Will Bethesda Games become exclusive?

[kitler53]

I pretty much agree. Until I see it happening I remain convinced that 100 million users on a service like this are fantasy numbers.

People sometimes tout this 2 billion gamers number as a reason for why this would happen, but if you look at that group and what it's made up of, it's easy too see the people that would have no interest in something like Gamepass.

What do mobile gamers want with Gamepass? They are conditioned to have games be free to play. Why would they pay $180 a year on this?

What do all the online gamers who have their one or two go-to titles that they play exclusively want with Gamepass? Especially the ones on PC, where like the biggest games are again free to play.

What do the stereotypical casual dude bros, who only buy COD and Fifa/Madden every year, want with Gamepass? They are not saving money with it.

Even among the core I assume there are many people like me, who rarely, if ever, just browse stores to randomly try out games that they weren't already interested in prior. If I want a game I usually know months, if not years ahead of launch and unless reviews or other circumstances persuade me otherwise, I will also then buy those games day 1. Unless more than $180 worth of games that I want every year release day 1 on Gamepass (currently that number is sitting at a big fat $0 btw.) I have no value in Gamepass. And I imagine there are many like me.

There's a reason that not once throughout this industries history a generational console install base has gone much higher than 250 million and it's not because consoles were too expensive. There are simply not that many people interested in the games experience provided by console games and I don't see taking that same experience, lessening it (streaming) and then selling it for $180 a year subscription is suddenly going to dramatically expand that pool.

Remember Microsoft had similar delusions before, where they thought they could sell between 400 million and 1 billion Xbox One's, so they are no strangers to dramatically overshooting with their goals.

The scary thing about this is though, that if they want to seriously get to that 100 million number, they will buy more studios and publishers to try and concentrate more of the core player pool on their service and that thought geniunely grosses me out.

i think the bit about "lessen it (streaming)" is a tad unfair.  psn now was a streaming service that eventually allowed you to download games.  gamepass started as a download only service that eventually allowed you to stream.   i think every title is available for download on gamepass.   if you look at the gamepass site i was surprised to see how few games are actually supported by their steaming service.   it's laughably low for a company that owns azure.

I fully agree with that last part.  ms is going to buy up more and more of the industry thinking they can make this service work if they just make it so they are the only gig in down.   i'll probably just leave gaming at that point. 

[DerNebel]

i think the bit about "lessen it (streaming)" is a tad unfair.  psn now was a streaming service that eventually allowed you to download games.  gamepass started as a download only service that eventually allowed you to stream.   i think every title is available for download on gamepass.   if you look at the gamepass site i was surprised to see how few games are actually supported by their steaming service.   it's laughably low for a company that owns azure.

I fully agree with that last part.  ms is going to buy up more and more of the industry thinking they can make this service work if they just make it so they are the only gig in down.   i'll probably just leave gaming at that point.  

I think streaming is a big part of their strategy to actually grow Gamepass numbers to the huge levels they want. They want to use that to get people who neither have a gaming PC nor an Xbox.

[kitler53]

I think streaming is a big part of their strategy to actually grow Gamepass numbers to the huge levels they want. They want to use that to get people who neither have a gaming PC nor an Xbox.

clearly an important audience for people really want to play games like halo but cannot figure out the complex process of paying $299 on an xbox, plugging in the power cord, and plugging in the hdmi cable..

...i'm sorry but consoles are the product for people who cannot figure out technology.   steaming doesn't make it more accessible than consoles.  in a lot of ways, if you aren't already on a console it makes it harder because getting a controller synched with an ipad (while not hard itself) is harder than buying a console.   

ipads are not cheaper than consoles.  PCs are not cheaper than consoles.  consoles are really affordable and you're not you aren't going to increase accessibility that way either.


i'm sticking to it,.. unachievable.   

[DerNebel]

clearly an important audience for people really want to play games like halo but cannot figure out the complex process of paying $299 on an xbox, plugging in the power cord, and plugging in the hdmi cable..

