killatopak
Member
If they can separate the streaming to the downloadable games, add support in areas outside North America and West Europe, maybe they could increase sales.
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Xbox Game Pass is five times more popular than PlayStation Now
vivftp
Member
Hmm, hot thread. Welp since it was brought up I'll try to clarify part of the $1 thing people keep bringing up for Game Pass.
Since around E3 last year Micosoft has been running a promotion where you can convert your Gold subscription to Game Pass Ultimate for $1, and this can be done for a period of up to 36 months. So if you had 6 months left on your Gold sub then you could pay $1 to get GPU for those 6 months. Or if you decided to re-sub for Gold even longer (like quite a few people on these forums did) you could buy $180 worth of Gold and then convert it to GPU so you'd be locked in for 36 months for $1 as well. In case anyone asks, here's a link showing this promotion is still active:
Now I won't pretend to know the motivations behind those who are bringing up the $1 thing (I know there have been other $1 promotions, but I'm just talking about this one), but if we're comparing subscription numbers of PS Now to Game Pass then I think this is at least a worthwhile thing to mention. If you want to discuss popularity then the subject of how those numbers were achieved should be considered too. How many of those 10 million Game Pass users are cannibalized Gold members? No idea. It's a promotion that's been running for nearly a year and has been discussed on forums, gaming sites, Microsoft's site and has had word of mouth, so I wouldn't be surprised if it was somewhere in the millions. MS no longer reports Gold subscriber numbers so it's anyones guess.
PS Now roughly doubled their userbase in the last half a year and tripled it the last complete year by cutting the price, making the service available in more countries, offering a better slate of games than they had been and putting some marketing dollars behind it. There's a buttload of changes the service will no doubt make leading into next gen as it evolves into... whatever the hell Sony wants it to be. As of right now PS Now is part of PlayStations business strategy, but by no means the main focus. We don't know what they have planned as it moves into next gen but we should have a better idea as they reveal more info in the coming months. Personally I think they'll introduce new subscription tier to transition their 41+ million Plus members over to a more expensive tier that includes Now, not unlike GPU.
Game Pass has hit 10 million subs by offering a slew of first and third party games day 1 as well as other compelling games, and has been running an extremely aggressive marketing campaign and promotions to build up their numbers. They've also got a lot of changes on the horizon that will evolve the service (xCloud being the most obvious) as we move into next gen. As of right now Game Pass is Xbox's strategy, there really is no Plan B and all the eggs are being dumped into this basket.
Point is both services are growing rapidly and are seeing success. Both services are in their infancy and are positioning themselves for their next gen strategies which is where they will really shine.
Since around E3 last year Micosoft has been running a promotion where you can convert your Gold subscription to Game Pass Ultimate for $1, and this can be done for a period of up to 36 months. So if you had 6 months left on your Gold sub then you could pay $1 to get GPU for those 6 months. Or if you decided to re-sub for Gold even longer (like quite a few people on these forums did) you could buy $180 worth of Gold and then convert it to GPU so you'd be locked in for 36 months for $1 as well. In case anyone asks, here's a link showing this promotion is still active:
Buy Xbox Game Pass Ultimate - Microsoft Store en-CA
Xbox Game Pass Ultimate includes over 100 high-quality games for console, PC, and Android mobile devices (Beta, where available), all the benefits of Xbox Live Gold, and an EA Play membership, all for one low monthly price (subscription continues automatically at regular price). Play together...
www.microsoft.com
Now I won't pretend to know the motivations behind those who are bringing up the $1 thing (I know there have been other $1 promotions, but I'm just talking about this one), but if we're comparing subscription numbers of PS Now to Game Pass then I think this is at least a worthwhile thing to mention. If you want to discuss popularity then the subject of how those numbers were achieved should be considered too. How many of those 10 million Game Pass users are cannibalized Gold members? No idea. It's a promotion that's been running for nearly a year and has been discussed on forums, gaming sites, Microsoft's site and has had word of mouth, so I wouldn't be surprised if it was somewhere in the millions. MS no longer reports Gold subscriber numbers so it's anyones guess.
PS Now roughly doubled their userbase in the last half a year and tripled it the last complete year by cutting the price, making the service available in more countries, offering a better slate of games than they had been and putting some marketing dollars behind it. There's a buttload of changes the service will no doubt make leading into next gen as it evolves into... whatever the hell Sony wants it to be. As of right now PS Now is part of PlayStations business strategy, but by no means the main focus. We don't know what they have planned as it moves into next gen but we should have a better idea as they reveal more info in the coming months. Personally I think they'll introduce new subscription tier to transition their 41+ million Plus members over to a more expensive tier that includes Now, not unlike GPU.
