Reaction: Xbox Game Pass Is the Thorn in PS5's Side

Poor from me

I'm not interested in halo or forza so to me this conference was pretty bad, a few cgi trailers and starfield is late 2022 with a likely delay, stalker 2 is also 2022 and is coming to playstation aswell, the rest of the games also coming to playstation (apart from flight simulator, halo, forza and arkane game)

To be honest really making me think why I bought a series S this year, could of waited another year easily but oh well.

Here's to hoping square or Nintendo can save this E3 for me, especially after the poor ubisoft showing yesterday

In terms of next gen true exclusives playstation have nothing to worry about at all...
But they need to do something about playstation now as gamepass is killing it

I agree. I don't think there was much new or, for me, exciting (how many 4 player coop shooters can we get), but gamepass is a looming shadow. I'm a subscriber and it's been VERY dull of late, but it's hard to deny it's looking to step up a lot in the coming months. Sony needs something.

Oh god this again

I kind of agree with this. I thought the show was underwhelming, given what it could have been, and there was too much focus on fps titles, or games that wont be out until next year at the earliest. I rated the show as average.

However the fact that 27 of these games will drop on game pass at launch is a killer app. Its increasingly difficult to justify spending so much money on games, when i literally could just pay for a series S and the price of a game pass sub.

With that said many of the games from xbox game studios didnt really appeal to me and perhaps thats partly down to the subscription model. Sony continue to release compelling first party exclusives, so as long as that continues, i don't see myself being tempted to switch any time soon. If my £70 means that the games keep hitting such a high bar, then i can't really complain.

End of the day, if Sony sense they are under threat, they will respond in some way so lets see what they come up with.

Side note. I saw nothing from this or from the Ubisoft show that does anything other than support Sony's decision to step away from E3. Hold an event later in the summer and control the narrative and they are on to a winner

I was watching the euro ⚽ Soccer games.its definitely more interesting than😴 x box show.thats a fact black.word up son

The show was not good I watched the whole thing. Not much real gameplay, no Halo campaign footage. To much in engine footage and indie launch exclusives.
Only FH5 did a great job with very good real true gameplay.
Sony has nothing to worry about as long as they keep the amazing games coming and they will, as competition is good.
In the UK we have over 1300 series s consoles sitting on Smyths toys shelf’s not selling and Game UK have had series x shop stock all week at my local one and still not sold out after the weekend. That show case won’t change that it was no where near good enough.

When don’t even show probably your biggest game this year with real gameplay campaign footage then there is something not right there.

I just cannot work out if Microsoft are up to something overall or just plan so rich nothing really matters.

But at seven months in, if I had my next generation consoles sitting on shop shelf’s I would not be happy, and if a consoles of sold then maybe a game pass is sold.

As a consumer with a Series X yeah...gamepass was a large part of the reason I got it simply as someone on a budget right now.

I intend to get a PS5 probably around the time Spider-Man 2 drops and by then i'm hoping some early games like Ratchet and Returnal will be cheaper. I think ultimately PS5 and Sony will thrive with or without a gamepass answer though, so it isn't really that big a thorn I think. The numbers more than show that.

As for the Xbox show, Psychonauts 2 and Outer Worlds 2 existing were my highlights.

I'm glad, there's still no reason, to buy a Series X. I'm absolutely done with Forza, Halo and Gears.
And the Gamepass is no benefit, this is something which shouldn't exist

No its not becoming difficult to justify paying full price because the games that are the biggest 3rd parties (Madden, 2K, COD, Fifa, Battlefield) won't launch on Gamepass. And this argument never references Nintendo or Steam who will just keep selling full priced games. People will buy good games at full price because they are good games. That's just how it works. It gives Xbox some appeal but people aren't going to avoid playing Spider-Man 2 because of its price point.

@TwomanybuttonS Ha, I know.

If these are the quality of the games that a subscription service offers than I think I prefer things as they with Sony.

It's almost as if people think you can have a GP equivalent on PS, at the same cost and still get quality titles made like Ratchet and Clank, God of War and HFW.

Maybe if they are all online co-op FPS games.

😝

And wasn't it 2k.with a basketball game that released the first £70 title or do I have that wrong?

It’s about time Xbox had a good conference tbh. I was waiting for one the whole of last gen and it never materialised…

Game pass is simply not a model, direction or future that I support.

@Col_McCafferty I have to agree, the sheer amount of fps and Co op games is ridiculous but at the same time gamepass is perfect for them, but for the big third party single player games? Gamepass doesn't have any because they bring in too much money at retail to be on a subscription service

@UltimateOtaku91 yes indeed... such a poor indie show. I watched it afterwards and was happy to fast forward almost everything. 10min I was done.

It was a very good show. You'll get no salt from me. Games I am jealous of as a PS5 player. Sea of Thieves especially with new expansion! Outer Worlds 2, loved the first on PS4. Starfield, of course. Microsoft Flight Simulator, looks so good. Nice games and a very strong lineup. 👍

I dont own an xbox so i didnt watch as its of no interest to me...why is pushsquare so intent on putting these articles out when all its going to do is start the fanboys off...why?

I mean if you got a PC and a PS4/5, you're pretty much set for life. MS console is pointless as it gets imo. Yeah gamepass is excellent but at the end of the day, you're just getting 3rd party games and the same recycled exclusives and even more than ever with more of the same old FPS which was shown in their E3.

Only thing I ever loved from MS was Forza Horizon series. It's the best arcade racer series in the past 10 years or so. I wish Sony had exclusive arcade racers or just racing games in general than waiting for GT very 4 years or so and when it does come out, at least for me, it's underwhelming or disappointing.

So far about every Sony exclusive has been worth every penny as for MS? It doesn't have anything to offer sadly. Series S is a nice little console though, that I do admit thanks to how it can run emulators and just for OG XB/360 games.

I'll get a xbox for bethesda games

Game Pass is too good to be true. It can't be financially viable for Microsoft even at full price, but I doubt many people pay full price when MS themselves readily advertise the Gold upgrade trick. I paid £70 for 27 months of it. That's just insane value for the first party stuff alone.

I didn't watch it - haven't watched 1 yet, thinking about tuning in for Squenix after I type this - but I rated it very good for the Xbox Mini Fridge trailer. I have really low standards this year.🤷

I have Gamepass so anything coming day one is great, there were a ton of games I’m interested in in that presentation so I’m relatively happy. It feels like value compared to Sonys ridiculous pricing this gen.

Still too many CGI trailers though, they do nothing for me. I do wish there was more gameplay shown.

Well, if you add ps now and ps plus together you already have a competitor to Gamepass at around the same price. Unless you are fully up to date on all the games you want to play and so have to play games at release now (buy that is a tiny percentage of gamers). Except when they duplicate games of course, they need to stop doing that.

I thought it was a good showing for GamePass and the overall MS/Xbox brand. But as for XSX, it was lacking. They barely even mentioned their new consoles, and their was very little sense of "next-gen" or how these games will lean into XSX features.

I didn’t see it, but it sounds good. I think game pass will have less games or a price hike eventually.
I think it’ll help Sony bring down the price to $60. Trying $70 whole game pass is a thing is the dumbest thing ever. It’s gonna backfire and $70 will not hold. That I am glad for, that MS looks to bite $70 games in the bud.
R&C being great, but not mind-bending and the same general game and 12 hours (which I would normally say is a pro), is just insane. I would’ve pre-ordered it had it not been $70, but they raised the price too much.

I stand by the statement that game pass has the potential to actually hurt the gaming industry.

If developers know there games are ultimately just going to be offered for free,as time goes on the incentive to make things that are going to wow there audience is going to just disappear. They are going to make there money and go on to the next project. Innovation will be secondary , we will probaly start to see a quantity over quality with a lot of companies.

Not that this will happen over night or anything but if this becomes lucrative for publishers which I'm sure it would be .no need to advertise or market any more then this could happen sooner then we think.

Lots and lots of good looking games, all included. Very nice showing from Xbox.

I disagree with the premise of this article, I got the overwhelming feeling that there were no big hitters at all outside of yet another Halo and Forza, with the rest seeming like average to good 'filler' for a subscription service.

I will take Sony's tactic of investing in stellar exclusives every time. I am playing Ratchet this weekend and it looks better that anything shown in that conference. Horizon gameplay last week looked infinitely more polished than anything shown tonight too.

For all the praise the Sony exclusives get, they still lack a Forza Horizon and that is a massive absence for my tastes.

The Xbox E3 presentation is an advertisement for Gamepass. And as a subscriber, I couldn't be more happy with the selection of games they presented. Outer Worlds 2, A Plague Tale 2, The Whole Yakuza Series, Age of Empires 4, Starfield, Stalker 2, Forza 5, Halo, Back 4 Blood and all the other new games coming day one on Gamepass.

Argument against the Netflix of games: I won't own any games, something I really like doing. Also Netflix keep cancelling stuff that doesn't get a big uptick in subscribers within the first few weeks of release. Imagine that for any games you like.

I like owning my games so I have no interest in Gamepass. I'll gladly wait for a Steam sale rather than just rent the game. If you want to try a game out there is Gamefly for Ps4/5 and it's pretty cheap.

Was good but no starfield gameplay. Gamepass and MS going rampant on exclusives is why I got and SX along the PS5... Otherwise I will miss out games locked on Xbox. But nothing really good today. Is not that they showed something along the lines of Last of us II or Uncharted.

@UltimateOtaku91 that was my summary too, nothing there that rocked the playstation brand, with its consistent world class pipeline of IP. Gamepass is their focus entirely it seems.

Am I the only one who doesn't care about GamePass? Or services in general and still hold on to the Draconian ideal of buying games on disc and keeping them forever?

I personally see GamePass as a problem more than a future or saviour of gaming. But maybe that's just my stubborn old self who still does things the way he did back on the old consoles in the early 90's before they got internet.

Most important for me was the gameplay from Forza Horizon 5. The people at PD must be really lazy when you see what Playground can do in three years.

@CKFilms Argument for Game Pass is you can buy the same title day one at 10% off. Usually when a game leaves game pass there is a steep discount. Why not own it later after you tried it and it is cheaper? I own both so Game Pass helps me subsidize the increased pricing of recent games.

I don't think sony have anything to worry about. When I watched the gameplay trailer for R&C my jaw dropped, same for horizon forbidden west. While the xbox games didn't look bad they just didn't wow me in any way. And mostly in engine cutscenes where as Sony just simply let the gameplay do the talking! I'm actually shocked they didn't show any halo campaign gameplay to show if there was an improvement over last year's showing.

Frankly, I think Sony deserves a good kick in the rear with all the poor decisions they've been making lately, but it kinda seems like they're immune to competition, like in the PS2 era.

Hell, they actually think they're going to gain market share this gen despite Game Pass and putting their own exclusives on PC. But no, I don't really see Sony being threatened overall.