...i'm sorry but consoles are the product for people who cannot figure out technology.   steaming doesn't make it more accessible than consoles.  in a lot of ways, if you aren't already on a console it makes it harder because getting a controller synched with an ipad (while not hard itself) is harder than buying a console.  

ipads are not cheaper than consoles.  PCs are not cheaper than consoles.  consoles are really affordable and you're not you aren't going to increase accessibility that way either.


i'm sticking to it,.. unachievable.  

I didn't say that I believe the strategy will work, but I think that's what their plan is.

[kitler53]

I didn't say that I believe the strategy will work, but I think that's what their plan is.

you defended it tooth and nail and i have slayed you with the truth..

[Xevross]

Gamepass maximum audience isn't too high, that's true. I wonder if it can be quantified.

Lets say they can reach all the people who usually buy a PS or Xbox, that's 180 million very stable every gen. Now lets also assume that they can also reach PC gamers who are active, most will log onto steam at least once a month. Steam now has almost 100 million MAUs. There will be a big overlap between those 180m and 100m but also this grouping will miss some people who might want game pass, so I think 280 million is fair maximum estimate.

Now like you guys said, for lots of people this just won't be worth it. PS4 has the highest attach ratio of all time at 11. Attach ratios are usually around the 9-10 range. Generations usually last about 6-7 years, that being the average time people keep these consoles. So the average person gets less than 2 games a year. The average purchase is also less than full price but even assuming it is that means the average gamer would be spending more on game pass. Now, that's also assuming the games they want are on game pass. These gamers often stick to f2p games or get a game like COD which never will be on there, so its actually a much bigger extra expense. Microsoft has the task of convincing all these people that the extra cost is worth it for trying out all these games and for a lot of people it just won't be.

There's also people in poorer countries who get everything on cheaper prices or pirate, have worse internet and no way they'll get a sub service. A lot of PC gamers are hardcore into steam and don't want other platforms as we've seen with Epic, so that's some limitation.

Even some people who are hardcore gamers who might spend less money if using game pass, its still a task to sell it to those people as a fee every month is hard to swallow when you think you might not be spending anything.

Its hard to quantify this but I think its fair to say that half of those 280 million are a no-go straight away, making 140 million somewhat realistic targets for xbox game pass. 140 million is what they might get if it was an unbelievable service with all the biggest new games on and no competing systems or services. That's just not the environment we live in and even with Bethesda, xbox are still nowhere near an incredible service that people just can't say no to.

I think half of that 140 million, 70 million users, might be a realistic target for the end of this gen. Would that be enough to be successful and return all this investment? We'll see. My prediction for game pass subs at the end of this gen is 60 million.

[Dr. Pezus]

I think most of their games will remain multiplat. Just look at Minecraft. MS loves money so they will want to sell to the huge ps audience

[kitler53]

Gamepass maximum audience isn't too high, that's true. I wonder if it can be quantified.

Lets say they can reach all the people who usually buy a PS or Xbox, that's 180 million very stable every gen. Now lets also assume that they can also reach PC gamers who are active, most will log onto steam at least once a month. Steam now has almost 100 million MAUs. There will be a big overlap between those 180m and 100m but also this grouping will miss some people who might want game pass, so I think 280 million is fair maximum estimate.

Now like you guys said, for lots of people this just won't be worth it. PS4 has the highest attach ratio of all time at 11. Attach ratios are usually around the 9-10 range. Generations usually last about 6-7 years, that being the average time people keep these consoles. So the average person gets less than 2 games a year. The average purchase is also less than full price but even assuming it is that means the average gamer would be spending more on game pass. Now, that's also assuming the games they want are on game pass. These gamers often stick to f2p games or get a game like COD which never will be on there, so its actually a much bigger extra expense. Microsoft has the task of convincing all these people that the extra cost is worth it for trying out all these games and for a lot of people it just won't be.

There's also people in poorer countries who get everything on cheaper prices or pirate, have worse internet and no way they'll get a sub service. A lot of PC gamers are hardcore into steam and don't want other platforms as we've seen with Epic, so that's some limitation.

