Should MS release first party games on gamepass day1

I am a consumer, so yes.

Only reason MS is doing it is because they were convinced they could get 100+million people to subscribe. They need massive economies of scale for this to have a chance to work. Even at that, will still be a challenge.

Yes. They need to keep losing billions a year so over half a decade they become poorer than Sony, and Sony acquires them.

I don’t think that games releasing day one on Game Pass is making devs any more lazy, they’re still games that they want to sell outside of GP as well. Also you got to release quality games to sell people on subscribing to GP anyway.

@Pedro: I'm a consumer too, but I'm also a gamer. If returning to direct sales will boost quality, I'll accept it. Time to throw day1 in the garbage for first party studios.

Yes, the people who act allergic to it and act like they're showing up and snubbing MS by buying them on Steam can subsidize the value I get out of Game Pass.

@Archangel3371: honestly, with how badly halo multi-player content release was done, and the massive over budget, I'm afraid gamepass is turning into socialist pass for these devs. This isn't a good thing. Not a good thing at all. Maybe I'm being overly fearful, we will see the case with these upcoming first party games.

@blaznwiipspman1: Maybe if their games are getting played a lot they get a bonus? Just a random thought.

@hardwenzen: LOL

@blaznwiipspman1: That just doesn’t make sense though. They’re trying to sell the game outside of Game Pass as well as sell GP as a service. They’ll do neither if they don’t make quality games.

yes, this is a solid point. They felt that they could drive subscriber numbers, but honestly, I think they will get much closer to that goal once they aquire AB and get the mobile department folded in. The issue is that google and apple don't want gamepass on their phones, because it would eat away at their gaming profits. Honestly, MS should just release their own phone, and put gamepass on it. Id jump ship to their phone.

gamepass has butchered direct sales though. Most people just don't buy games anymore on xbox if its available on gamepass. To MS, selling games directly doesn't matter anymore. Its all about those subscription numbers.

fear of the whip has always worked better than the carrot my friend.

@blaznwiipspman1: Well people won’t subscribe to Game Pass either if they don’t put quality games on the service.

If the alternative was classic Nintendo standard, I'd be on the fence... but I've seen PS5 releases over the last 2 years, so I don't get the argument.

@blaznwiipspman1:

Can they really backtrack on this feature? I mean can they really be like "Starting in April, new 1st party games won't be on gamepass day 1"

@Archangel3371: they will keep subscribers with the quality 3rd party content and amazing indies. It's like Netflix, lots of low quality content is what keeps subscribers, not the big budget titles. This is why I'm saying socialist pass. The big first party titles are using gamepass as a crutch to do sloppy work.

Xbox and Devs needs to figure out how to make a profit within gamepass. Halo used to earn like $200-300m revenue first week in traditional sales, very hard to emulate that within the economics of subscription when it's not moving as fast as u hope.

I personally hope Xbox continues to put 1st party on Gamepass as hopefully it makes Sony response. PS output is at their best when there is competition. Arrogant Sony is worst Sony.

@blaznwiipspman1: Eh, I just don’t really buy into that reasoning myself. 🤷‍♂️

Gamers are consumers. Find evidence that more sales boost quality and I will bite.

Of course they should. The quality argument is specially weird since the last two Horizons have been on GP and they have no rival when it comes to both quantity and quality within the genre and Halo Infinite is better than the last two previous one that weren't on the service. Ah yes, it's socialism! Lmao 🤣

There is something to be said in the fact that it feels like they ship less games than they do buy studios. Somewhere the incentives are just not lining up and it's not working out as great as it should be on paper with so much goodwill and so many talented studios in their pocket.

I'm not sure what the answer is.

Yes if they want to continue being in first place

No!

I have always had that stance from day one. And everything you're saying are things I've said when the idea of day 1 AAA first party was proposed.

Being that you were one of the most logical xbox fans I've interacted with (even in disagreement) on this board, It's not a surprise that you'd eventually see the fault in this strategy that every other xbox fan is blindly capping for.

Xbox fans claimed this wouldn't affect the quality of their 1st party, but just looking at what happened to Halo since this Gamepass Day 1 nonsense and you'd have to be a child or have an extremely low IQ not to see how this mess has hurt Xbox game quality.

Unlike you, most xbox fans only seem to catch on after shit has completely fallen apart THEN they pretend like they always knew it was going to fail...just like the STADIA IS THE FUTURE nimrods did.

@blaznwiipspman1: games have only improved since Game Pass debuted

See response below, lol.

Halo Infinite problems are because of Gamepass now...😂

Gamepass is their golden egg for the foreseeable future.... So yes.

