty disheartening. They could release the best game ever and it probably wouldn't move the needle. You'd need consistent year over year worth of these game to change the tune for the people who still believe "Xbox has no games." You still see it on here, an euthisist forum. People still believe "Xbox has no games" and even completely disregard it in polls and discussion like Xbox gaming doesnt even exist. Thats the hill they have to climb.
Hard to say and honestly we'll never know about ABK financials anymore because Xbox puts up a lot of smoke screens for hard numbers.
Maybe we'll get another documentary: "In 2024, we closed Arkane Austin. We looked back on that and deeply regretted that decision. So two years later, we went back to that decision and wanted to undo our mistakes, so we found another developer to carry the Dishonored IP with the same charm and style you'd expect from Arkane. Going forward, we want to learn from that lesson of closing Arkane and give developers the support they need when things don't work out instead of closing the studio."
Paraphrasing but it would basically almost word for word be what they said about Lionhead -> Playground Games.
Paraphrasing but it would basically almost word for word be what they said about Lionhead -> Playground Games.
Phil gives a reason for a studio closure there that would line up for Tango tho. EDIT: And Arkane, possibly, from reports.
God damn. Jean-Emile called it exactly. I think we found Phil's replacement.
Interesting to see Phil's comment above about "Microsoft never closes game studios for P&L, it's always either leadership leaving (Lionhead) or the team losing passion (Ensemble)." Maybe you can argue that Arkane Austin lost its passion with Redfall so it could be similar to Ensemble but Tango absolutely does not fall under that criteria. That team had a lot of passion and John Johannas was going to lead a sequel for HiFi Rush so the lack of leadership angle doesn't work either. Shinji Mikami leaving sure is a factor but the studio still had strong leadership in Johannas.
God damn. Jean-Emile called it exactly. I think we found Phil's replacement.
Johannas had a vision too and that game won so many awards and was so critically successful and beloved by critics. I don't buy Mikami leaving as the reason the studio shut down. I don't think Xbox has a real reason for shutting the studio down, judging by Sarah Bond's complete lack of preparedness to answer the question and Matt Booty saying just one day after closing them that they need more games like HiFi Rush.
"Lost their passion".... lol. Don't worry about what that pathological liar says. Just read Jean-Emile.
I didn't mean to imply the reason it closed was because Mikami left. It's just pretty obvious that Mikami leaving is exactly the type of thing Phil gives as an example for closing studios. It's a one-to-one comparison really. The visionary founder left in both cases.
It was reports that didn't come from Xbox leadership that I'm talking about. Supposedly, a bunch of people left Austin and a good amount that stayed didn't want to make the game they were making. None of these are reasons to shut down a studio. It's just interesting to look at his reply because they pretty much line up exactly with these studios one-to-one.
Yes, they closed the studios because of money. Yes, that's true.
Yes but in the other example, Lionhead was making a shitty Kinect game and then was in development hell making a GAAS multiplayer game that they did not want to make and that was also causing some talent exodus and loss of morale. Tango Gameworks was left in good hands, with its talent in tact and with the creative freedom to do whatever they want to do and Johannas as the successor to Mikami.
Johannes isn't Mikami. This is a really silly argument. We both see that, right?
I know that. It's just, there was zero reason to shut down Tango. Not that I agree with shutting down Arkane Austin either but Tango didn't have all of the problems that have been reported by media that are in Arkane Austin with talent exodus and them being forced to work on something they didn't like working on. So I can actually make sense of Arkane Austin somewhat. I'm not arguing that Johannes is Mikami. I am saying that there are zero reports about behind the scenes issues with leadership at Tango and if leadership leaving ruined the studio, then fine. But by all accounts, we heard that Shinji Mikami left the studio in good hands. Lionhead DID have problems behind the scenes and with leadership.
NateDrake (TheHate) saying that he has been hearing Perfect Dark is NOT in a bad state and that maybe some of the rumors this week are from outdated sources. He ALSO believes we see it at the showcase.
I don't agree with shutting down Tango either (and this is speculation) but UraMallas isn't necessarily wrong. We don't know all the details. It could be that there were two teams (one of which, the smaller team, was Johanas') and most of the studio (ie the not Johanas team) wasn't happy and was floundering, hence it seemed along with the whole "far away from making a game" easier to shutter them vs retaining them. Someone else in one of the threads also suggested how it was the only studio in Japan and maybe that created timezone/logistics/other issues which also piled in.
Maybe similar to Asobi "vs" (not quite the right word I want to use there) Studio Japan, and how Asobi was only a part of the whole but in this case (Tango) the small team wasn't retained.
Phil doesn't say "we NEVER close due to P&L". He said he doesn't think they have and "almost always" been due to leadership leaving or loss of passion. Lionhead lost leadership over the span of a couple years starting around 2012 I think. I don't think Mikami is the sole reason, but if you really want to stretch it you could slot it in that category. Loss of passion, tbh I would attribute to Arkane Austin. *and* loss of leadership/seniority in some key roles (outside of like Smith and Bare).