Even some people who are hardcore gamers who might spend less money if using game pass, its still a task to sell it to those people as a fee every month is hard to swallow when you think you might not be spending anything.

Its hard to quantify this but I think its fair to say that half of those 280 million are a no-go straight away, making 140 million somewhat realistic targets for xbox game pass. 140 million is what they might get if it was an unbelievable service with all the biggest new games on and no competing systems or services. That's just not the environment we live in and even with Bethesda, xbox are still nowhere near an incredible service that people just can't say no to.

I think half of that 140 million, 70 million users, might be a realistic target for the end of this gen. Would that be enough to be successful and return all this investment? We'll see. My prediction for game pass subs at the end of this gen is 60 million.

+1

my prediction is a bit lower.  they are at 15 million right now.   i think they can get to 30 million.  i think getting to 50 million will be really hard.    

xbox one as a console hasn't even reached 50 million yet.  the audience for current MS first party is kind of capped there and probably a lot lower as much of xbox's sales will be 3rd party focused.  MS's recent acquisition will certain broaden their appeal and fans.   but even xbox live gold and ps+ reaches like only about half of the console user base.  it's really, really hard for me to imagine that someone that can't bother to play for live gold or ps+ will be willing to get gamepass.   they are too "casual" of a gamer.  I imagine that only half of live gold users are active enough to also want gamepass.  so if series x|s sells 100 million units i'd wager only 25 million subscribe to gamepass.  i personally think it will only make ti to around 80 million.  the rest would have to come from PC. 

i don't really know the PC gamer that well but I know a few.   PC gamers seem to me to be ones that kind of prefer the platform for the access to games that don't come to console.  things like WoW, star craft, ect.  ..or because of piracy and their unwilliness to play anything for a game.  certainly there will be PC centric gamers that like halo, fallout, forza, ect but i just don't know that they like them enough to subscribe in quantities exceeding 60 - 25 = 35 million.   that just feels like a lot to me.

[the-pi-guy]

For anyone that missed Phil Spencer on Yahoo Finance yesterday talk about potential #Bethesda exclusives, here is the video clip:#Xbox pic.twitter.com/km3LNe2ZsV

— GameRy (@GameRy89) September 25, 2020

[DerNebel]

For anyone that missed Phil Spencer on Yahoo Finance yesterday talk about potential #Bethesda exclusives, here is the video clip:#Xbox pic.twitter.com/km3LNe2ZsV

— GameRy (@GameRy89) September 25, 2020

"In terms of where games will show up, our commitment is that our games will show up on Game Pass, PC, console and xCloud. In terms of other platforms we'll take it on a case by case basis but as the Xbox community, what they should feel is a huge investment in the experience they're going to have in the Xbox ecosystem, and we want the Xbox ecosystem to be the absolute best place to play and we think game availability is absolutely part of that."

Like I said, unreasonable optimistic to expect these games to continue coming to PS5.

[Legend]

[the-pi-guy]

"In terms of where games will show up, our commitment is that our games will show up on Game Pass, PC, console and xCloud. In terms of other platforms we'll take it on a case by case basis but as the Xbox community, what they should feel is a huge investment in the experience they're going to have in the Xbox ecosystem, and we want the Xbox ecosystem to be the absolute best place to play and we think game availability is absolutely part of that."

Like I said, unreasonable optimistic to expect these games to continue coming to PS5.

And you're ignoring the part where he says "other platforms will be a case by case basis"?  

[DerNebel]

And you're ignoring the part where he says "other platforms will be a case by case basis"?  

I'm ignoring it, because it's a nothing statement. Straight up 100% denying future multiplats here is bad optics, especially if you want to keep being "Good Guy Phil".

[SWORDF1SH]

If you believe these future titles will come to PS5 you are unreasonably optimistic.

Minecraft is still on PS4

[DerNebel]

Minecraft is still on PS4

Minecraft was also straight up announced to stay multiplat after the acquisition.

I seriously don't understand why some of you just want to set yourself up for disappointment here.