@Pedro: It's those damn Microsoft socialists!!!

lol I had to appreciate that.

People always want to blame socialism. Well, let me tell ya, not on Comrade Bojangles watch they won't!

You know, it'd be fun to see an experiment run or a survey done. I'm curious how a small studio like Wube (Factorio) or Coffee Stain (Satifactory) or Iron Gate AB (Valheim) split profits, if they follow a more "socialist" model. Or do their bosses also make %4000 more than their programmers?

Game Pass is not the problem when it comes to quality, creativity, and more.

AAA development and publishing has been in a slump for what feels like at least a decade, with very few good and original releases. For many of us, most of what we get is the n'th installment of the same lame franchise we've been playing since we were kids. This predates Game Pass considerably.

Is Microsoft to blame for this? Of course. But so is Sony. And Ubisoft. And EA. And...

this is what I fear as well.

isn't it too early to say that though? We have seen how halo infinite multiplayer content has been barren, and even the single player content is missing DLC after 7 years of development. Let that sink in for a minute. The game is absolutely a fantastic gem, but it could be so much better. Where is the DLC, the different biomes? If you look at halo 5, the campaign wasn't that great but the multiplayer scene was very solid with tons of features. Halo 5 development was mostly done before gamepass was a thing.

Forza Horizon 5 was fantastic, and its been consistent but thats the lone game so far. MSFS20 was contracted to a 3rd party studio.

The upcoming games in 2023 will reveal alot I think.

I think MS made a mistake releasing Day 1 exclusive games, should have waited for at least a year.

What kind of a question is this? If MS didn't offer day 1 1st-party games releases how are they supposed to advertise their service with a better benefits compared to other service such as PS+

With so much competition on Game Pass, and MS offering quality first party games like they always have, it's a selling point for Game Pass. FM8, Starfield, Redfall, AoE4, etc are massive AAA games that are day one one Game Pass.

Wow, I haven't read such a bad post in ages.

@blaznwiipspman1: The only people saying "What if day1 game pass is causing big studios to release lower quality releases? I" are Sony fanboys.

Don't act like a Sony fanboy.

There is no evidence of that. Day 1 Game Pass has been around since 2018. There have been several AAA releases since then, along with significant monetary investments by Microsoft (including buying/building several studios/publishers).

After seeing how barren halo infinite was in multiplayer, and the delays with coop and cancellation of other features, overall delays of a bunch of games honestly I'm not sure. FH5 was fantastic and fully featured though. One thing is for sure, 2023 will reveal alot about gamepass.

ooff, low blow my friend.

As for the rest, even if gamepass was around since 2018, we are only starting to see the first party releases now. GP is still in its infancy, I would say and there isn't enough information. One game doesn't make a trend.

The unionization stuff is concerning though.

I feel gamepass is the far better service even without the first party games. Those games are the lure, the other games, the multiplats and indies are the treasures.

Xbox games have been scoring higher now that they have been on Game Pass.

Of course they should. They are for gamer unlike some we could mention.

Plenty money in.the subscription business. Just look the money being spent on TV programs.

MSs goal is to be the netflix of gaming. Everyone subs to gamepass and gets "free" games. That's their angle. That's really what they want. So yes they should release their games Day 1 on gamepass (it's also nice for gamepass subscribers).

As for the argument of it affecting quality: it's not. The AAA sector has been a bit pants for a while. The cost of development and complexity of making modern games is taking it's toll. AAA publishers are perfectly capable of putting out overly hyped meh and have been doing it long before gamepass.

The current model caused the dissolving of PSNow. It would be a great loss of value to remove what has become expected.

I personally think MS needs to release on GP day right now simply because they really don't have the exclusive profile that Sony and Nintendo do, and they want to push GP as much as possible for subscription revenue.

If newer IPs outside of the Forza/Halo/Gears template like Starfield and Avowed come out and set the gaming world on fire I think they have more options to release outside of gamepass, but until they have a flawlessly killer IP everyone just HAS to play, I don't think they have alot to bargain with for consumers.

With Game Pass, it supports PC which is great as I don't really need an Xbox console (despite owning XSS but that's beside the point) so that's a better value for the money IMO and PS Now doesn't support PC so technically, not something I would bother until Sony can offer a better value.

Yes, makes it appealing to me as a consumer.

Halo Infinite's problems are not Game Pass related.

PS Now supports PC. Well, it's not called PS Now anymore as they dissolved it thanks to Game Pass. But the streaming of PS games does indeed work on PC as well.