Didn't even know Xbox were having their E3 show today. Just read the highlights and thought "what a load of crap!" Just another massive GamePass advert with, in my opinion, no worthwhile games coming out at all.

And the hype surrounding the Bethesda conference was Starfield that doesn't look as good as they hyped it up to be, FO76 DLC and 10 old games coming to GamePass. Seriously? That was the hype?

If Phil still can't deliver after 8 years and all those acquisitions then Xbox really is never coming back in my home.

why does sony have to have gamepass there doing perfectly fine without the same model. This seems more moaned about in the games media that the actual owners them selves

I like gamepass thats why i got an xbox, i like PlayStation exclusives thats why i got a PlayStation i dont need them to both to offer the same things

I feel that many of the guys that didn't see the value in the Microsoft show just aren't the demographic anymore. It's like going to the movies or staying home to watch. PS fans are more like movie goers pushing the premium to watch big budget films. Microsoft is like staying home and watching movies. It's a lot cheaper, but way more options. Both ways are fine. The PS problem is that MS is about to put game pass on many more devices and built into tv's People laughed years ago when someone from Microsoft said that Sony wasn't their main competition. Turns out they will be right. Microsoft will be fighting companies like Apple for steaming market share.

@The_New_Butler But why have PlayStation just for exclusives when you can have that and everything else too?

I own all the console's the only reason I even got GamePass is for the discount on games, I prefer to own games instead of renting them for a month or two,l. I think Halo is a perfect example of why GamePass in the long run will be a thorn in gamers side. Halo will no long be a package it will be a single player game with its MP being F2P filled with microtransactions, Microsoft is already pretty bad with their microtransactions in their full priced games 1st party games Halo5, Forza 6 which they walked back this you already know what your in for.

A word of hope to PS fans crushed by Starfield being exclusive. Microsoft will have tricks up their sleeve. I wouldn't be surprised if through a dongle, you may be able to plug right into your playstation and access Xcloud. Or a browser based solution like they are doing with IOS.

Well you guys said it yourself, this likely isn't possible without MS unlimited funds because of their Windows monopoly. The question we should be asking is "what their endgame and is it good for the industry?" My bet is nope...So for now, I'll keep supporting all three to play the games I want with a stronger emphasis on Nintendo and Sony who isn't backed by a trillion dollars and actually needs the gaming industry to stay afloat.

Game pass is not feasible not for Microsoft and not for Sony. Microsoft has the funds to keep this up indefinitely and tries to bleed out Sony. Game pass is created to destroy the gaming industry.

I came away underwhelmed. Too much CGI movie crap, not enough actual gameplay. And there weren't any exclusives that made me sit up, at all. Even Starfield left me non-plussed given it showed literally nothing, and still isn't out for over a year.

I thought the show was quite good. However, it's become quite apparent that Microsoft shouldn't have launched the Series until November 2021.

@BadPlayerOne You are just guessing with no supporting facts. People are only now discovering Microsoft's plans. Imagine seeing all those new TVs with the Game Pass app right next to the Disney Plus button. PS fans will be playing Starfield on their Ipads and so few right now know it. Playstation and Switch will probably the only places you can't play Star Field. Heck, some will play it on their phones

The money I saved not buying Spiritfarer on Switch ($29) and not buying Outriders on PC ($59) more than payed for Ratchet & Clank on PS5 ($70)

I am 100% ok with Microsoft subsedizing my gaming list 😉

If you not played Yakuza: Like a Dragon. Get 3 months of Ultimate for $1 and play it as a handheld game over Xcloud.

RedFall and Forzoa but where was state of decay ? Xbox needs 25 exclusive good games for me personally to buy an xbox, they have a long way to go..........

Very poor for me - I understand the value of Gamepass but zero games I am interested in…

I see people commenting on the showcase but that's besides the point. I think from a consumer perspective of which 95% of us are, it is a fantastic deal that all exclusives and many 3rd party games are day 1 included with Game Pass.

Personally, I feel that Microsoft is gonna draw a lot of "on the fence" consumers to Xbox for this reason. Whether Sony really needs to react to this is to be seen. Maybe for a start, figure out how to merge PS Now and PS Plus. Also, just throwing it out there as an idea, why not charge lesser for PS Exclusives to undercut 3rd Party games and make it attractive to go PlayStation over xbox.

@Shepherd_Tallon : I agree with Sony not having to worry about anything. Gamepass is not for me, and I feel it devalues games. Sony's best best is to maintain strong 1st party output, and maybe embrace the physical aspect of games. Microsoft tried doing an all digital console when they revealed the Xbox one and backpedaled quickly. They found a way with this new xbox and Gamepass to push this agenda. I own an Xbox one and haven't played it in years. I skipped the PS4. That was a huge mistake.

@GADG3Tx87 You're not the only one mate and tbh Guardians of the Galaxy wowed me more than the entire Xbox show.

A third person SP title with wit, heart, good gameplay and engaging characters. That is why I game.

Every presentation I've seen this year has been disappointing at best and dreadfully boring at worst. I guess we really are still suffering from the effects of the virus because it just doesn't seem like there's much to be excited about come fall. I guess Sony was right to skip out this year... because seeing updates to 5+ year old games isn't what I wanted from what was once the huge game announcements of E3. This really is Nintendo's year to win at this point.

I don't really think that Gamepass is all that. Had it in the past but because Xbox never really floated my boat, then I played Gamepass for an few choice games. How does MS make money from this subscription. Many still pay £1 month for it and probably still needs millions more to subscribe to said platform too

@Ironman2008 why aren't they putting Bethesda titles on PS then if they don't see Sony as the competition?

Don't be naive mate.

MS could had taken big advantage of this E3 with no Sony and this current gen being slow. Doesn't sound like they did enough.

I thought Replaced looked beautiful and the new Forza Horizon looked amazing.

I don't think Gamepass is sustainable financially unless you have infinite money, so it's just going to be a problem Sony can't really deal with.

I will agree though that I have no idea how Microsoft is making money off Gamepass. My one guess is we're going to see that price hike sooner rather than later. Right now it's just a desperate attempt to get the attention of gamers, which is good. Cheap stuff for consumers is good and I'm not invested in them so I don't care if they lose money anyways. The biggest thing though is that Sony can charge $70 and people will still eat it up. Imagine if Microsoft announced they were doing that. Sony has convinced everyone it's games are premium lol

Though I will say that this move doesn't seem to be doing much to dull interest in PS5 and it's games. Just look at all the attention Ratchet and Clank got and Horizon is getting. PlayStation cultivated phenomenal IPs so it doesn't need to worry about these little gimmicks. Turns out, if you make excellent games people will want your system.

@Col_McCafferty

They want people take a subscription on Game Pass, that's why Bethesda gamesaren't released on the PS yet. But if Sony allows Game Pass on the PS than all the Bethesda games are coming to the PS.

I’m kind of surprised people in here are so down on the show. I thought it was really solid. I love PS5 games, but I thought the Arkane game looked like it has a good vibe. Back 4 Blood, Forza, Plague Tale 2, Sea of Thieves, Outer Worlds 2, Stalker 2, and Flight Sim are all games I’m psyched to play on GPU. As far as GPU not making money, that will all just depend on how many subs it can get. If it gets enough subs, it will absolutely turn a profit.

People pretty much covered my perspective of Microsoft conference. Thinking it was poor. Nothing I've seen said "Maybe I should consider a Series S or gamepass".

As far as Sony's response to GamePass they don't need to go to the extreme like Microsoft. Should they improve Playstation Now absolutely. Should they offer PS Studios exclusive from the release date like Microsoft absolutely not. Sony's exclusives is what makes them great. Great hardware + Great Exclusives = $$. Microsoft can afford to offer it on GamePass because if people are buying game pass on the PC, they have to buy it from the windows store. This is why Phil Spencer's subtle comments about PlayStation not releasing exclusives to windows sooner is dumb. Sony would lose money in the sense of motivating people to buy a console. Every time you buy a PC (pre-built) Microsoft makes money. Unless you're like me and build your own and never activate your windows lol.

I will say I would be fine with PS Studios games coming out to PC 3-5 years after release. Maybe have them come to PS Now that same year.

@Kohaku it would be funny to see the words "console exclusive" disappear from any xbox game trailer 🤣

@Northern_munkey Because Push Square doesn't pretend that other platforms don't exist. And GamePass has the potential to be a huge disruptor to Sony's strategy.

@Kohaku Game Pass will never ever be on PS. You can quote me on that!

No need to purchase an Xbox for a few years yet, maybe when Elder Scrolls 6 and Indiana Jones both come out but until then, nah, I'll continue my near fruitless hunt for a PS5.

Jim Ryan definitely pacing the floor right now. Xbox definitely won some people over today. Do I think it sells a ton of consoles? Hmm, not sure. This is just as much an advertisement for PC Gaming as it is the mini fridge.

I'll buy an Xbox for their exclusives, but I prefer Sony. Game Pass' endgame is what many attacked EA for not too long ago, microtransactions and loot boxes. I am all for however a service that gives you access to older games.

@Dezzy70 seen a few series s consoles available but the series X sells out as fast as the PS5 doesnin the UK, game, Amazon, shop to etc never have them in stock.

@Col_McCafferty

I don't think there is a need for Game Pass on PS5 when the streaming service from XBox is finished. You don't even need a console anymore.
I have them both but my first current gen game will be Flight Simulator and after that Horizo Forbidden West. GT7 will be at least one year away I am afraid.

I'm confused by the responses of those who thought that was a great showcase. Three years ago they announced Starfield and showed a trailer that contained nothing but a satellite floating in orbit, and three years later they show a cinematic that gives no info at all about the game, no gameplay or artwork, no quick talk or details about the narrative or genre of the game, just a release date of 17 months from now.

Halo is supposedly out in 6 months, and yet again, no gameplay footage at all of the main campaign, just a quick montage of some very last gen looking multiplayer.

Forza looked fantastic, but that's to be expected, it always does. What else was really impressive that they showed? Where was Fable, Hellblade, Avowed, Perfect Dark, Everwild. Where was any gameplay or info from all of the money they've invested. Even the closer was another cgi trailer that told us nothing about the title.

As a gamepass advert, it gets a thumbs up, but as a show that demonstrated brand new ip's and first party exclusives, it was very disappointing imo.

@Ironman2008 it’s the same strategy Tesla, Amazon and Uber use. Normally companies can’t lose billions of dollars every year, but because they have the funds from investors or in Microsoft’s case from other divisions they can keep it up until the competition can’t anymore. It’s like the complain of Xbox that Sony doesn’t publish all games also on PC like they do. It’s easy talk for Microsoft. For them it’s right pocket and left pocket. If Sony publishes everything immediately also on PC they feed the Monster.