Game Pass has hit 10 million subs by offering a slew of first and third party games day 1 as well as other compelling games, and has been running an extremely aggressive marketing campaign and promotions to build up their numbers. They've also got a lot of changes on the horizon that will evolve the service (xCloud being the most obvious) as we move into next gen. As of right now Game Pass is Xbox's strategy, there really is no Plan B and all the eggs are being dumped into this basket.
Point is both services are growing rapidly and are seeing success. Both services are in their infancy and are positioning themselves for their next gen strategies which is where they will really shine.
phil_t98
#SonyToo
And how many of the 2 million are counted from the free trial?One services numbers are 5X better on half the playerbase = $1.00 deals
Lets get mad at promotional pricing instead of the actual value these services offer.
phil_t98
#SonyToo
How do you know if you will like the game without trying it?
vivftp
Member
None. The PS Now numbers are paid subscribers.
phil_t98
#SonyToo
How do you know? Have you got that as a fact? Not trolling just curioua
Kagey K
Banned
Can you prove that?
Imagine having 1/5 of subs as your competitor, while having waaay more brand recognition, more games in your service and same price and 2 times more consoles sold in current gen
But i understood everything the moment i came to this sub
Meanwhile, I played somehow wattered down XGP version of Red Dead Redemption 2 yesterday
. Because everything in XGP is wattered down because...some people on GAF said so
But i understood everything the moment i came to this sub
Meanwhile, I played somehow wattered down XGP version of Red Dead Redemption 2 yesterday
. Because everything in XGP is wattered down because...some people on GAF said so
vivftp
Member
Gladly
This is straight from Sony's Corporate Strategy meeting 24 hours ago:
Notice it explicitly states "Over 2.2M Paid Subscribers". Funny enough though Sony got their own numbers wrong on this slide when talking about the 700k and 1 million figures. The actual figures going by what they had previously reported are:
March 2019 : 700k
End of Sept 2019 : 1m+
End of April 2020 : 2.2m+
EDIT.
And just in case you'd like proof that the slide is legit, you can look them up here:
Sony Group Portal - Corporate Strategy Meeting 2023
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Kagey K
Banned
Oh so they can get numbers wrong, but not a word?Gladly
This is straight from Sony's Corporate Strategy meeting 24 hours ago:
Notice it explicitly states "Over 2.2M Paid Subscribers". Funny enough though Sony got their own numbers wrong on this slide when talking about the 700k and 1 million figures. The actual figures going by what they had previously reported are:
March 2019 : 700k
End of Sept 2019 : 1m+
End of April 2020 : 2.2m+
I like how you can forgive them for making one mistake, while assuring me the other is true.
vivftp
Member
Feel free to prove it wrong then. Simply mixing up some numbers with dates is a far cry from mistakenly claiming those are all paid subscribers. I look forward to your proof
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Kagey K
Banned
I never made any claims. Therefore I have nothing to prove.Feel free to prove it wrong then. Simply mixing up some numbers with dates is a far cry from claiming those are all paid subscribers. I look forward to your proof
That’s not how burden of proof works. Sorry kid.
PropellerEar
Member
vivftp
Member
Oooh, kid eh. lol
I have no need to continue this conversation with you. The evidence has been provided and you can feel free to not believe it. It makes no difference to me.
Kagey K
Banned
I’ll give you one more chance, how much do you think Gamepass brings in a month for Xbox?
How does that compare to Sony?
In Dollars?
PropellerEar
Member
You got a link to Sony's corporate strategy presentation materials, not more you can ask for.
vivftp
Member
Now this conversation I can have with you since you feel the need to make this personal. Posting official investor material direct from the company confirming paid subscribers is proof. The fact that there was a simple date error on the same slide does not invalidate the entire slide and everything contained within. I suspect you may have an agenda, and I don't wish to keep feeding the troll so I'll be off now.
Now go ahead and have the last word so you can claim some form of moral victory. You earned it champ
Oddvintagechap
Banned
GamePass
10 Million x 10$ Per Month (it aint)
= 100$ Million
Spiderman PS4
13 Million x 30$ Per Copy (sale price)
= 390$ Million
Why would Sony devalue their games just because Xbox is? Microsoft want to turn the business model into you pay first, you get whatever games they give you.
All this is going to get you is
EA Access
Ubisoft Universe
Activision Box
Rockstar Ticket
2K Kollection
Disney Games +
NICK THQ pass
In the end I dont think Sony cares. They have a profitable PS Now with no first day releases. Its mostly games they cant even sell on the PS4.
