It seems like a short term vision to say yeah Sub dollars to recoup lost sales however there’s a few things we can learn from this.
1) Microsoft has stated they are not satisfied with the overall growth of gamepass despite claiming a profit
https://www.eurogamer.net/m…
2) the model tends to lead to development of more live service esq titles like halo infinite with its 10 year plans, sea of thieves as examples.
3) AAA games are not coming to it day and date were seeing indie games that may not have reached an audience getting some recognition and good for them but it’s not like GTA 6 is going day 1 game pass maybe 3 years on when sales drop so really that’s telling.
4) there’s a push to still buy DLC for the games you don’t technically own if it was profitable why not include it
5) were seeing dramatically high job cuts and lower quality first party titles comparatively vs the 360 era
6) while Sony and Nintendo can launch a game in a traditional way and sell north of 10 million units Microsoft base their metrics on made up numbers like downloaded or played.
7) what percent of users honestly simple create a new email every month to get the $1 for 3 months offer over and over again or exploit the gold loophole that still exists but 3 years of gold at a deep discount from key sites pay $1 get go ultimate for 3 years for $50 these users must make up a percentage of their sub and contribute nothing to the revenue.
At the end of the day being pro consumer is good but when it comes at the determent of the industry and your quality that’s different you can’t be pro consumer all day every day you need to turn a profit to keep pushing for better quality games