GamePass does work as a model. MLB The Show 21 has been purchased after people played it.

https://www.purexbox.com/news/2021/06/sonys_mlb_the_show_21_has_been_a_massive_success_on_xbox_game_pass

As someone who owns all systems, what this means is that I'll buy less PS5 games.
On Xbox, I can get Game Pass Ultimate for full price for the year at £131.88 (Gold, EA Play, Cloud, PC).
On PS5, buy 2 PS5 exclusives for £139.99 and another £49.99 for PS+ for a total of £189.97.

That is the harsh reality right now and Sony need to do something to change the narrative.

That was an average show at best. After Halo was delayed, to not show any gameplay from the campaign and supposedly releasing this holiday season is a major red flag.

Starfield is supposedly out next year and not a moment of gameplay was shown.

Forza was the best looking game there, but there were no real surprise announcements. What happened to the Kojima collab that was so heavily rumored?

But I agree with the original point of this article. Gamepass is going to be filled with alot of day 1 content that does make it a great deal.

Xbox gamepass is like a say to my friends "the best deal in gaming history" BUT alot of games that are coming to gamepass I don't care about I'm being honest

@InvaderJim
A few series s.
look at Symths Toys uk stock was at about 1300 though might have gone down a little over the weekend.
My local Game UK as shop stock, but it is showing stock low after the weekend.
Amazon have not had series x drop for ages.
Smyths toys get drops in store stock but they stay there for a week nearly sometimes.
This is now where near the speed both PS5 models sell at.

Also the series x is hardly scalped anymore on my local selling site. Maybe one or two but only around £50 over price.

@BadPlayerOne

Sony is allready feeding Microsoft because of the choose for Azure.

I’ve not owned an Xbox since the early days of the 360, and I’ve had all Playstation and Nintendo system’s in that time. However, I must say, that Xbox presentation was pretty fantastic. Easily the best thing to come out of E3 yet.

@BadPlayerOne I completely agree with your assessment. Sony is getting squeezed on two sides by Microsoft, but the Sony base is so strong that they will still prosper. The down side is that it makes Sony lobby for the increase to 70 games.

@DeepSpace5D
Totally agree it was a poor show and underwhelming over all.
Not to show your best release this year with true campaign gameplay is a massive let down.
The mighty Halo has been levelled down to nothing now, they showed more farcry 6 real gameplay 😂😂😂
Probably because it would have looked pathetic against R&C and also HZDFW.

@__jamiie fair point..it just seems that xbox and game pass seem to have an awful lot of coverage for a playstation site..

How many of those Xbox games are online only and will be stuffed full of MTXs?

The ones that aren't are short AA games and nothing shown was of the quality of a Ratchet and Clank or Horizon Forbidden West. Of course the flight simulator and driving game both looked good but I have zero interest in either of them.

Halo sounds and looks rubbish as well and that's their big hope.

Maybe one day it will be worth investing in the Xbox ecosystem but not yet, not yet.

@LocalPenguin
Well if it’s a no brainer, then that must be why series s consoles are sat on shop shelf’s and even the series x takes a while to sell when stock drops. My local GAME UK have them still in stock after this weekend.

I’m too invested in Sony’s first party games to ever switch platforms now. But for new customers... yeah, I can see how it could be viewed as a threat. But I’m not too concerned.

From what I saw it certainly didn't deliver on the hype and rumours.
Not enough gameplay and too much 'in engine' running on PC thingies.
Yea it was expected to be a gamepass show case and it was also expected PushSquare would promote gamepass like every media for some reason, as if its a free service, you know. Then everyone says, oh its free.. 🙄 AND as if you don't have to buy the games you like IN ADDITION (like BF6)

Clearly Xbox (Microsoft) are trying to drag Sony out into the deep waters and drown it with the use of its massive cheque book. It’s so big Sony are tiny in comparison. Buying Zenimax, with no doubt more big buy ups to come and putting new games into game pass etc. No doubt it will cost Microsoft big short term losses but in the process entice many millions of people to purchase a series x hobbling Sony’s income stream

@Northern_munkey lol , jealous reaction,TBH.

Although they do make the case for GamePass as a great value you can only really see by Holiday 2022, maybe further. I do agree that Sony will have to come up with something. Obviously PS Now needs to be strengthened, maybe work with Epic for co-development of a new Playstation Home-like service that serves as a Ready Player One-like multimedia lobby, etc. I don't think they invested $250 mill. on them for nothing.

That said, the games I expected MS to show didn't wow me. I expected gameplay from Starfield but that release date was tough. Halo is Halo, and I lost interest after the original one. Forza had a good showing. No Fable. No Perfect Dark. No Everwild (I think... the Rare title). No Hellblade 2.
Redfall saved it imo(even if it was only CGI), but I'm biased for Arkane. Psychonauts 2 looked great but that one is still coming to PS4, I just hope they don't hold it back with a 30 fps framerate.

@Dezzy70 No game shown at E3 is going to be able to compete with Horizon II and Ratchet & Clank. I think thats why Sony released the State of Play and Ratchet before E3, because they knew all the games at E3 would be compared to them from gamers.

Oh I d like to add you are supposed to get gamepass on your TV app before some of those games drop so I don't know what the fuss is about. Good stuff if that's gamepass is what your on about. I got the feeling it's more the gaming sites who really want console wars debate to get their traffics.

Xbox has the best developers in gaming? Naughty Dog says "Hi" and Rockstar sits back and laughs.

Hardest working teams? Insomniac might have a thing or two to say about that.

Bringing more games to even more gamers? Yeah, that's why you took both Starfield and TES 6 off of PlayStation.

They're so full of themselves. Just loudmouth Yanks with very deep pockets. Maybe one day I'll give into their 'charms' but I saw nothing in that show to entice me to turn Green.

@DeepSpace5D
True, but in the Xbox360 days Microsoft would have done and had probably at least 2 games that would have done or maybe even better for that time of year.
They really have fallen since the Xbox360 days.

@Col_McCafferty
I think you summed that up perfectly
10 out of 10.

@Col_McCafferty Taking it all I still don't see enough to warrant purchasing a new Xbox. I'm not knocking MS at all, fanboysim and console wars are too tiring - been there, done that back in the PS2 days (and I still rented an XBOX from time to time to play MP Halo).

For me: Yes, GamePass has undeniable value in what it offers, but I don't plan on playing half of those games, and since I have very little gaming time as it is, I'd rather spend it in games I want to play not just what is available, which may or may not be of my liking. If I was 15-years old GamePass would be nirvana for me I'm sure but I just don't have to time anymore to fully enjoy it. That said, playing Prey, above 60 FPS, is a mighty attractive proposition.

I get the value of Gamepass and I can see why Xbox gamers like it but I still prefer owning the games via physical media

I mean if you really think about it the strongest aspects of the whole presentation were "Look at these games other people aren't getting now because we have money." It's not like all of the 'exclusives' weren't going to come to Xbox anyway.

That's what I find so strange about this situation. Nothing has changed for the people who champion what Xbox is doing. They're getting exactly the same stuff they would have anyway.

Excited for Plagues Tale 2 as the first one was so good.

I have zero interest in Xbox or Gamepass, so what games go on there matters not to me.

@BUDSclass201 how am i jealous? Exactly which parts of my comments showed that? I use this site because i own a playstation..if i wanted xbox news i'd use an xbox site..if anything i could be accused of being a bit on the pedantic side but jealous? Jog on sunshine..

@LocalPenguin
I just hope Sony do something with PS Now.

At least offer first party games in the service 12 months after launch and make sure they STAY in the service.

Imagine if in November, they relaunched the service with Spiderman MM, Demon's Souls, Sackboy and some older PS4 exclusives like Ghost of Tsushima?
Suddenly PS Now becomes a must-have service.

Game pass is simple it offers value if there is somethings on there you wish to play. If there isn’t then it has no value to you.

For old games no thank you I’ve played them before when they first released.

New titles this year not enough for me only FH5 maybe. Therefore no value to me currently.
In 2 years time maybe who knows.

aight now listen up:
a true "gamer" doesn't own one kind of console and go BUT I LOVE XBOX/PLAYSTATION THE OTHER CAN GET OUT. Under my TV you have Sony, Microsoft, Sega (...kind of a specialist subject) and, oddly for a Sega fanboy, Nintendo. And you know what? I get the best of all worlds, by not limiting myself. Xbox can have their Game Pass, I'll still play on pretty much anything. Why? There are some things each brand does better or worse than the other and the smart money's on supporting the developers, not the platform.

(there will always be that part of me that wants revenge on Sony for the absolutely brutal murder of the Dreamcast by the PS2, though. I have mostly learned to ignore it....but old gamers have GRUDGES and they die hard.)

As someone who is a multiplatform gamer I have to love the hypocrisy on show in the comments. Openly mocking more of Forza and Halo whilst citing Ratchet and Clank and God of War as counter examples 😂

@arsmolinarc "fanboysim and console wars are too tiring"
from someone who grew up in the 90s, I agree with this statement. Being born in the late 80s and being a Console Nut when Sega and Nintendo were at war with each other taught me this: if gaming's your passion, support them all! (but death to Nintendo.)

The showcase was excellent?!?! Hmm I don't get it Ok I didn't watch it(and never will watch a Xbox show) but I have looked on YouTube at some of the Xbox stuff and where are the amazing looking next-gen '12TF the Worlds most powerful blah blah blah console on the planet' mindblowing gameplay videos?!?! Anyone got a link to ANYTHING like that on the new Xbox??? Er probably not + It's not only Gamepass Microsoft have got they have got a FREEpass from the Internet media to :-/ Oh well back to playing AMAZING games 'NOW' on my PS5

Sony and the consumers won’t feel the affect of game pass right now because it’s still fairly new but trust me Sony is going to feel it later. With the acquisition of Bethesda PlayStation gamers won’t be able to play future installments of elder scrolls and fall out, which are multi million dollar franchises!

@The_New_Butler
To give that context, I think it is fair to say that the only exclusives MS have delivered since midway through the 360 generation were Forza, Halo and Gears. In fact, they took a lot of criticism over the years about this.

You cannot say the same about PlayStation who have consistently delivered new exclusives.

@pip_muzz

Not silly at all, whilst MS have heavily relied on these franchises for 3 generations now, Sony have consistently released new titles to keep things fresh.

I agree. Sony have gone for the opposite of value so far this gen (uk) and i've gone from being a loyal day 1 purchaser to not giving a **** any more.

My Series S is on the way as a gamepass machine and i'll happily sign up for a couple of years while i wait Sony out.

PS studio games are great, but not something i'm prepared to pay over the odds for. It's down to Sony now as i am happy to pick them up on ps + in 5 years time.

The show wasn’t too great IMO. The best looking games were all multi plat, and the majority of exclusives they did have were either vague or mostly cgi, with the exception of Forza and Halo which I don’t care for. It was however a fantastic advertisement for Game pass. Those day 1 inclusions are pretty tasty.

I do wonder how sustainable it is for Microsoft and the game developers to continue offering brand new releases on game pass. Will be interesting to see what Sonys response is to this, if any at all. I still feel there are not any exclusives that come even close to Sony at the moment so I’m definitely not tempted to go over to Xbox, but I can totally see the appeal.

@Ward_ting
This is a gamble for MS in my opinion, like most subscription services, they often struggle to be profitable.

Even a company with Netflix's market share still isn't very profitable due to licensing costs and production costs relating to new shows. Its interesting to note how many successful shows Netflix has scrapped because they simply weren't successful enough.

Its hard not to forsee this being an issue for MS in the long term where costs will, at some point, impact on quality.

I’ve not watched the show case but I get the impression from this site and others that it’s great if you’ve already got gamepass but it’s unlikely to sway anyone who isn’t. One thing several people have mentioned who already use GP is that they will likely buy less on PlayStation, and that is the danger area. The less games people buy on PS the less money goes to Sony so the outcome could be that they have less to spend on their studios / hardware / cloud etc.

In terms of how I feel about GP it doesn’t really factor into my decisions. I don’t own an Xbox and nothing I’ve seen previously has made me want to get one. The games on PlayStation have just been amazing this past 4 - 5 years and they are still pumping out plenty of fantastic titles. I’m on the side of happy to pay for one great game that I play for a month or two compared to having access to lots of ok games for less.

Now on the other side I’m guessing there are a lot of people who don’t like the same games as me and perhaps are happy to pay less for a ton of ok games. It sounds like there’s space in the market for both models but I think the GP model probably works better for a TV app. I can’t imagine many people installing a TV app and then paying full price for games.

Thought they had a decent show and gamepass is just getting better and better. Lovin that xbox are putting up a proper fight this gen

I thought the Show was good - games like the Ascent, Flight Sim, Back 4 Blood, Halo: Infinite and the stunning and great fun Forza Horizon 5 coming in the next 4-6months - on top of all the multi-platform releases. Another big take is that 2022 is looking strong...

I don't see why it has to be 'one' console or the 'other' - especially as Xbox isn't 'just' the console anymore. If you want to play these games get 'something' that has Game Pass and play them day 1. For Game Pass, this was strong - 27 of 30 coming day and date on Game Pass - just keeps justifying my continued subscription...

Game pass is a bait and switch scheme.

I actually like owning my games too!

The only reason i'd like sony to make one is so you people can stop hyping it up like it's good. I will never sub to either one.
This is like the press hyping up disney+ as a big challenge to netflix. Then you sub and you find out there is hardly any new content to justify being subbed and your games are under ransom from this sub. Stop paying and bye bye games.

Yet, this is supposed to be a great service, say you people.

@Otherbarry everybody wants to get games cheap but nobody wants to play cheap games.

This is my issue with GamePass if it is to follow suit of Netflix. There are a few good shows on there but mostly it is s**t. This worried me with with development of games. You remove the carrot why put all the effort in. You only need enough to keep people subscribed. Same with PS Now.

I bought 3 years if GP in November when I got my XSX. Nothing has tickled my fancy yet (largely due to my playstation backlog). I played a little bit of Ori and a little bit of that dwarf mining game which was OK. Its good that all these titles will be there day one but all the other garbage in between isn't worth it at least for me.

@LocalPenguin I have all these things too in my 30's but I don't share your thoughts on this. Its not about paying the least amount of money it's about playing games you want to play. This is a very one dimensional viewpoint.

Gaming is my hobby and I will play what I want to play not what I want to pay. For some that's not a choice I get that and I am fortunate to have that choice. I choose my own games and don't want a subscription to choose for me. You can't compartmentalise people the way you are suggesting.

@Col_McCafferty wouldn't count Rockstar as good developer anymore, they hardly make any games anymore. And based on how bad their support is for red dead online which is still bug ridden and badly supported and everything they add or change now is aimed at new players and driving them to buy in game currency by putting things behind paywalls.

I like owning games and I really dislike the GamePass model. I also guarantee they will increase the price over time - all subs do - and it will have less and less value. Letting a program like this grow will take away customer ownership in the long run.

Didn't watch the whole Xbox presentation, just a recap from Youtube. While the games presented are decent, I feel like they aren't for me. When it comes to Bethesda, I don't really see any games that interested me, even the Fallout series or the Elder Scrolls series so having their future games, plus Starfield being exclusive isn't much of a loss for me but I guess it is for a lot of PS fans. The only game that I liked was Eiyuden Chronicle and even that game is coming out on PS and maybe Switch. Xbox is really focused on Gamepass since a lot has been announced for that service and I guess it's nice for those who likes it but for me, I still prefer having the games physically.

@Alpha_Pulse I one hundred percent agree with you man . It also doesn't help that almost every outlet is writing a story about the price of games on a weekly basis.

Now i get the cost of games have gotten pricy and I also understand that not evey one may be in a situation to comfertable afford games. So I definitely get how game pass at face value is super inviting what it offers is pretty impressive .

But like I said I feel over time if this type of business model ends up being the norm it will end up turning the Industry into a big race to the bottom. There will be a down side to it and it'll be gradual but it'll happen. Or I should say it could if sony trys to do the same thing .

I dont think Microsoft has enough of the market share to swing things in that direction them selfs. We need to understand that for as many of these game sites that are full of enthusiasts like us there are way more casual consumer's who don't have a clue about any if this. They are aware of what's popular and what's in the mainstream . And what's the mainstream sony and the ps5 .
Its not fanyboyism it's just the truth . So as long as they are in the position they are in I can't see sony doing a game pass equivalent.

@Otherbarry I think the future for gaming is the Ubisoft blue print if this holds. No innovation, copy and paste games, massive monetization (if your game does not make money what else can you do) it does not look good. I guess i need to go retro faster then i was hoping if this happens.

@KippDynamite Just like Netflix, Disney and everything else. Netflix started at 7,99 now its 14,99 and thats just movies. With content that goes away after a while.

@The_New_Butler
I will give you Ori, those games were stellar but all of the others you have mentioned were completely mediocre at launch and amount to the sum total of MS Studios output.

You can mention a few remasters and sequels from Sony, but you are still ignoring a wealth of original titles too. You surely must see that sequels and remasters are great, I enjoy most of them immensely, but they are supplementary to many other new IPs that PlayStation put out too.

@Old-Red you gotta remember though. Studio purchases aren’t 100% about simply taking games. Many of the studios purchased were grabbed up so they could have more money to let their creativity lead them and create new things people on Xbox might like. For instance, without the purchase, Compulsion games wouldn’t have the money to have extra years to work on their latest creative project (which has yet to be teased but is getting AAA level time and financing). In that situation, the game would not exist without MS buying the studio. Same could be said for a lot of the other, smaller studios. Psychonauts 2 was able to add a lot of content thanks to the purchase, making the game BETTER than it would have been.

With the Bethesda purchase, you absolutely have a point. That involved a lot of claiming existing ips to draw people in. But not every studio investment is that way. In many cases it’s giving those studios support and time to make their games better and bigger (ex. inExile, Obsidian, Double Fine, Compulsion, Undead Labs, Ninja Theory) than they would have been.

@The_New_Butler Horizon Zero Dawn, Days Gone, Returnal, Concrete Genie, Infamous, Ghost of Thushima, Spiderman Last of Us and thats not counting the not counting the VR games i think we had a great generation om the PS4 and the PS5 starts out great. I remember i had a choice with two games i really wanted on PS3. And now with some crossplatform games its going strong.

Big thing for me is that Microsoft's strategy has clearly shifted. They have done zero to convince me to buy an xbox. They never will. But they have been successful in getting me interested in Game Pass.

When they get Xcloud working on TV's without the need for dedicated hardware, then i will seriously consider signing up to game pass in order to be able to play some of these releases

If Sony really want to respond to GamePass they just need to increase the advertising budget of PS Now. But I doubt the math adds up to a return on investment.

When they said 27 of the 30 titles would be on Gamepass I felt bad for Sony, really.
First, they don't even have nothing to hype them up after Ratchet and Clank released, since they have no conference for E3.
Second, so many third party games coming to Gamepass that I, a huge PS fanboy, and many many others won't be buying since they can simply play it on Gamepass day one.
Third, Horizon looked kinda bonkers, better than any racer available on Sony's side.
Fourth, goodbye Bethesda games. Deathloop will probably be the last one. And the Starfield one will hurt them a lot...The last game I couldn't care less, another 4 people coop shooter with a CG trailer? Weird way to end an otherwise great show...

Anyway, if you don't have a Series X or S you will be missing out. Unless you want to play in crappy stream quality you should be getting both.

As an Xbox fan, I will say I thought the presentation was good. I enjoy my PS5, but I will be honest: It's getting extremely difficult for me to justify forking out $70 for a game. In my opinion, Sony could rectify some of the heat if they acted correctly. For example, when the Show came on Gamepass, they could have easily made it available on PSPlus (or atleast PSNow). It's like they don't care if Microsoft is offering deals that leave their fans in the dust.

For 1st party games, I find myself just wanting to sit it out a few months until the titles are discounted. Whether you like Halo or not, it is every bit (in my eyes, more) of a heavy hitter that the best of what Sony has. In fact, I'd go as far as to say that the closet IP Sony has to matching Halo in terms of legacy is god of war. Forza is up there too, and both of them are literally day one a $10 a month subscription fee. Sony is gonna find themselves in increasingly hot water if they don't start offering better treatment of their fans and not just seeing them as money bags.

Very poor. As poor as Game Pass itself.

Pretty much everything shown will be on Game Pass, thats huge and Sony should be worried.

@Alpha_Pulse Definitely not true. You realize how much money Xbox is making off of Gamepass? A boatload. I read that they literally make the price that would cover the games they make. You are acting as if money is being lost here. It isn't. Think about it. There are 23 million Game Pass subscribers. Multiply that times (at least) $10. That's 230 million in revenue for one month, and that's not even including the Ultimate model.

Take Halo 5, for example. In its lifetime, it sold 10 million units, or around $50-$60 million. One month's worth of Game Pass is equivalent to nearly 5 times as much sales as Xbox's best selling game last generation. I have a PS5 and I enjoy it, but don't try to cherry pick a situation to bash Xbox over here. If Playstation had this same deal, you guys would be here defending the model left and right.

I am an Xbox fan, and I enjoy Sony's games as well. But me squeezing a lemon to bash Game Pass is about like me bashing Sony for having more exclusives. Has anyone of you people played, say, Gears 5? Or Forza Horizon 4? They are both the best in the series in my opinion, and they launched on Game Pass. So did the Show 21, but PS Owners had to pay because Sony doesn't give a crap about their fanbase.

I tuned in only for Battlefield 2042 gameplay trailer. Very much hyped after the trailer then I tuned out. Had no interest for Xbox show.

It is clear that Microsoft is throwing money at the problem and they are willing to do whatever it takes even if they never make a profit.

Honestly surprised by the lack of exclusives coming this year 🤷‍♂️

No 3rd person, behind the back, rock climbing, stealth-but-not-really, one and done exclusives. No wonder the fanboys are up in arms. Sony has conditioned them to think that crap is the cream of the crop.

Just lump PS Plus in with PS Now and call it a day. Silly Sony hasnt done this yet.

None of the games I want to play in 2021 are Xbox exclusive, so they kind of failed. By the time Starfield comes out I'll either have a new PC or stream it on my phone, or hell, maybe Game Pass will be on PS5. I'm not really bothered. At this point I don't want another subscription. I don't have the time to justify having it, and I guarantee at some point the sub pricing will start creeping up.

@UltimateOtaku91 Agree with almost everything u said, but there’s no denying how good Horizon looked!

The biggest flag that someone is in denial is that they don't like Game Pass because they want to own the games. That method is still readily available to anyone. They have the same digital and disc options. Heck, you can say that that Game Pass is keeping the price at $60 if you want to buy. That's how much they charge for Forza Horizon 5 which stole the show. With the large market share Sony had and still has, they should have lowered their prices to $50 for their new games to combat Game Pass. Sony needs to provide more comparable value.

@Dodoo And it still hasn’t!

@Snoober So, u should do ur research before u try to throw someone under a bus. As of May 6 2021, The Verge reported that MS has yet to make a profit on gamepass. Just because a lot of money is coming in, doesn’t mean they are profiting. If Sony had an equivalent, of course everyone would jump in but games would suffer and it wouldn’t be profitable either. MS is trying to make GP the answer to there exclusive drought, with promise of everything they make going to it. Unfortunately, if ur a Sony fan, more than likely the games announced today don’t really do much for us. I want XB to do well and wouldn’t mind getting one. Games talk and they don’t seem to be saying much on the XB side of things.

@talocaca "Honestly surprised by the lack of exclusives coming this year"

This was only E3. We still have the rest the of summer and GamesCom.

Sony not being at E3 is just bad marketing. No state of play can compensate for it. No ones talking about Sony if they just leave E3 to Microsoft. Jim Ryan is the worst.

Generally i dont think playstaion needs gamepass but it does stick in the throat a bit when stuff like MLB the show is a full price game but its out day 1 on gamepass

Im more than happy to have an Xcloud app on my tv and a controller to play these games dont even need to buy the console

I clicked for the hypocrisy, and I was not disappointed.

I'm a multiplatform gamer and both an Xbox and PlayStation fan, though feeling increasingly detached from current PlayStation direction. From that perspective I still think this article is a little sensationalist, though I still love the new critical, cynical Sammy. Much better than the old ultra fanboy Sammy

Still, Game Pass has a lot going for it. But I said in the PXB thread that the show was a mixed bag. For anyone already in the Xbox ecosystem it was a phenomenal show with tons of good games and tons of it hitting Game Pass....I got 90 minutes of E3 trailers and I'll get to play nearly all of it with the subscription in already paying. Merely the price of 2 PS5 games and the Plus sub.... That's great. But I also didn't see anything in the show other than Starfield and Redfall to entice anyone not in the ecosystem to jump in. So it was a mixed marketing opportunity. Great for us that are already there. Safe for anyone not

What is a threat to Sony though it's that I represent the greatest threat to their bottom line. The gamer that now really only buys a PlayStation for exclusive games and plays everything else on Xbox by default. It risks putting PlayStation in the awkward bubble Nintendo survived in from N64 until Switch where people only buy the hardware for their own games.

But right now that's not PlayStations biggest problem. Their biggest problem is short sighted penny pinching leaders that decided to take their ball and go home from E3, leaving a week long marketing hype machine where the world talks about everything in gaming EXCEPT PlayStation. Even push square is stuck writing articles about Xbox because there's nothing from Sony to talk about other than the new launch of R&C and a week's old 15 minute trailer of a game that may or may not be out in 2021. There's no hype machine, no Sony show to counter that energy MS set up today and Nintendo will volley on Tuesday. It used to be Monday night Sony would put on a show and irrationally hype us up for things we already knew about and make us forget what seemed good at the MS show. Now they're just kind of alone in the corner confident they're the prom king so theres no need to socialize. It's such bad optics. Even as someone that's played PS longer than Xbox, PS just kind of gets forgotten in the hype without a show.

Sorry we get free stuff for paying for our online. Then if you pay more you have Now which is....ehh but yeah no I don't see no thorns anywhere. If your pining for free fps' then buy a Xsex and pay for an extra service. I'm happy where I'm at. Some of these games that are launching on gamepass and PS5. I'll pass on till they are cheaper I mean if one group pays less maybe I'll start paying less 😀

@Snoober that's not what anyone is saying on here mate.

I am talking about incentivising developers. Nobody knows whether it's profitable or not because MS has not told anyone the numbers so I would not presume to know how much is being made. What I do know is that MS don't pull the full amount for each subscription and we are at the beginning of the GamePass journey so people having concerns about how it turns out after the honeymoon period is perfectly acceptable.

I have played both Forza and Gears because as I have said I DO have an XSX and GP. Gears to me is mediocre garbage whereas Forza Horizon is actually very good. I'd be more interested in Fable and Avowed but it will be years before those are released and if thats all that interests me then by the time I get to play those games I would be expected to pay over £200 which isn't worth it for two games for me.

The model works for some but not for all. Pull your head out of your backside thinking GamePass is a one size fits all because it isn't.

@Otherbarry
I agree but it goes further that that. GP is the ideal platform for GAS games and that's what first party games will go for.
Third party games are just rental random games that come and go and not available after a while. At least on PS+ you keep them forever in your library.

Edit
Another worry is a service similar to GP will bring down PS+ offering like it did for XBL gold

There is a rumor that Microsoft bought an additional 5 game developers. They will buy as many as they can and not even publishers will be save. This will be the end of the gaming industry as we know it. Sony doesn’t have the funds to counter these takeovers. The next 5-10 years will show if Sony can survive this or if they will at the end vanish.

Game Pass was the only reason I forked out for a Series S a few months back and I was like a kid with a new toy. So many games to just install and play on a whim. It's very good value.

@BadPlayerOne like they bought discord right?

@ApostateMage just curious but how many games have you played and finished since you have gamepass?

@dudeAmarillo I've installed 8 games so far but some are long games so I've only actually finished a couple.

Forza Horizon 4
Streets Of Rage 4
Skyrim
Fallout New Vegas
Fallout 4
ME Andromeda
FIFA 21
Two Point Hospital

I'm surprised their show has received so many positive votes. I thought it was average at best and unless you're a fan of flying and driving games nothing looked next gen (or this gen, or whatever).

So many online games that you know will be stuffed full of MTX and many many times console exclusives so plenty of games that will eventually come to PS.

They're clearly not bothered about single player games so until they are then I see no reason to buy an Xbox or subscribe to their app or play Halo through a potato or whatever.

As a person that mostly plays single player games I find no reason to buy into the Xbox game pass. Truth is I find it hard to keep up with the titles Sony's PlayStation offers. Not concerned about Starfield because I have no clue what it is other than a space game. Microsoft did not show any game play! Why? It's could be the biggest thing they have going for them. If it's another multiplayer shooter fest then no thanks.

I think it is strange all those saying game pass can only loose money and will destroy gaming. Its like all these people have not already seen Netflix beat the same path. Game Pass is going to make a fortune for MS. Is there still room for Full price games, Yes. But they better be 95 plus games or true top tier. For the same price as R&C I can get 12 months of Game Pass. I have ended up with paying for one GP ultimate and two GP PC subs for my household, And we have 2 PS5s and only one XsX. As far as PS5 games all I have bought is one copy of Demon Souls. Having a preteen and 2 teenage sons plus myself means we are not a standard household but its clear to me that GamePass is a winner for Microsoft's bottom line.

I often have this conversation with colleagues who question why people would pay full price for a new release or pre-order, which I often do and they don't, when GamePass is so much cheaper, which they have and I don't. And the answer has always been simple for me: I don't want to play those games, I do want to play this one.

I am thrilled with Xbox and looking forward to the Nintendo show. This new generation is definitely all about the exclusives so you are going to need multiple platforms to play all of the games.

It was OK. They showed a lot.

Problem for me is that I don't get excited over tailers. I get excited over gameplay, and there wasn't enough focused gameplay on each title for me to wet my pants.

PS, timed exclusives suck.

People will still be buying PS5 games (that is, I expect the platform to maintain top revenue among consoles) and additionally they will be getting MS exclusives for cheap. It is Xbox as a console that has to worry, as their revenue stream will be cut, at least in the first few years.

Unlike music and video, games as a subscription service has yet to prove its profitability.

@Ogbert It doesn't actually matter, why. People do pay full price, as is evident from quarterly reports. Microsoft has yet to prove that putting a game which costs north of $100m to make on GamePass will pay off.

I don't have a PS5 or Xbox Series X yet. I thought I would definitely get a PS5 as my next-gen, but I'm very much in doubt now. Game Pass is an incredible service.

If I can get more friends to get an Xbox, so it would be the first choice multiplayer platform for coop gaming, the PS5 won't stand a chance.

Friends, however, are on PlayStation. If I can get my hands on a PS5 sometime... that may still be an option as well.

I thought Halo looked great along with of course the biggest highlight for me Plague Tale 2, but I'll be playing Halo on my Xbox one and Plague Tale 2 is now the most exciting next gen only release out there and it's available on PS5 so im happy. Honestly I thought Bethesda dragged the conference down considerably. Just another tease of Starfield, the Doom stuff wasn't exciting, and yet another tease from Arkane.

If its a new IP you can't just put out a CG trailer and expect people to get excited. That only works for established IP like A Plague Tale. But other than that, it was good.

This is a great article. Apart from some obvious ones (and to all those people who told me Bethesda games aren't going exclusive - na na na na na), the show was very much like most Xbox shows. Slick and some great games but very little tied to the brand.

BUT Gamepass is a big disrupter. It doesn't matter too much that they don't have their own games, why buy a game at launch when you can get it on gamepass.

@themightyant Great list and I agree XBGP is good for those that want to sample a lot of variety; what grates is that MS sell it on AAA day 1 exclusives and even in your list I dont see anything other than Forza and Gears 5 that hits that mark. It is provding a vast quantity or cheap stuff but doing a FANTASTIC job of marketing.

For me Sony (what would I know) are failing in two ways:-
1. Not marketing PS Now (twice as many games at half the price of XBGP but they still fail to get the message over). Its an amazing service with so many titles at such a low price - how anyone could rate XBGP above it for Forza 4 and Gears 5 is a mystery.

2. £70 for PS5 first party is ridiculous. I've had a PS5 for 6 months now and I haven't bought a single PS5 title. I have the cash I just dont like to be over-charged.

@The_New_Butler That Playstation has a insane amount of great games.

I'd still rather buy a physical copy of a game. Those exist still which editorials like this across many websites today seem to have forgotten. Sure, I like Gamepass for indies that are digital only. The devs probably make more money with a Gamepass deal.

I think games like Destiny or The Avengers should just be on a service like that but something like Returnal or Ratchet & Clank I'd much rather have a copy of. Gamepass can't do that. I hate how gaming media tries to push everyone in a singular direction.

Also, Nintendo - right now - is tops globally and can they afford to copy Gamepass? No. Will they abandon physical media? No. There can exist different models.

😶-As far as "Gamepass being a Thorn in Sony's side", people thinking long term should realise it'll eventually end up being a Thorn in everyone's side.
Gaming and Games themselves have always been about the evolution of the technology of the HARDWARE that pushes the medium further into the future in the aspect of how the players experience the visuals of the game itself.
While everyone can agree that visually an awesome looking game doesn't mean a good game, people can agree that a great playing game that ALSO uses GREAT visuals will pull you into it that much deeper, I mean isn't that why we all get stoked for Next Gen consoles.
Well if we get sucked into streaming models of gaming like Gamepass, and allow Physical Hardware to become useless and extinct, what do you think gaming is going to look like?
Without developers being pushed to use the latest hardware anymore, how much further out do you see game's using better visuals than we already do wait for, when we switch to New next Gen hardware now?
I mean without that push for visual improvements from actual physical hardware, why would developers push any improvements visually when it would become more expensive than necessary to their bottom line.
Innovation would become more stagnant than it already is, and along with the data caps that we are already experiencing, will also limit the Developers reasons for getting ever increasing visual improvements in gaming through streaming without physical systems handling "All" of the games data throughput.
Because on the Server side of streaming it won't allow the 5 to 7 year turn arounds on MAJOR graphical and technological improvements that Console gaming does.
It will become a profiteering race to the bottom, with ever increasing subscription rates, along with visual quality stagnation, due to the lack of specific hardware requirements.
An ALL Streaming Future is the beginning of the end of gaming as we know it. All the people who buy into it now, like someone who gets a Free or Cheap sample of an addicting drug, then only to find out much later that they now have to pay through the nose, and aren't getting the quality stuff that they use to, it emphasizes how short-sighted it is.
While I try to personally only buy physical media, because I still believe that digital is the greedy gateway drug to the ever greedier games only streaming future, at least for now, digital still requires a physical piece of Graphical Hardware and is still preferable to a laggy, visually downgraded, data capped, and overly profiteering, streaming future that I see beginning with Microsoft!

Biggest deal breaker for me: if I have to spend a whole 6 months worth of Game Pass or a mere single $70 game from PS but ofc it always depends on games but my point is it doesn't going to hurt me if I try out some games I didn't want to spend in the first place but since it's on Game Pass already why not just try it? I could still get a discount if I wanted to own it. I could spend an entire 6 months of subs just to play all the Yakuza games or even Kingdom Hearts which I've always wanted to play with.

Halo was interesting 20 years ago. Now they are pushing the nostalgia because they simply failed to establish anything else. It's fan fiction. Compare Sony's multitude of new and successful IP. Game pass is for consoomers of 'content' who make soy face at a new Star Wars trailer. Playstation is where people who enjoy games with depth of narrative and creative integrity are at.

I really do wish Push square would leave their opinion of PlayStation must have gamepass alone.

I play mostly on Xbox these days but hardly use Gamepass. Its great as a rental service for the odd game I want to play but anything I really want I will end up buying simply because I know at some point a game like Forza Horizon 4 will be delisted due to expired licences in music and therefore become unplayable unless you own a legacy copy (like 1-3)

I rate it 'good'.

They didn't waste too much time and let the games do the talking. The non-stop trailer, trailer, gameplay, trailer format works, very reminiscent of a few of Sony's E3 press conferences from a few years ago.

Overall though, not enough gameplay shown. Also thought it's kind of odd for them to spend so much time on Forza Horizon 5 compared to Halo Infinite (which still doesn't have a solid date). The big thing though is knowing that almost every game revealed is coming to Game Pass, which changes the feeling from "Hey, here's the cool things you can buy for our console coming down the line" to "Hey, here's all these cool things you're just going to get at no extra cost if you already subscribe". The Game Pass bombardment is something Sony just simply can't match, and something I don't think Microsoft can keep up at the current rate in perpetuity, but we'll see.

If I didn't (foolishly) care so much about trophies, I'd be all over Xbox and Game Pass. As a consumer its value is undeniable.

@velio84 We'll see if they do. They've been really bad with their presentations ever since Ryan took over. They said they had nothing in the e3 timeframe, but even if they do it in a few weeks, it's a bad look when the whole industry is gathered for one big industry-wide media showcase, and then weeks later Sony comes out and says "hey, we're still here, too!" I know in their minds they see themselves as bigger and more important than everyone else and therefore their show doesn't need to be a part of the noise. But in reality, it looks really bad. I'm sure it doesn't look bad in a way they've determined financially impacts them, but as a fan....it's just off-putting. They're quite literally going out of their way to snub the industry and separate themselves from everyone else. We're a long way from "This is how you share games on PS4."

I'm not sure I agree about MS not having games the caliber of Sony's. They definitely have different approaches, and Sony certainly dominates the narrative adventure genre with no real competition from MS. And MS was certainly AWOL last gen after Matrick imploded their studios. But from the stuff we see coming up, there's a lot there that screams high quality, but different from Sony's approach. That's a good thing. I'm kind of tired of a lot of the saminess of modern Sony and wish they'd branch out more. I certainly don't want TWO samey consoles! Arkane's new Redfall looks very "PS3 era PlayStation" to me, in a good way. More of that inFamous (mixed with a little Sunset Overdrive that everyone said would have sold better if it was on PS...we'll see with the inevitable sequel on PS), vibe. An experimentalism Sony doesn't want to break eggs to risk making anymore. It's refreshing. But, I'm also that smaller group that isn't thrilled with PS4 era PlayStation. Every game feels like "more Uncharted" to me, no matter how polished it may be. And I like Uncharted. But I miss pre-PS4 PlayStation. A lot of their experimental things like inFamous became some of my favorite games, so if Sony's into playing it safe, I'm excited about more experimental approaches elsewhere, even if I still get my fix of "all the Uncharteds" on PS

Well, then. Do SOMETHING about it then. It's not like they can't include more and or better games for PS+ and PS Now.

@The_New_Butler I'm a pretentious guy bro.

The leading examples of narrative depth and creative integrity would be the Last of Us 2 and Death Stranding. As many loved them as hated them, but they are both strong examples of a strong creative vision put before mass market considerations. No one else really does that at a blockbuster level.

Another example for contrast would be God Of War. That paid tribute to the originals whilst very much forging its own path, whereas microsoft seem to be marketing Halo Infinite as 'look, its exactly that thing you remember but shinier'. It may as well be a remaster.

Subscription services are not for me. I want to play the games I want, whenever I want, for the time I want.
For what regards me, that's the end of story.

@themightyant

You're absolutely right. The value is pretty much unbeatable. It's really annoying, because neither Nintendo or Sony could afford to put this many games onto a streaming service day 1. Microsoft is out here selling pies for $3, when they cost $7 to make. Even if Sony decided to respond to gamepass by throwing all their 1st party exclusives onto PS Now at launch, they would go bankrupt from the lost sales.

Sony needs to fix PSNow and PSPlus and maybe combine them into alternative to Game Pass. And quickly.
But as for content quality and exclusives, PS is good after that presentation. There are like 2 games that I felt awed by (one of them was Forza Horizon, which is always a given).

@GameCollector84 One thing to remember with the monetization is from the consumer's perspective "we get dozens of games for only $10 a month." It's incredible value. But form the business side, the "average" gamer buys only 2 games a year, as we know from the general attach rate figures generation to generation. It seems strange to us, the enthusiast base, but market-wide, 2 games a year per console is the average. That means for all of us who buy a dozen games a year, there's a lot of owners who are buying 0-1 game a year that offsets us.

This is certainly a big part of the reason for Sony's price increase. They need to make more margin off each sale to a relatively low volume sales audience in the mass market.

So what does Game Pass do, financially? Everyone on that platform is committing to the spending equivalent of 2 games per year (or more, for Ultimate), up-front. Meaning it's actually the same amount of spend into the platform, on average, as the Sony model of direct-sales per-game only. It's a better value to consumers because they can access tons more games for the same money. It's taking candy from a baby for us, the enthusiasts, who normally spend more than average (but the numbers show we're still spending more than average buy also buying games and DLC.) But across the install base, the often overlooked detail is they're not actually giving away anything at "below cost", they're getting roughly the same, or more, income per average customer with Game Pass as they/Sony were/are with retail-only sales. And they're not sharing any of that revenue with brick and mortar retailer partners, they're just opening up access to more content for that money than buying titles by SKU by selling access to their library instead of selling you yours. And they get stable revenue all the while (far better for investment to compound that revenue.)

It's not necessarily the loss-leader it seems up front. That doesn't mean they are or aren't making a killing on it, but there's a lot of ways the numbers work out in different ways for this stuff that doesn't seem obvious from the outside. What looks like them giving away too much value, might net them the same return as before, but with a more compelling product to sell to more people. I.E. out of those 100 games available, a Game Pass customer is going to commit to spending $180/yr if they're on ultimate into the Xbox platform. Whereas if there was no Game Pass, the average customer would spend....well, $140/yr at Sony's current pricing. Less than a Game Pass customer. And that attach rate of "2" games doesn't necessarily mean $70 games. It might mean they buy Ratchet & Clank and Legend of Mana. $100 spend into PSN (or PSN split with losses to retailer share) versus $180 to the GPU customer. Yeah, for enthusiasts here we laugh at $180 a year on games and thing "pfft, if only!" But we're not the average, and the average numbers include our excessive spend against people who own a console and buy literally nothing many years. The GPU customer is spending $180 EVERY year.

Made no difference to me. They had one game that I was interested in with Back4Blood, but I lost interest in that when they announced the card system several weeks back.

As for Game Pass... I'm just not interested in it, or any subscription gaming service beyond Plus. I wasn't interested in Stadia, I'm not interested in PS Now.

I turn 50 next birthday, so maybe I'm just a bit old-fashioned, but I actually like to buy and own my games, movies, and music, and not rent or stream them... which is also why I still buy movies I really enjoy on disc, and music I really like on CD, and why I don't bother with things like Spotify.

I mean, I've got a gaming PC, and I don't even sub to Game Pass on that.

At the end of the day there is no one right way of doing things. GamePass will attract the people who want to have a subscription service and there will always be a market for people who want to buy games.

I have purchased GamePass and the model is not for me and I do have real concerns about it if this became the industry standard. The fact is it doesn't have to go that way.

I refuse to lie and say GamePass is not value for money because for the right gamer it certainly is. Nor will I say that £70 per game doesn't bug me, in some cases it does but not for the games I really enjoy so will pay a pretty penny for those experiences.

