28
votes
Xbox Game Pass is getting major changes, with a new tier without day one games, and a range of price increases
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- Authors
- Jez Corden
- Published
- Jul 9 2024
- Word count
- 643 words
Microsoft doing Microsoft things. Can't just have a clearly named service with clearly defined tiers, and god forbid you keep using that name for more than a handful of years. Let's just go full circle and call it "Games For Xbox Live" and "Games for Windows Live."
Still better than Google and their insistence on changing their chat program name 3x a year.
After Sony fumbled with their three tier Playstation Plus thing (I'm still annoyed about that), I'd say customer confusion is just the name of the game now that everyone is raising prices.
Playstation Plus is ridiculous. I just want to see the user messages in Bloodborne, the most basic online service, but when I was looking I just seen a really expensive plan that gave you all kind of games I don't want. I like to buy physical games and I really don't like the idea of the subscription service for games.
Wait til we get "Game Pass for Work and School" and "Game Pass for Small Business Premium (Plan 2)."
New Game Pass and Classic Game Pass too for good measure.
I hate that they just had to name visual studio code that. Makes any searching for original visual studio a nightmare. You can't just exclude the word code because that's the problem space they're both in. Aaaarrrrgh
Can someone explain what Gamepass for Console is? Why can’t new users sign up for it?
It's Game Pass only for the Xbox Console. Other forms of Game Pass allow you to play games on PC as well, so one could pay less to have the full library as long as they are still grandfathered in.
Supriesd it never happened sooner. Because it feels like MS has a business plan with a massive question mark between what they've done and ALL THE PROFIT!!
GamePass was poised to be the Netflix of games and they were counting on the subscription charge to run in the background for people to have a big library they can dip into. But as the new subscriber numbers leveled out, they threw a ton of money at more and more indies/third parties and the Day 1 AAA releases made for good marketing but poor businesses. So now they're in the red running the service, AAA game sales and spending on games that do not have a significant audience. And we're not even looking at Redfall, Starfiedand and Halo being tossed on the pile of shame. (I know Halo is passable now, but definitely below expectations).
It's no secret that there is no Game Pass deals going around anymore. They straight up admitted to haveing no idea or leadership capacity to direct their many smaller studios. And I don't think they have any framework for performance metrics with Game pass in the mix. They were definitely forecasting losses to corner the market but I can't imagine it was as significant as it is. Now I'm curious how many package and price changes they can get away with in a year.
I also have a more philosophical issue with Game Pass . Nintendo and Sony have their own issues but I keep thinking back to the meme of record MS profits during the studio purge interview. It's that clear signal to every developer. Performance and quality means nothing. A game is only as valuable as it profitability. And only the workers will be punished for poor leadership.
Hell, Game Pass even fulfills the age old piracy tag line: "why would anyone buy our games when they can just get it for free".
Not even that, as the sad tale of Hi-Fi Rush and Tango Gameworks shows.
It was ever so. Leadership can be a useful thing, but it's never worth 12,000x the salary of the janitor. That guy cleans up the shit streaks the COO leaves on the toilet seats.
I still don't get this. Not just from the game perspective*, but MSFT finally had a proper foothold into Japan. A market they have tried for decades to tap into. So a studio of a GOTY contender is shuttered and they lost their foothold in Japan for like, the third time now? I guess we really are only considering the short term these days.
it couldn't have been that big an economic burden. The Japanese economy is abnormally low right now while still housing some of the best talent in industry. It's the absolute best time to hoard Japanese talent as a US studio.
*Apparently Crash 4 sold 20m copies... and their next step was this premium battle royale no one asked for. So if that didn't prompt an immediate follow up, you know they just want that COD levels of money
From the Article:
Official article: https://support.xbox.com/en-US/help/subscriptions-billing/manage-subscriptions/game-pass-updates-july-2024
Regarding Xbox Game Pass for Console: