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"Microsoft has tried the first path and it did not work at all. We believe we have a meaningful subscription service." - Jim Ryan

near

Gold Member
"That has driven them to make the large acquisition. I talked to all the publishers, and they unanimously do not like Game Pass because it is value destructive, not only on an individual title-basis, but also or an industry level."

He's not wrong, it is certainly value destructive for publishers and devs, but it is also the best consumer pro move this industry has seen in a long fucking time.
 

StreetsofBeige

Gold Member
Hey, at least Ms gives gamers value and outs day one games and uploads the entire Bethesda catalog. A good deal for gamers.

If third party devs hate GP (or any sub plan) they wouldn’t be doing GP or PS+ including day one games launching on sub plan which Sony gets too sometimes. It’s just that Sony does the partnership deal for smaller budget games

I’m sure Sony said the same thing about PC gaming years back. But the second they start porting games to PC including day one Helldivers 2, MLB The Show on Xbox, and gaps getting smaller and smaller for their bigger budget PC ports notice how they all shut their mouths about cross platform games.
 
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tmlDan

Member
It absolutely is. Plenty of incredible games for Day 1 with subscription including all first party and even some solid 3rd party titles like Lies of P.
yea, if you like 7/10's sure

white teeth troll GIF
 

Crayon

Member
That's all fine, but it doesn't explain how buying small studios reduces Sony's reliance on third parties. To me, this is clearly about less reliance on Call of Duty. Helldivers isn't going to do jack in that regard. Neither will small studios. I'm willing to be that Sony has its eyes on a major acquisition. Either that, or Jimbo is just talking shit.

And if I'm going to point to the reason for Sony's lack of output then I'd say it because of their retooling for all this Gaas nonsense.

I read it as "3rd parties that go away". So yes, cod any big earners/attractions that get bought away.

Buying studios for talent after test driving them for a few years is a sound strat. They are getting more production capacity which is what they'll need to do what he said.
 

Bo_Hazem

Banned
I am sure 3rd party publishers aren't overly happy with Sony trying to reduce their reliance on 3rd party software either.

Doesn't always mean that they'll harm them directly, but they wanna make more games that will give them higher revenue than being reliant on the 30% which many aren't selling that much lately.

With current economics in most countries even subs feel a bit expensive to some.
 

Roronoa Zoro

Gold Member
Well if was true why Sega are releasing almost every new game on gamepass? I think some publishers don't like and subscription is value destructive but I think for many subscription sevices are hope.
For now it's simple. They probably won't sell a lot on the current Xbox install base so if the check is enough then just take it and sell on PlayStation at full price
 

StreetsofBeige

Gold Member
He talks about 1st party output, but it literally sucks this gen. Only Insomniac really delivers for them.
Add Bungie to the mix as their handful of games get a following and do tons of mtx sales. And they have launched much of anything except I think some Destiiny 2 DLC.

Insomniac was a former third party rev too. If you look at all the studios and best selling franchises most come from third party studio acquisitions and partnership deals with them when they were independent. The only big franchises that came from grassroots Sony studios are the studios that make GT, GoW and baseball.
 
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Roronoa Zoro

Gold Member
He is right and wrong
And I ain't gonna leave anything out, premium v premium, no essential or extra crap
That's a different story and has their own problems

For a business Gamepass simply doesn't work but it is great for customers that are taking advantage of it.
So no one here saying "Gamepass is great" has a valid opinion because that is no up for debate.
You can say all you like, it doesn't change the fact that it's not sustainable long term and will do more damage then good.
With that said
But PS+ is extremely overpriced and severely lacking.
And as long as people keep subscribing it'll be good for business.
But for the customer?
It's a piss poor
Comparatively it's worse but it's still what 700 games for $160 a year? I wouldn't call that piss poor.
 

Bo_Hazem

Banned
Jimbo is spitting fire atm

"It would be naive for us to assume that all 10 will be massive successes so that is not a necessary condition for us to double first party revenues. That is certainly not what we're assuming. Clearly, the distinction between a hit and not a hit is not a binary one. And don't forget that as we do this, we will continue to publish the games that have served us so well over the years. These 3rd person, graphically beautiful narrative rich games will continue to be the bedrock of our first party publishing business.""We will continue to make 3rd person games like we always have, and we expect those to have slightly greater sales and profitability, reflecting our confidence in the long-term installed base of PS5, as well as the fact that those games will make their way to PC. So, we think that the pie from those games will grow, but that growth will be incremental in nature. We think the live service games will build on that foundation and take us to another level."



"We know Activision extremely well. They are probably one of our principal partners. In terms of deployment of Sony's capital, when you look at $69 Billion dollars for Activision compared to $3.6 Billion dollars for Bungie, we believe that Bungie can give us way more than a $69 Billion acquisition of Activision. And that's before considering the relative value of that particular transaction."



"We're approaching metaverse conversations through 2 lenses. First is as a platform holder. We had something called PlayStation Home for the PS3 and that was a very early manifestation of a platform metaverse. It was probably 10-15 years ahead of its time.""The second is from the studio perspective. We have a couple of projects underway that are very exciting for us, in terms of creating some sort of game-type metaverse which can possibly have collaboration with other parts of Sony. Sony's entertainment assets have huge potential in the metaverse area. As for VR2, we see it as having a role down the road, more in the mid-term."

 

sankt-Antonio

:^)--?-<
Uber now more expensive than Taxis, Amazon charging 3$ to get rid of adds, Netflix was once 5$ for their premium offering with password sharing, etc.

GP is a loss leader and in the future will have to recoup the cost it burned. People are high as fuck if they thing MS is going to let CoD and more 1st party games be on the service day1 without substantially raising prices and generating more tiers, ad's etc. Its going to change the landscape of gaming the way Netflix did to movie quality. Netflix trash is the logical consequence on a service than relies on the amount of content more than its quality.
 

StreetsofBeige

Gold Member
Well if was true why Sega are releasing almost every new game on gamepass? I think some publishers don't like and subscription is value destructive but I think for many subscription sevices are hope.
Probably because it’s easy money. Sega has dumped on GP tons of yakuza games the past year which are old. So whatever MS pays for it is easy money. If these old games sold for full price hardly anyone is going to buy them. It’s safer to just take a payout. Of course they can say forget it and sell it the normal way. But there’s risk it won’t sell and by the time they go to Sony or MS for a sub plan deal they will offer crap because the games already had their sales run.

You can tell which companies like Sub plans and which don’t. EA seems to love them as EA Play is on sub plans and in PC they even got that EA Origins day one PC pass. EA games all go to sub plan around 8-12 months after release and the really bad sellers are 6 months.

But then a dev like Rockstar seems to hate them as the only time you get some games off them are when GTA or RDR are old.
 
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StreetsofBeige

Gold Member
As for sub plans in general, put it this way.

One company has made a game series for almost 30 years, charges gamers full price every year and they are lucky if it goes on their sub plan.

The competing company has had the game day one on sub plan for 3 years in a row and also can be bought for normal price if a gamer wants. And the game is made by the competitor who never wants to promote that because it looks bad on them.

That game is MLB the Show.
 

Moses85

Member
Sony Interactive Entertainment/PlayStation President & CEO Jim Ryan On Gamepass: "I can say with a very high degree of certainty that Microsoft has tried the first path and it did not work at all. That has driven them to make the large acquisition. I talked to all the publishers, and they unanimously do not like Game Pass because it is value destructive, not only on an individual title-basis, but also or an industry level. The recent number of subscribers that Microsoft announced on January was 25 Million. I am sure everyone has their own views on this, but I personally was expecting a larger number given all the money they have spent. We have close to 50 Million PlayStation Plus subscribers. We believe we have a meaningful subscription service."



image


More into it

"We will do what we are doing right now, which is to become less reliant on 3rd Party games and 3rd Party royalties, and to make more 1st Party games. If we double our share of 1st Party games, which are more profitable than the 3rd Party royalty stream, it will bring down our reliance on 3rd Party games." "That is the single biggest thing, and one of the main reasons why we are embarking on M&A. I would like to point out that we are also growing our existing studios, increasing capabilities and their ability to output in various areas including live services. I feel like this part deserves a lot more attention than it currently gets. Large M&A gets all the headlines, but there is a lot going on, and growing your studios organically successfully is a smart thing to do."



"It would be naive for us to assume that all 10 will be massive successes so that is not a necessary condition for us to double first party revenues. That is certainly not what we're assuming. Clearly, the distinction between a hit and not a hit is not a binary one. And don't forget that as we do this, we will continue to publish the games that have served us so well over the years. These 3rd person, graphically beautiful narrative rich games will continue to be the bedrock of our first party publishing business.""We will continue to make 3rd person games like we always have, and we expect those to have slightly greater sales and profitability, reflecting our confidence in the long-term installed base of PS5, as well as the fact that those games will make their way to PC. So, we think that the pie from those games will grow, but that growth will be incremental in nature. We think the live service games will build on that foundation and take us to another level."



"We know Activision extremely well. They are probably one of our principal partners. In terms of deployment of Sony's capital, when you look at $69 Billion dollars for Activision compared to $3.6 Billion dollars for Bungie, we believe that Bungie can give us way more than a $69 Billion acquisition of Activision. And that's before considering the relative value of that particular transaction."



"We're approaching metaverse conversations through 2 lenses. First is as a platform holder. We had something called PlayStation Home for the PS3 and that was a very early manifestation of a platform metaverse. It was probably 10-15 years ahead of its time.""The second is from the studio perspective. We have a couple of projects underway that are very exciting for us, in terms of creating some sort of game-type metaverse which can possibly have collaboration with other parts of Sony. Sony's entertainment assets have huge potential in the metaverse area. As for VR2, we see it as having a role down the road, more in the mid-term."


Well There It Is Jurassic Park GIF
 

Bo_Hazem

Banned
"That has driven them to make the large acquisition. I talked to all the publishers, and they unanimously do not like Game Pass because it is value destructive, not only on an individual title-basis, but also or an industry level."

He's not wrong, it is certainly value destructive for publishers and devs, but it is also the best consumer pro move this industry has seen in a long fucking time.

For any business to be healthy, you need a balance between devs and consumer satisfaction.
 

LakeOf9

Member
Sub services for games are a stupid ass idea, but if they have to exist, Game Pass runs circles around PS Plus and I say this as someone who haw nothing nice to say about Xbox otherwise
 

Roronoa Zoro

Gold Member
Add Bungie to the mix as their handful of games get a following and do tons of mtx sales. And they have launched much of anything except I think some Destiiny 2 DLC.

Insomniac was a former third party rev too. If you look at all the studios and best selling franchises most come from third party studio acquisitions and partnership deals with them when they were independent. The only big franchises that came from grassroots Sony studios are the studios that make GT, GoW and baseball.
To be fair naughty dog, Insomniac, housemarq, etc. Only got big with Sony published exclusive titles. So yes they were third party but it was very much a natural buy after symbiotic growth.

Even Bungie they heavily supported destiny from day 1 even when it was initially kinda viewed as a dud

If you're willing to risk it on a fledgling or not currently huge studio and give them funding, advertisement, and gamble on an exclusive, then I'm ok with you buying them when they're big and still primarily find their audience on your system
 

DForce

NaughtyDog Defense Force
Many people on this thread are responding like a gamer who only cares about what the service is proving.

The fact is, Sony is making moves to their subscription service that keeps them in the business. Microsoft is taking a huge gamble with Game Pass that might not even pay off.

That's a huge difference.
 

StreetsofBeige

Gold Member
GP and Ultimate have the same games, outside of EA Play. Not sure what you're talking about here.
GP is cheap as hell. Just do the upgrade method. Built into the cost is also MP which every MP gamer would pay for anyway with Gold (or now GP Core). So the difference in price is small, especially when you do the promo deals.

Anyone paying regular price for ultimate month by month for years is doing it wrong.
 
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Bo_Hazem

Banned
For people talking about the price hike:


(FYI) Phil was asked if there would be a Game Pass price increase in the futurePhil Spencer: "Although the main premise is to provide more value, the price is I think it is inevitable that it will rise in the future. We recently raised our prices once, but the decision was made after careful consideration. We believe it is important to provide services that are recognized as being of sufficient value even if prices are increased."

 

Robb

Gold Member
Yeah, what else are they going to do when MS is stirring the pot like this. I personally don’t like Sony’s GAAS approach nor all the consolidation that’s going on, but what are you going to do. At least it’s fun to follow, will be very interesting to see where we end up when all the shopping sprees are done.
 
For people talking about the price hike:


(FYI) Phil was asked if there would be a Game Pass price increase in the futurePhil Spencer: "Although the main premise is to provide more value, the price is I think it is inevitable that it will rise in the future. We recently raised our prices once, but the decision was made after careful consideration. We believe it is important to provide services that are recognized as being of sufficient value even if prices are increased."


Honest opinion if they asked this exact question to Jim Ryan do you think his response would be "With our recent price hike I can safely say PS subs will never increase in price ever again"?

――I think Xbox Game Pass is a very good subscription service overall, but as one of the users, I'm afraid of price increases. Is future price increases unavoidable or not? What are your thoughts on fees?

Phil Spencer:
Thank you for saying that. First, we always want to give you choices about how to build your library. You can subscribe to Game Pass to play or purchase games. With millions of users currently subscribing to Xbox Game Pass and many of them using it with satisfaction, I think that although it is a major premise to provide more value than that, it is inevitable that the price will increase in the future. Recently, we raised the price once, but it was a decision after careful consideration. Even if the price is raised, we believe that it is important to provide services that are recognized as having sufficient value.
 

DForce

NaughtyDog Defense Force
This was the question asked to Jim Ryan.

Q: The Game Pass business model appears to have some challenges, and Microsoft appears to be losing a lot of money on it. Because the AAA publishers spend $100 mil or more on developing titles, they are happy to sell it for $70 on PS5. The subscription model is more challenging for them. Given that environment, will Microsoft need to provide minimum revenue guarantees if they want those titles on Game Pass? Or do they need to go out and buy more assets like Activision to put on their platform? Are those the two options for Microsoft when trying to gain critical mass and support from the AAA publishers for Game Pass?
 

RickMasters

Member
Lol….. says the company with final fantasy, and a COD marketing deal they only wanted tap they could sway the cod playing x360 casuals. …. Says the company who paid for street fighter 5 to be exclusive.



Look. Sony have great first party studios. We already know you are gonna focus on that because you can’t outspend MS at anything they actually want in their portfolio. Just be quiet and make good single player games that somy fans expect, jimbo. Sony cant put their first party games on their service day and date but he thinks the service is meaningful? Just because you can’t eat loss like MS don’t mean you gotta cry about it. Sony has its own strengths. Play to those. I and yes. Gamepass is better than PS equivalent. I spent last weekend hopping between, starfield, exoprimal and lies of P. While doing a few seasonal challenges on forza horizon 5.I doubt I would have had as much fun with PSN premium.