The dynamic of having GamePass and traditional sales actually offers some form of balance. As long as you are charging a big chunk of cash you need to drive those sales with top quality. Likewise if you want people paying big chunks of cash to spend it on your subscription service you need to ensure you curate/develop a wide range of quality games. As long as both exist they will compete for our cheddar. Win Win if you ask me.

Wishing ill on the competition is only going to allow the side your sat on to become complacent. I have bought 3 out of 4 of the Xbox generation as I always like to keep an open mind but what they are doing simply doesn't work for me but it works for others and I am ok with that.

@NEStalgia

Total revenue for all games and subscription services in 2018 was 35.8 billion. I'm sure that number has grown since then, but to even get half that revenue Gamepass would need around 150 million subscribers paying $10 a month. I think that would be the point at which MS' gamepass would start turning a healthy profit. Either that or somewhere close to the 100 million subscribers mark, since that would net them about 1/3rd of the industry's revenue. Until then, I really do think they are engaging in a massive loss leader campaign.

I do find it really astounding that Sony do not have any real answer to Game Pass.
PS Now could be it, but currently has nowhere near the same quality of offering.

Particularly with new game prices being so high now, I think it is inevitable that Sony are going to lose some sales to Microsoft, particularly for the people who are mostly buying multiplatform games, many of which are going to Game Pass but are full price on PS4.

@GameCollector84 We don't need to compare total games and subscription services against Game Pass, though. Only per-customer revenue. Game Pass doesn't magically replace all other customers and revenue streams. As its own platform it only needs to compare to per-user sales on any other platform, not replace the entire Xbox or PlayStation customer base, and per-customer the average across all the companies sits somewhere around 2 games per year, and that's been fairly static over generations. The number of customers grew, but the total spend per customer remains fairly steady.

Normal retail customers still exist in large numbers, and Game Pass customers have been shown to also be normal retail customers (pushing that spend over the stated $180.) It's not an either or proposition, and the total market cap doesn't matter so much. All that matters is how much revenue a Game Pass customer generates versus a non-Game Pass customer over the same period of time, and how the total customer pool of Game Pass customers generates an average per-capita revenue versus non-Game Pass customers. If the per-capita spend is as-good or better, then it's highly profitable as a product, even if its in search of a wider market. If the total gross falls short of the retail sales, then that simply means there's still more retail than Game Pass customers. If the per-capita spend is lower than through retail channels, then, yes, that means they're selling it at a loss.

@NEStalgia

Hypothetically what would happen if I made a game with a budget of 100 million, asked for $180 per copy and only sold 10,000 copies? My average consumer spend would be $180, but I'd still be far short of my overall revenue goal. After all, I just spent $100 million to make a total sales revenue of 1.8 million.

I'm sorry, but I don't think per customer spending is really relevant. What is relevant is whether or not the money Xbox is investing into gamepass is being replaced by it's current pool of subscribers. Last I heard Gamepass had 23 million subscribers, and buying Bethesda alone cost 7.5 billion. That means Gamepass revenue should be at 2.7 billion per year ($120 per year per subscriber). At this rate it would take them over two years of subscribers just to pay for the Bethesda acquisition. And sure there's going to be retail sales beyond Gamepass revenue, but there's also going to be ongoing development budgets for all those Bethesda games. When you add in all the other games MS is putting onto gamepass at launch, I just don't see this being profitable. At least not right now.

I agree that Gamepass doesn't have to completely replace all revenue streams. But who the heck wouldn't stop buying games outright and just sign up for it? It's just too good of a deal! Sure, people will still buy Nintendo and Sony games on those platforms, but if you have an Xbox + Gamepass why even bother buying Xbox games? I mean, it doesn't necessarily have to replace all revenue streams, but it looks inevitable that it will. At least in the next ten to fifteen years.

Edit: I would like to add in that Fallout 4 sold 8 million units on PS4, 5 million on Xbox, and 6 million on PC. Revenue that Starfield brings in from gamepass will need to replace the lost 8 million sales that won't happen on PS5 thanks to console exclusivity. It will also need to replace the lost sales from Xbox and PC users who opt to subscribe to Gamepass instead of purchase the game outright. So, Gamepass revenue from Starfield alone would need to replace around 10 to 12 million units in lost sales revenue. Again, sorry, but I just don't see that as possible. Not when you take that $10 a month and divide it between hundreds of games per person.

@Rolyatthegoon Better the PS3 generation where every fu####### game is a FPS.

@Paranoimia Im al little younger but the same goes for me.

I bought a Xbox Series S because it was in stock.

I soon had a chance to buy either a PlayStation 5, or Xbox Series X.

I would have chosen PlayStation 5, but I went with Xbox Series X. The reason being, I had already done the 3 year Xbox Live Gold to Game Pass Ultimate conversion for $1 trick.

I skipped last gen consoles entirely but decided last fall to get either a PS5 or Xbox. Game Pass was very eye-catching, but that's all that appealed to me about Xbox. And when I thought about if I'd ever get around to playing all of those games the choice was simple, personally. If PS Now was identical to GP, I wouldn't subscribe. So it's just a thing I don't see myself caring about ever, unless every game I wanted came out on it and never left

I havn't read all the replies and if someone has already made this point 'm sorry.

While the value of gamepass is going up in the next couple of years the main issue for me is still 'How long?'

Yes you have a subscription but they control all the content. So you don't own any of it and it can get pulled from gamepass at any time. I suppose it is great value if you have to play every new game that comes out but I'm pretty selective with my gaming choices.

I did buy a series s this gen and will probably play 'Like a Dragon' on there and 'MLB 21' but really that's all that's on there right now that interests me.

I hate that they are control in everything and you have no say. I prefer to have my discs cause then as long as I have the hardware I can play 'em. That's worth the premium for the games for me.

(Also as an aside, the Series S UI is HORRIBLE! I hate it soo much. It's so cluttered and confusing.)

@themightyant Is there a tutorial somewhere on how to use the UI cause I find it baffling? What I really want is to declutter the screen and take off all the ads for games I am never going to play. SO MANY ADS on the UI. I just want rid of them. lol. Help me senpai!

@themightyant
😶- I get that your feeling the corporate synergy from Phil Spencer, but just like any drug dealer pushing their product, I'm not going to trust, nor do I think anyone should take their word for(the dealer) about the price and quality and future of Gaming being this harmoniously equally shared ecosystem in The Gaming Community, with both models at play of Streaming and Physical Hardware, when obviously it's just the start and in its infancy of them pushing for a streaming future, and once firmly established, will be waaaay more profitable than digital or physical media combined, especially when comparing playing that media off of expensive hardware that they have to design and create and ship and then lose money off of.
😕-I don't know what people expect him to say, but I'm sorry he's not going to put on a black hat and twist his mustache, and forcast their true intentions, especially when it's STILL at the beginning of them(Microsoft) trying to further implement and establish their streaming service, when obviously there currently still is physical hardware to further overcome and counter and possibly slow their intentions of that streaming future, and what they really want that streaming future to be?

For them to State anything otherwise about Gamepass, would only be the second biggest mistake barring the start of last Generation of Xbox one with the power of Xcloud, when they had to do an about face, but I get it, their the good guys now and their intentions are pure, unlike last gen? Even though this is a obvious reach around maneuver, to compensate for the bad PR and backlash from last Gen, while accomplishing the same goal?

I personally don't buy it, nor do I think anyone else should, but it's your choice.
But personally I'd feel like a sucker if I did. To each his own.

@GameCollector84 Apologies, I wrote a whole big response to that with what I think we'd all think are good points and good examples, etc.....and it's too long to post. So I tried chopping it, and it's still too long, and then tried chopping it again, and it's still to long. And it's just not useful without the whole discussion, so I'm ending up not posting it at all! Darned forum software. I remember the days when it would let me textwall without mercy.....

TL;CR; The numbers can work. And lots of stuff about contracts, revenue models, retailer/distributor vs dev/publisher, opportunity and daydreaming about Haze 2. Lots of good stuff the world will never read.

@themightyant I'll add one thing to this though, which is, did anyone watch Verizon's E3 showcase? Anyone? Bueller?

I did (I know, it's 30 minutes I'll never get back.) But it was informative beyond them being the only E3 show that actually set up a real E3 stage for 3 people to be on in an empty room (ok, it's a recycled EA set, but still...)

Sure it was 5G, 5G, mobile, 5G, eSports, eSports, eSports, MEC, eSports MEC.

But.

It was an important show because it highlighted part of the future tech that will be influencing the delivery of games. And the theme from big tech/big telecom remains that consoles are on life support. NONE of us (blue, green or red team) want that to happen, but like many other tech things we luddites never wanted, it's going to be increasingly forced on us by mass market convenience and economics. They're pushing hard on the use of MEC in gaming. MEC is basically, after all the technobabble, putting co-processing mini-server farms at the cell site level, so that instead of using the client device doing all the processing, or relying on "the cloud' so that some server in LA is running game processing for NY with all the latency involved, it puts the heavy processing at the cell tower, so you have a local thin client on your device. Your phone. YOUR PHONE

What does this have to do with PlayStation? Nothing. And that's my point. Mobile is massive. Mobile dominates Asia. It's going to be pushed hard here. Amazon is going to push mobile and Streaming. Amazon AWS was the pilot for Verizon's MEC deployment. Luna is here. Stadia will push that. New comers will push that. Microsoft is part of it with Azure. Game Pass Cloud is going to be there. Even Nintendo is more and more heavily putting streaming at the forefront of their mobile device.

Sony is now the only gaming company that is entirely tethering themselves into the hardware console ecosystem short of a few satellite services. If that doesn't change within the next 6 years....they are absolutely going to find themselves in some real trouble. (I endured the years on Nintendo Life with "Nintendo should just go third party". Please look forward to that on a Push Square near you. )

@themightyant
😳- Whoa, slow your roll, I never implied that you were some kind of Xbox fanboy nor am I a Sony Fanboy?

Now evidently you somehow gleaned that from my nuanced point of view, seeing as most people think if you say anything negative about one side that you must be for the other, without having the capability of having a nuanced point of view about both sides.

In this case it just so happens to be my nuanced point of view about Microsoft and their direction they're taking Xbox with grooming us with Game Pass and then comparing it to them, when they tried to Ram X-Cloud down our throats last generation. The only difference NOW is instead tactically there trying to sweetly GROOM everyone with absurdly cheap subscriptions to Game Pass, and expecting everyone to believe that there's nothing to see or to worry about.
It's feels like that cliche about the Frog in boiling water, that there isn't any boiling water yet( being groomed), but yet later(in the future)there will be, but only after gradually adjusting(grooming) the Heat up slowly, then were all dead frogs in that Boiling Pot of water. Then it's too late.

Look, I don't care if it's Sony Microsoft, Google or whoever the corporate Lackey is, I'm not going to blindly take anybody's corporate word for what they think there vision is, when it's their actual job to further execute their Financial agenda in the smoothest possible way, but after taking into account Microsoft's horrendously aggressive anti-consumer screw up, at the very beginning of the last generation of Xbox console, I'm not buying a word they say.