10 Million x 10$ Per Month (it aint)
= 100$ Million
Spiderman PS4
13 Million x 30$ Per Copy (sale price)
= 390$ Million
Why would Sony devalue their games just because Xbox is? Microsoft want to turn the business model into you pay first, you get whatever games they give you.
All this is going to get you is
EA Access
Ubisoft Universe
Activision Box
Rockstar Ticket
2K Kollection
Disney Games +
NICK THQ pass
In the end I dont think Sony cares. They have a profitable PS Now with no first day releases. Its mostly games they cant even sell on the PS4.
phil_t98
#SonyToo
that's life time sales of Spiderman vs 1 month of gamepass. how long to get to 13million in sales where as game pass by your figures will generate 1.2 billion in a year vs 390 million in a year
We know that Sony is printing Money with Playstation. Even with the Generation ending and Nintendo going all in with the Switch, they just posted the second strongest Year in gaming History. Gamepass is a thing since 2017, it did good things for XBOX at a whole and made it extremely attractive. But numbers show, that Sony is on the right track with everything.
I don't think Streaming/Flats will change much in the future. The majority of Console Owners are FIFA/COD/BF gamers that buy 1-2 games a year. Third Party Games mind you. Those will not buy into any Flat cause it's just not needed. And as long as Sonies First Party prints money, i don't see them ever putting their games on PS Now.
I don't think Streaming/Flats will change much in the future. The majority of Console Owners are FIFA/COD/BF gamers that buy 1-2 games a year. Third Party Games mind you. Those will not buy into any Flat cause it's just not needed. And as long as Sonies First Party prints money, i don't see them ever putting their games on PS Now.
Yup. They reaaaly don't care. That's why they enabled option to download a game and play it locally, put some 1st party stuff there, lowered price of their service and stated that game streaming a services will be big part of next gen
M1chl
Currently Gif and Meme Champion
I hope this is some brainfart, like something in logic does not worked it out, I seriously hope that....
D
Deleted member 775630
Unconfirmed Member
Comparing lifetime sales (20 months), with just 1 month of Game Pass... If you would include how long Spiderman is available, you actually got 2 billion dollars for Game Pass instead of $100 million.
But there's no point in comparing 1 game with Game Pass. Microsoft ran the numbers, it's obviously viable.
Oddvintagechap
Banned
You all make no sense because they arent make 10 on each person. You not counting the fact their paying atleast a million per AAA game in there. Sony doesn't just release Spiderman. And they still have PS Now with considerable lower amount of cost per customer since most of their games are old games.
phil_t98
#SonyToo
you are also discounting that people are still buying the games that are on gamepass also
Pallas
Member
I’ll never understand how some are literally upset about a competing console offering deals to make gaming incredibly affordable. It’s like some of you really want to spend more and get pleasure by spending more for your favorite company.
I also believe if roles were reverse(PSNow being cheap, Gamepass the opposite) we’d have the same arguments but the teams would be switched.
I also believe if roles were reverse(PSNow being cheap, Gamepass the opposite) we’d have the same arguments but the teams would be switched.
Azurro
Banned
I mean, MS needs a success and from what I understand, GamePass is basically being given away multiple times, right? Revenues are probably really low, but they have no growth and it's probably ok to sacrifice their game sales to see if the subscription service takes off. Lets just see if the service continues to be a success once it's not being given away for free.
Clear
CliffyB's Cock Holster
Can't believe people are getting so worked up about yet another "Forbes Insider" level piece of sponsored content.
The premise of this *cough* analysis, is that there's a competition to become the "Netflix of Gaming", not at all suspiciously a term MS has used frequently in their marketing, and Sony never has never used despite being the first to market by 3 years.
The article fails to address the fundamental differences between the nature of the services (streaming primarily, versus downloads) and the sacrifices MS has had to make to the rest of the Xbox ecosystem to prop up their offering.
Basically it extracts the one bit of positive news, ignores the many negatives, and creates a narrative where despite a sliding marketshare MS are now the front-runners in gaming...
That's not analysis, that's marketing.
The premise of this *cough* analysis, is that there's a competition to become the "Netflix of Gaming", not at all suspiciously a term MS has used frequently in their marketing, and Sony never has never used despite being the first to market by 3 years.
The article fails to address the fundamental differences between the nature of the services (streaming primarily, versus downloads) and the sacrifices MS has had to make to the rest of the Xbox ecosystem to prop up their offering.
Basically it extracts the one bit of positive news, ignores the many negatives, and creates a narrative where despite a sliding marketshare MS are now the front-runners in gaming...