But I think both of them are P&L in reality. There's also no other explanation for Alpha Dog Games other than P&L. It doesn't have to fit into those two given example categories because it's about the money always.
But I think both of them are P&L in reality. There's also no other explanation for Alpha Dog Games other than P&L. It doesn't have to fit into those two given example categories because it's about the money always.
I was being flippant but this is a concise way to say what I was driving at.
That's what I thought. We know the project was a mess when Crystal Dynamics picked it up and it had to be rebooted. I was wondering if these rumors were about co-development with Crystal Dynamics, but I didn't see anyone say that specifically. As I said before, they simply need to show off those games at the showcase. New announcements is where they don't have to go hard, that's what you can save for other events.
Yeah, I remember reading articles that Perfect Dark WAS a complete mess but then Crystal Dynamics kind of bailed them out and once they fully started to take the lead, things got better.
That's why it was so shocking to see Jeff Grubb say earlier this week that Perfect Dark is such a mess that Xbox doesn't even know if it's a first person or third person shooter yet.
Good to see NateDrake saying that the game is not in a bad state and should be ready for the showcase next month. Nate has less misses than Jeff so I'll trust him on that.
That's why it was so shocking to see Jeff Grubb say earlier this week that Perfect Dark is such a mess that Xbox doesn't even know if it's a first person or third person shooter yet.
Good to see NateDrake saying that the game is not in a bad state and should be ready for the showcase next month. Nate has less misses than Jeff so I'll trust him on that.
Mikami was an Executive Producer on every Tango release outside of the first The Evil Within. It's a title so nebulous that they gave it to Jay-Z in NBA 2k13. Johanas has been the captain of that ship for quite a while now probably.
We know that there will be at least three new announcements in the showcase (if not more, there probably will be more considering all of the leaked XGS Publishing projects) because The Verge leaked them: Gears 6, something else Gears related and a new DOOM game.
I do hope we see gameplay of games like Perfect Dark, Fable, Everwild, Contraband, State of Decay 3, etc though at the showcase. I don't expect all of them but these games were announced many years ago at this point. They gotta release them some day right?
Microsoft is a trillion dollar corporation that has its tendrils in every country in the world. Bethesda was managing Tango before Microsoft came into the picture. Literally across the street from Microsoft HQ is the US HQ of another company based in Japan. Rare, a Microsoft owned studio, is on the other side of the world. The idea that Microsoft couldn't manage one Japanese game developer is laughable. Executive is one the few jobs where you can admit that you can't do your jobs and it's other people that lose theirs.
I hope he's right, can't wait to see what The Initiative and Crystal Dynamics cooked.
I'm only regular when I've had my bran, so I have no idea what to feel. My Game Pass Ultimate subscription runs until 2026 and that used to feel like an infinity away when I re-upped for 3 years at the beginning of last year, but now it feels much closer. I've gotten a lot of value out of it so far this gen, but that's mostly because of the great Indies and third party titles on the service.
I've mostly bounced off the first party titles this generation other than Forza Horizon 5. I usually give them a try of course, but there's no urgency to play them since they aren't going anywhere. However, with all of the doom going around I've realized that I probably should go ahead and spend more time with some of these games while I have them for "free". So in that sense, I'm mildly enthusiastic about the platform since I know that most of these are fundamentally good games, they just didn't immediately click with me on the first go.
The promised achievement overhaul and making the leaked Sebile controller concept a reality would raise my enthusiasm level considerably.
I don't think game pass is broken. It would be perfectly fine if Xbox would sell at least close to PS or Switch but it doesn't.
I think this is as simple as that there are just zero Xbox exclusive games that would have as big impact as Gears of War, Halo 3 or Mass Effect back in the day. They lost a lot of great devs from that time, marketing is not even close and it seems they just can't hit it again with old and new titles. IP's like Halo, Gears, Forza Motorsport may be still good games but imo they just shells of former self and there is nothing impactful to replace them.
I don't think there is some magic in to why things are looking like they are.
Xbox One wasn't helpful either. I am starting to hate MS and there is less reasons to stay by the day but I have hard time leaving my account and library so how easy of a choice it must be for people that aren't attached like me.
I am not saying that times in the industry aren't hard but it seems xbox positoned itself in really hard place on top of that by destroing it's image consistently.
They have great hardware and some amazing offers like game pass that just doesn't work without bigger audience and why would there be audience when you can't launch IP's that are soul of Xbox in a finished state.