All corporations have short-term and long-term profit agendas, which is completely normal, but I think Microsoft is still heading in this (eventual) All Streaming direction that evidently some people believe that they aren't , because of all the corporate speak- (AKA synergy) hence my comment about buying into Microsoft's synergy, and in my honest opinion, I think is very short-sighted. Just my opinion, nothing else.
And again, Instead of us being force-fed xcloud, and receiving such bad PR and backlash, yet now instead we're being slowly and smartly groomed into thinking everything is fine, just because this time there not trying to Ram it down my throat? But instead are giving me sweet sub pricing and little kisses and nibbles?
Just smacks of someone being suckered.

While I didn't buy an Xbox console until the Xbox One X came out last gen, because in my opinion they seemed to have changed their tune long before then about X-Cloud, but this Generation after seeing Game Pass pricing and all the hardcore grooming, there's no way I'm going back to the Xbox ecosystem. I sold the One X and my Pro right before the PS5 came out and got it day one. But just because I now only have a Sony Console, doesn't mean that if they screw up in some way that I won't blast them, because unlike other people I can have a nuanced point of view about many things, not just the "your side" against "my side" point of view, lol
😕-Do what you wanna do, say what you wanna say, but understand no one's putting you down. Happy Gaming 😁✌!

@themightyant LOL, I never thought of pastebinning text for some reason. You do realize you've just started a new malaise on the NL networks and potentially unleashed an accidental DDOS on pastebin, right?

As for big tech, Verizon. I don't think Verizon's little speech marks the end of consoles today. But what it did reveal is important. It means the topology of the networks and "cloud" computing is changing in a direction I hadn't anticipated. The "network" is moving beyond a bandwidth carrier and morphing into a distributed computing platform. I didn't see that coming. The ISPs are going to start becoming local co-locs. That's not insignificant. And once these things start, once we hear about them, they're well out of prototype and into deployment. They deploy this stuff rapidly over a few years. More, they've built their 5G network, and nobody is actually interested or cares about it. They're aggressively seeking a market to push it into.

To put it in perspective, I remember when Bell Net would close accounts without questions asked when they discovered someone ran a multiplayer gaming server on the network. Jump to 2021, and Verizon is an Elite tier sponsor of E3 - they're paying the second most money to fund E3 to exist beneath Nintendo and Microsoft(!) - with their own keynote on an E3 stage. They're not playing around or doing the usual "big tech vaguely predicts this future, so please invest in us" speech. They're making a serious, and very aggressive move into the gaming space with the intent to shape it around their networks. They're making big pushes into eSports via that route, making appeals to devs (laugh all you want, but put "mobile" and "Square Enix" in a room, and X-rated things happen.) They have EA dipping their toes in. Laugh away, but EA sells more PlayStations that Sony ever has. FIFA (and GTA) is the reason PS4 is dominant, full stop. Not Ellie and Sackboy.

No, I don't think the current 5G rollout is the end game for consoles. But it's revealing that big tech/telecom is making such an aggressive push into the gaming space, and the cloudification/mobilizing of gaming. Alone it's hot air. But when combined with what we've already known and watched with Google/Stadia, Amazon/Luna, Netflix possibly, nVidia ,cloud is happening. It's not universal. We all know that. But it's significant. We know MS is pushing to couple the console "premium" experience with the mass market cloud experience. And now we know telecom (with Intel, etc) is moving to really morph the cloud experience into a happy medium between local hardware and cloud convenience...moving the computing device as a local client-server setup rather than the existing "cloud" WAN setup. Things are definitely changing, and I think the Verizon show is a little frighting because it shows it's going to accelerate and the barriers and limitations we like to promote to defend consoles are going to start falling. Not completely, but enough to sell the mass market. I've been on this battlefield before. I held the line against MP3, DLCs, always-on consoles, broadband multiplayer.....I'm the luddite in every war and always lose.

Luna's putting their controller on Prime Day next week. Microsoft announced the Game Pass stick to run on any smart TV with no hardware (or you can buy the console for a premium experience), Verizon announced a new network topology to facilitate lower latency performance while eliminating local hardware requirements (and it's already running in some locations.) - Sure, this is the "beta" But the time PS6 should launch, it'll be "normal." MS will have a wholly coupled cloud/console ecosystem. Nintendo is going shockingly deep into (an overpriced, bad model) of streaming services for "modern" gaming..... Yes, Sony has Now, and Now has streaming. But does it offer anything all of these other services don't offer? Not really.

While Verizon is desperately trying to find SOMEONE to sell 5G to, it's not 5G that's really the defining feature here. It's that "MEC" buzzword they keep using. It's the topology change, not the wireless tech change that actually matters and will push a change. The "MEC" idea works just fine on 4G, too. And it works with wired internet. The real idea is moving the "cloud computing" down the chain to the "last mile" so that the local tower/telco/switching node is the "cloud" you're running on.

I'm not making the case that streaming is about to replace consoles entirely. But I am making the case that streaming is about to evolve in a way that makes it a lot less unlikable a lot faster, and will therefore take a massive dent out of the console market. Like I said, more people bought a Playstation to play FIFA than God of Boi and Tsushima. And those people are going to be awfully tempted to not buy a $500 box to keep doing the same. Meanwhile Sony prices go up, Microsoft prices go down (and offers the conveniences of that streaming world and the quality of the hardware world all at once). Nintendo offers...well, their own alternate reality approximation of that. And that Sony's the only company that isn't positioned well for that change.

I think the changes suck for gamers in general, but won't take away our option necessarily. MS has huge incentive to offer both worlds - but that's the point. They offer both, all at once. And Nintendo....kinda does. But I think Sony's position in that change isn't very enviable.... It wouldn't be the first - or the 30th - time they've become a dinosaur by sticking to the old model on something. It's kind of their normal strategy. They still sell VCRs that play video games. PS5 may be a very large, ugly, well...uhh...illuminated VCR, but it's still a VCR that plays video games, and they're really really hellbent on locking everyone into that VCR. They have to, it's their lifeblood. And Sony has never (ever) done services well. In any industry.

My prediction stands. Given the rapid change that will unfold in the market with these technologys, and competitors' footing for them, Sony is in the worst position with the most to lose from it if they don't figure out how to address that, soon. Either by offering value, or by leaning into the wind with service/streaming/cloud/whatever. Raising prices and charging more to what will be a shrinking audience can't be a successful strategy. They've relied on growth and market share for the past 25 years.

(Oh screw pastebin, this one fits in two posts )

@NEStalgia

I agree that the PS6 generation will be pretty much DOA due to streaming taking over. I think once that happens I'll step away from modern gaming. Why? Because in an all streaming world games that rely heavily on microtransactions and GaaS will be pretty much all there is. Complete single player games won't be able to get their revenue in an all streaming world. After all, when I buy a game myself, 100% of that money goes to the developer. If I subscribe to Gamepass to play a game my $10 gets split up between however many games were added to Gamepass that month.

Right now, this works, because Gamepass is supplemental to game sales. Developers often release their games onto Gamepass six months after launch. So they get their initial sales, and then gamepass money on top of it. That scenario is a win-win for players and devs.

But in the future when nobody buys their games anymore, it's going to become a serious problem. Just look at Spotify. Instead of players getting to decide the value of a complete single player game, it will be the massive companies deciding. The only solution for a game developer is to add Microtransactions to their game. But I absolutely hate that. A game should come complete for $60 and maybe have a $30 DLC expansion. It shouldn't cost hundreds of dollars to get the complete version of a game.

Games like Super Mario Odyssey, Ghost of Tsushima, and The Outer Worlds are what I want. You pay once, and get the whole package. You're done. I hate games that force you to choose between playing for hundreds of hours to grind for cosmetics, paying extortionist rates for said cosmetics, or just going without them. GIVE ME MY GAMES, AND GIVE THEM TO ME COMPLETE FOR A FLAT PRICE DAMNIT!

Nintendo shows that you don’t need Gamepass or even cheap games to barbecue Xbox. That’s not why people buy Ps5s and Switches. It’s like Netflix vs Prime. Prime has far more third party stuff and is cheaper but the originals are the reason why people love Netflix. And showing 1-2 year old games for Gamepass doesn’t WooW me. They showed 2 new AAA Ips, one is Starfield and the other is so early in development that only cgi existed. Bethesda today is not the Bethesda in the 2000s. I think their bad writing will no longer work after witcher 3. We saw that with fallout. Forza and Halo never saved Xbox and will never be. Also, Sony already confirmed that they are working on a Gamepass like model for third party games. 70$ in today’s money is like 40$ in 1999 money, we can be happy that those games cost not over 90$, but it’s easier to not understand inflation and criticize the price^^. Gamepass won’t save Xbox. Gamepass is nothing new and 99% of all Ps4 buyers won’t say “well let’s forget all the great Sony games and rather play this third party stuff for free”. I don’t see that. Microsoft bloated the whole e3 with games, Sony could usually also show with Ps Plus. It’s like a Sony e3 where they show future Ps Now and Ps Plus content. And Ps plus content is extremely underrated by the US media. Spending money for Gamepass rents is not the same like creating new games. I simply rather pay fullprice for Ratcher GoW horzin demons souls Spiderman etc. than to pay 10$ for the Gamepass stuff. The american media tries to oversell the Gamepass for years now, it doesn’t work. You can’t win costumers with old games or third party games. Sony had 2020 til now better content than Xbox in their entire history and probably their whole next generation. Like Nintendo, they simply don’t need subscription services. People who have no money just wait til the game goes on sale and buy it for 9.99 or 19.99 and keep and replay it whenever they want without subscription.

I was fortunate enough to have a PS5 and a Series X pre-order on Amazon last November. I've been PS since PS1, but very nearly switched this time for the crazy value that GP offers...that three years of GPU for the cost of Xbox live gold converted into it for a dollar is hard to argue with.

In the end, I gave up the Series X pre-order and stuck with Sony but I now wish I had gone the other way. I mostly buy indie games and games on sale, but even with that I'd probably have saved money since last year as nearly all of my purchase are on game pass. That's without considering stuff like Forza and the rest.

To date, my PS5 is used purely for my PS4 backlog and PS+, some admittedly patched to run better. Haven't bought a single PS5 exclusive game yet due to the pricing.

I was swayed by being so deep in the PS ecosystem really, but I should have just kept the PS4 Pro for my backlog and PS+ and the Series X for game pass and the access to all their first party stuff day one.

@The_New_Butler I think a comparison is always useful. To go back to the original subject, gamepass released in 2017, it barely helped them shift even 40% of the amount of consoles Sony did last gen. And even though its early days, its looking roughly the same ratio between the ps5 and serieseses. I think that commitment to quality exclusives is the difference, (well executed if not always particularly original) and far outweighs gamepass as a consumer incentive.

Do you think the Bethesda announcements will change that? That is the big win for microsoft IMO.