I mean he has to say they, they were already doing day 1 on Gamepass for 1p for years lol. He can't say those new 1p studios are going to release games not on gamepass.
As for Microsofts having people who can spot a potential blow up game before it becomes big, I get what you're saying, but in this case we are talking about a cooking game and while I do believe that there's a market for this since the game sold 700,000 as shown in the article I don't think there's ever going to be massive mainstream acceptance for a cooking game like Minecraft or Fortnite.
At least not without NFT's grinding, create a character, crafting's, lasers, and guns somewhere in it. But not a simulator lol.
This just looks like the most confusing decisions I've see Microsoft make. It's completely out of character.
If you're comparing their strategy to 2021's, then maybe it does look out-of-character. Last year they got games like Outriders into the service Day 1, and made some negotiations for late additions like Marvel's Avengers. This year, in light of a very sparse 1P lineup, they've seemingly done none of that and don't have any big 3P additions to make up for it.
There were even supposed rumors they nabbed stuff like Gotham Knights or (very recently) Elden Ring for GamePass but the former was always a stretch and the latter seemed like an even bigger one considering how that game's been selling. Either one would've also required a lot more than the $10 million MS spent for GotG, especially if they wanted Gotham Knights Day 1.
So they're pretty much left to turn to smaller quirky indies and hope one of them is a good enough hit. What MS really need, is to do what Sony did during PS3 if they want the best means of pushing their platform's growth (platform in this case being GamePass): they need to rely on their own 1P titles. Which, right now quite a few are up in the air as to their status, and others like Starfield were delayed seemingly out of nowhere.
So the soonest MS can start to expect any measurable, maybe-longer-term GP growth, is when they can start getting 1P games out with a regular cadence, so that at the earliest will be towards the end of 2023, and that depends on how good Starfield and RedFall end up being (Forza should end up pretty strong quality-wise, those games usually tend to).
I think there is little appreciation for how much money Microsoft has on hand and continues to make. 600k for Cooking simulator or 6,000k for a AAA game is chicken feet for Xbox which generates 16,000,000k in annual revenue which belongs to a company which has at least 100,000,000k cash on hand.
Microsoft will always need to pay for games that it doesn't produce regardless of how good game pass is for sales. Microsoft puts games on Gamepass to make money and third parties deserve a proportional cut of the action in exchange for the rights to their IP.
How much money MS has won't matter as much going forward because they have already sunk ~ $80 billion over the past four years to grow Xbox and GamePass as well as their gaming division revenue as a whole. At some point, they're going to stop investing so much and try getting what money they've already put in, start to benefit in the longer term with increased revenue and profits...and clients.
See, because these acquisitions of Zenimax & ABK weren't just for Xbox, or even "just" for GamePass IMO. They are probably really for Azure cloud clientele. The other markets that Azure's grown in during the past, it's growth in them has slowed down a lot because those sectors are basically saturated. However, gaming provides a "blue ocean" of sort for new Azure clients, like what we saw with the Sega announcement. And to reach more game developers as clients for Azure cloud, MS have to leverage the Xbox brand, especially with non-Western game developers (again like what we saw with the Sega announcement).
I'm thinking that if MS feel they can get enough game developers as long-term Azure clients using their cloud services, that with a good enough mix of outright revenue and profits from game sales from the acquisitions through Xbox and GamePass will be enough for them to justify what they've been spending. However that's a very tough thing they're trying to do; Google hasn't completely abandoned Stadia (in fact they are trying to push its cloud infrastructure for game developers), and Sony are probably at least somewhat aware of this and what long-term implications it could have towards their own ecosystem, hence that interview from Haven Studios that talked up remote cloud game development.
Microsoft literally says in the acquisition announcements that Game Pass is the purpose.
https://news.microsoft.com/2020/09/...ia-and-its-game-publisher-bethesda-softworks/
Microsoft mentions Game Pass 5 times in this news release announcing the Bethesda purchase. How important Game Pass is from the language is unmistakable.
https://news.microsoft.com/2022/01/...ty-of-gaming-to-everyone-across-every-device/
The level of importance Microsoft places on Game Pass again here in the Activision acquisition news release again puts it to rest.
Microsoft bought these publishers because they're confident in the potential for Game Pass. Game Pass is a master stroke that allows Microsoft to change how they compete in the game console and larger games business in a way that's more to their liking.
Lol I know all of that, I'm saying that GamePass is a reason for the acquisition. However, I've been looking at more lately as it's less about Xbox and even GamePass, and more about gathering up new Azure cloud clientele. I think that's MS's
real goal in these acquisitions.
They get their hands on new tech (iD Engine, the Origin streaming tech, etc.) they use to bolster GamePass-centric Azure cloud backend, and use that as a means to attract more game developers as clientele. I think that's what they're really trying to do. And I don't think that's escaped companies like Sony (or Google or Amazon for that matter), they obviously want 3P devs prioritizing their own game development tools (therein benefiting their own products and services ecosystems primarily) rather than maining Microsoft's.
When it comes to this subscription stuff in the gaming space, I'd say
actually look at the moves WRT backend cloud services, software development tools and the like.