Sorry for rant but it comes from old love to this brand which they rejected lol :)
I think this is as simple as that there are just zero Xbox exclusive games that would have as big impact as Gears of War, Halo 3 or Mass Effect back in the day. They lost a lot of great devs from that time, marketing is not even close and it seems they just can't hit it again with old and new titles. IP's like Halo, Gears, Forza Motorsport may be still good games but imo they just shells of former self and there is nothing impactful to replace them.
I don't think there is some magic in to why things are looking like they are.
Xbox One wasn't helpful either. I am starting to hate MS and there is less reasons to stay by the day but I have hard time leaving my account and library so how easy of a choice it must be for people that aren't attached like me.
I am not saying that times in the industry aren't hard but it seems xbox positoned itself in really hard place on top of that by destroing it's image consistently.
They have great hardware and some amazing offers like game pass that just doesn't work without bigger audience and why would there be audience when you can't launch IP's that are soul of Xbox in a finished state.
Sorry for rant but it comes from old love to this brand which they rejected lol :)
Every time I think about this it just gets worse. It was so fucking casual for them. Someone felt like some box had the wrong number so they destroyed a team of people, literally put them out of work, shatter something irreplaceable that had already proven its value.
I hate the choice (yes, choice) to run things this way and give so little respect to people.
I'm not gonna like, burn my Xbox, I still prefer playing games there. I don't think Sony is any better anyway. But it sure sucks a lot of the joy out of it.
I hate the choice (yes, choice) to run things this way and give so little respect to people.
I'm not gonna like, burn my Xbox, I still prefer playing games there. I don't think Sony is any better anyway. But it sure sucks a lot of the joy out of it.
If just Riot launcher and Vanguard anti-cheat weren't trash.
I know it's Mike Ybarra but this is actually a good read on Xbox's strategy and the future of Xbox this time instead of just being a Phil apologist.
View: https://x.com/qwik/status/1788964907482013784?s=46&t=5q2U08gXVStIC0OkwBKlhA
TL;DR since it's an essay:
- When Mike Ybarra was at Xbox, Satya Nadella never unilaterally dictated things from top down, he empowered his leaders under him to make the decisions they thought were best and Satya is a great leader.
- The Board doesn't dictate what happens day to day
- The idea that the "market isn't growing" is a PR excuse, it's not a real reason, it's your job to drive your own growth even when the market isn't growing
- Xbox's strategy has failed and that's the real reason for these closures
- Xbox has the teams to make great games, they just haven't consistently been putting out great games. Not having great games leads to a decline in hardware sales and in subscriptions.
- There are two paths for Xbox's future:
- The first is if Game Pass is the strategy, they have to go all in on making those games exclusive to the service and hardware and be 100% committed to your console hardware, exclusives and the Game Pass service. You need to consistently have 90+ rated games to drive these console sales and satisfaction and those games being available on other consoles will negatively impact console hardware growth and subscription service growth when your subscription is only tied to the console.
- The second is if Xbox is not willing to do this, the alternative is to become the biggest publisher in the world. You leave hardware and publish your games across all platforms that exist and then make that content and your subscriptions available on all platforms that exist.
View: https://x.com/qwik/status/1788964907482013784?s=46&t=5q2U08gXVStIC0OkwBKlhA
TL;DR since it's an essay:
- When Mike Ybarra was at Xbox, Satya Nadella never unilaterally dictated things from top down, he empowered his leaders under him to make the decisions they thought were best and Satya is a great leader.
- The Board doesn't dictate what happens day to day
- The idea that the "market isn't growing" is a PR excuse, it's not a real reason, it's your job to drive your own growth even when the market isn't growing
- Xbox's strategy has failed and that's the real reason for these closures
- Xbox has the teams to make great games, they just haven't consistently been putting out great games. Not having great games leads to a decline in hardware sales and in subscriptions.
- There are two paths for Xbox's future:
- The first is if Game Pass is the strategy, they have to go all in on making those games exclusive to the service and hardware and be 100% committed to your console hardware, exclusives and the Game Pass service. You need to consistently have 90+ rated games to drive these console sales and satisfaction and those games being available on other consoles will negatively impact console hardware growth and subscription service growth when your subscription is only tied to the console.
- The second is if Xbox is not willing to do this, the alternative is to become the biggest publisher in the world. You leave hardware and publish your games across all platforms that exist and then make that content and your subscriptions available on all platforms that exist.
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I've never had an issue with them ever since they rolled it out back in 2019 or whenever it was. Has worked better with the game pass integration than blizzard
If that's what you're hoping to hit, you have really unrealistic expectations.
Still. Very few titles are going to hit that mark and if you're chasing that constantly then you're not going to hit it much more often than not. Especially considering he says profit, not just revenue. What happens when CoD and Diablo start flagging?
Damn, I always had issues with it. Had to install it via website or Epic, but was still awful experience. At least Battle.net was smooth for me, I've seen a lot of complaints there. Disabling the extension in Xbox App fixes some problems.