That's not analysis, that's marketing.
The Hamburglar
Banned
The thread is discuss both services yet salty warriors think it’s about how great game pass is?
ive yet to see a single argument that Xbox isn’t offering their service frequently for one dollar.
game pass is the better value right now but the reason it has such high numbers is the fact it’s been given way for cheap so much. Gears 5 sold awfully since Xbox was promoting game pass for a dollar at launch..
I’ve had game pass for 5 months now and each time was from a one dollar promotion
ive yet to see a single argument that Xbox isn’t offering their service frequently for one dollar.
game pass is the better value right now but the reason it has such high numbers is the fact it’s been given way for cheap so much. Gears 5 sold awfully since Xbox was promoting game pass for a dollar at launch..
I’ve had game pass for 5 months now and each time was from a one dollar promotion
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Pallas
Member
Why are you complaining then for spending less?
Moonjt9
No Silksong? = Delivering the pain.
I feel like the premise of this article is inaccurate, which basically makes the whole thing arguing for something that isn’t true.
it states there is a paradigm shift to subscription services like tv and movies had but I think that misses the gamer mindset. People who play games are notorious for wanting to own what they buy. As we can see now with the current subscription services, the ratio is extremely low.
In fact, really the only paradigm shift is moving from physical games to digital libraries, as that ratio continues to climb past 50%. But the idea remains the same; people are still buying the games, not “renting” from a subscription.
This makes the whole idea of Sony being worried, or Microsoft destroying Sony quite comical in my opinion. Seems more like grasping for straws.
it states there is a paradigm shift to subscription services like tv and movies had but I think that misses the gamer mindset. People who play games are notorious for wanting to own what they buy. As we can see now with the current subscription services, the ratio is extremely low.
In fact, really the only paradigm shift is moving from physical games to digital libraries, as that ratio continues to climb past 50%. But the idea remains the same; people are still buying the games, not “renting” from a subscription.
This makes the whole idea of Sony being worried, or Microsoft destroying Sony quite comical in my opinion. Seems more like grasping for straws.
Oddvintagechap
Banned
double post
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Monkeygourmet
Banned
Gamepass is the gaming equivalent of "I'll suck your dick for a cheeseburger".
geordiemp
Member
I agree that Gamepass is huge value and is a good service, I dont do streaming so no interest in PS now.
Its a bold move by MS, the issue I have with it is the desire to make games for gamepass, and so you have lower tier ambitions.
I would rather have 2 or 3 highly polished incredible games than 50 lower tier ones that just add to a backlog.
For next gen I want next gen only games pushing everything that cant even load on current gen, which does not blend well with a netflix type service.
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CuteFaceJay
Member
I'd buy that for a £1
Panajev2001a
GAF's Pleasant Genius
They can afford it now, but they are not saying they are profiting from it. They have yet to discuss how they plan to recoup the investment and the overall profit margins afterwards.
The Hamburglar
Banned
Who’s complaining? We’re discussing it.
I’ve had muilple posts in this thread but for some reason Xbox gamefans keep going.
gsme pass isn’t one dollar NOPE when it clearly is...
DonkeyKong
Member
Here in the UK I can get Gamepass Ultimate for about £65 a year (taking advantage of 3+3 month free offers that pop up), for me it's a great service
D
Deleted member 775630
Unconfirmed Member
Why are we pretending we know how much Microsoft is spending on Game Pass and how much they are earning? Spencer already said they are not burning money...
thelastword
Banned
This is not an XBOX thread...….And I've seen this many times, people compare XBOX to PS in the thread title and they say it's an XBOX thread when arguments are made against the grain of the OP. An article wants to compare the two services, that was not even properly done, seems to be an ad more than a comparison. If you want to say XBOX is crushing PSNOW, you need to include the specifics because they are important to the conversation.
For e.g.
How many Gamepass subs were ascertained through promotions.
PropellerEar
posted such a promotion, but there are many more that I have seen. Buy a GPU get 3 months of gamepass, buy a game get some gamepass, buy a console already discounted get a few months gamepass, The $1 and $2 promotions which has been running for so long now, that everybody knows about, and even XBOX fans will tell you that they never buy these services including gold at full price. If you buy 3 months of gamepass you get another 3 months free, I think that's a current promotion. Then there was the glitch which caused many to upgrade to years of gamepass ultimate accounts for peanuts. Then there are guys all over twitter saying they got lifetime gamepass ultimate subs, yes having 10 million subs with such promotions is not farfetched, but certainly at the cost to profit. How many of these gamepass subs are active, I mean actually gaming. Is the content so compelling? Most people seek a GP promotion when a big MS game is coming, and after Gears there's not been anything exciting for a pull, yet even Gears as a whole is not that exciting anymore. For now you won't see any big first party release on gamepass as they prepare for next gen, so they cant sustain that level of quality to current subs. The only saving grace I see, subs wont be too fettered because they didn't pay much for the service.