Aside from that….. I’m looking forward to playing the the new like a dragon game and octopath 2 on GPU. Gamepass has been pretty ‘meaningful’ to Xbox customers no matter how jimbo feels about it…. But then again he is paid to feel that way about it….. pretty sure if he found himself doing a Phil Harrison and working at Xbox he would suddenly be a Gamepass eventalist and these ‘ publishers’ he talks about would suddenly have nothing to say…… he obviously isn’t talking about the other big pubs…. EA and UBi who have subs integrated into GPU….. he can’t be talking about ABK because they are part of MS now, in all but a few final steps. He can’t be talking about the likes of THQ or devevolver…. I play plenty of their games on GPU…. So who are these ‘unhappy’ pubs and devs that he is talking about? Shit even square have put games on GPU. That’s what got me to buy octopath and dragon quest, because they were taken off long before I could even get halfway through either of those. So that converted into two purchases from me….. I’d say that’s meaningful….. but I just play video games on something that’s not a PlayStation . What do I know?
 

Bo_Hazem

Banned
Honest opinion if they asked this exact question to Jim Ryan do you think his response would be "With our recent price hike I can safely say PS subs will never increase in price ever again"?

――I think Xbox Game Pass is a very good subscription service overall, but as one of the users, I'm afraid of price increases. Is future price increases unavoidable or not? What are your thoughts on fees?

Phil Spencer:
Thank you for saying that. First, we always want to give you choices about how to build your library. You can subscribe to Game Pass to play or purchase games. With millions of users currently subscribing to Xbox Game Pass and many of them using it with satisfaction, I think that although it is a major premise to provide more value than that, it is inevitable that the price will increase in the future. Recently, we raised the price once, but it was a decision after careful consideration. Even if the price is raised, we believe that it is important to provide services that are recognized as having sufficient value.

It's already too expensive. 1 year of Ultimate = Xbox Series S on discount (the 75% leading console of xbox).
 
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Bo_Hazem

Banned
Thats not the question I asked you.

I asked if Jim Ryan was posed the same question would his answer not be almost exactly the same?

I give up with this thread

No, the answer. They already fixed the prices to inflation, and they're not overspending for PS+, nor suffering from years of $1 subs and have double the subscription number. It would take years for them to even consider raising the prices up.
 
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DForce

NaughtyDog Defense Force
Lol….. says the company with final fantasy, and a COD marketing deal they only wanted tap they could sway the cod playing x360 casuals. …. Says the company who paid for street fighter 5 to be exclusive.



Look. Sony have great first party studios. We already know you are gonna focus on that because you can’t outspend MS at anything they actually want in their portfolio. Just be quiet and make good single player games that somy fans expect, jimbo. Sony cant put their first party games on their service day and date but he thinks the service is meaningful? Just because you can’t eat loss like MS don’t mean you gotta cry about it. Sony has its own strengths. Play to those. I and yes. Gamepass is better than PS equivalent. I spent last weekend hopping between, starfield, exoprimal and lies of P. While doing a few seasonal challenges on forza horizon 5.I doubt I would have had as much fun with PSN premium.



Aside from that….. I’m looking forward to playing the the new like a dragon game and octopath 2 on GPU. Gamepass has been pretty ‘meaningful’ to Xbox customers no matter how jimbo feels about it…. But then again he is paid to feel that way about it….. pretty sure if he found himself doing a Phil Harrison and working at Xbox he would suddenly be a Gamepass eventalist and these ‘ publishers’ he talks about would suddenly have nothing to say…… he obviously isn’t talking about the other big pubs…. EA and UBi who have subs integrated into GPU….. he can’t be talking about ABK because they are part of MS now, in all but a few final steps. He can’t be talking about the likes of THQ or devevolver…. I play plenty of their games on GPU…. So who are these ‘unhappy’ pubs and devs that he is talking about? Shit even square have put games on GPU. That’s what got me to buy octopath and dragon quest, because they were taken off long before I could even get halfway through either of those. So that converted into two purchases from me….. I’d say that’s meaningful….. but I just play video games on something that’s not a PlayStation . What do I know?
You're responding as a gamer who only cares about what's on the services

Jim Ryan is answering a question as a businessman who wants to make a profitable business.

No matter how you slice it, Game Pass is losing money while PS+ is profitable. That's really the point. PlayStation games aren't on PS+ day one because they will lose money. This is why many publishers and developers refuse to put their games on the service.
 
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