These are the points and many more the article should have discussed instead of championing some "Netflix of gaming" adpiece with the appropriate adjectives for good measure...
HerjansEagleFeeder
Gold Member
I don't. When you have limited time available, you need to focus on products of which you're sure you'll enjoy. Which means that 99.9% of all games released are out of the question. Do you try every single game that's being released? No? See.
Pallas
Member
It’s not $1 everywhere, walk into any Walmart, target or really any store that sells the plastic cards with the codes on it.
darkinstinct
...lacks reading comprehension.
A trial user is a paid subscriber as well, just one where Sony doesn't get money but instead can use them for operational expenses. If we go down to your level of disinformation, how about we factor in that Sony put Spider-Man on PS Now in April? Surely that would've created a ton of new subscribers that just wanted to test the game. Loads of trial users at the end of the month maybe? Or loads of one month and never again subscribers?Gladly
This is straight from Sony's Corporate Strategy meeting 24 hours ago:
Notice it explicitly states "Over 2.2M Paid Subscribers". Funny enough though Sony got their own numbers wrong on this slide when talking about the 700k and 1 million figures. The actual figures going by what they had previously reported are:
March 2019 : 700k
End of Sept 2019 : 1m+
End of April 2020 : 2.2m+
EDIT.
And just in case you'd like proof that the slide is legit, you can look them up here:
Sony Group Portal - Corporate Strategy Meeting 2023
www.sony.net
See how that works? It's a shitty behavior. How about we simply assume that every company does its best to make their numbers the best they can be, no matter what. And that because of that, numbers between different companies are comparable. No discussion about $1 conversions (that few people used, the cheapskates just signed up for $1 for three months last summer and then were complaining that they hadn't taken the conversion, it's a one time deal after all), about trials or whatever is needed. The fake numbers of Microsoft are 5x higher than the fake numbers of Sony. Easy as that. And they allow for interesting interpretations. For example 20 % of all Xbox One owners have Game Pass. But only 2 % of all PS4 owners have PS Now. So the actual numbers of Game Pass are 10x higher than for PS Now per console. And that is after Sony dropped the price of PS Now. But as long as they don't launch first party games day one onto the service that's where they are going to stay.
Now will they do it? I doubt it. Their exclusives sell too good. They'd be ignoring half a billion of revenue per game, at two games a year that's one billion. Just to make the same revenue with subscriptions would require 17 million yearly subscribers. And then they haven't even started to make money to pay for third party content. Plus Microsoft embraced microtransactions much earlier. How do you move from very few microtransactions in Sony's games to loads without alienating your users? Microsoft has taken a chance. Their image was already at a low, so they could just put everything in there, make microtransactions the norm and create a service built around them. Sony doesn't have that chance, for them PS Now was always meant to attract people that are not currently in the PS ecosystem. Game Pass on the other hand is built for people that are in the Xbox ecosystem. There is a slight shift in PS Now, because their strategy wasn't working. Now they try to cater to their existing customers. But it's not a big move, because at the end of the day, currently it makes more sense for Sony to sell you a console and their exclusives.
Optimistic Gamer
Member
Do this but also find a friend to gamepass/xbox gold share.
I have my mates Xbox One X registered as my first console so both of us he can have all the benefits.
We paid €140.82 for 3 years of xbox live then upgraded for €1 to 3 years of ultimate. That makes €70.91 each.
So about €1.97 per month. (that's about $2.16 US)
As we were both going to buy Halo Infinite and Ori, we're already on the plus-side.
Night.Ninja
Banned
SuperLupeRap
Banned
Quite a few games I would pick by myself are or end up on Gamepass.
It also just gives you a lot more options for 10$ a month only, even if you don't use it that much.
Also having Gamepass doesn't stop me from buying games whenever I want. Just like how having Netflix didn't stop anybody from going to the movies.
SuperLupeRap
Banned
You're talking BS and Gamepass has been here for more than 3 years now. PS Now has been there since forever and is a flop. Worst part, it's being given away for free.
SuperLupeRap
Banned
So Tomb Raider, RDR 2, Gears 5, GTA 5, Nier, FF15, FH4, Metro Exodus, DMC5, Witcher 3, Batman, Halo 5 etc are lower tier games?
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