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[Insider Gaming] Activision Purchase Hasn’t Helped Xbox Game Pass, Report Claims

KungFucius

KungFucius

King Snowflake
The bit about Activision using the same servers they used prior to acquisition is what flags this thing as utter bullshit. Anyone who has been in a company that has was acquired or has acquired has seen how long it takes to for the new unit to get onto the acquiring units systems. It takes years to integrate big companies. If the people that wrote this shit had a clue they would realize this and not try to spin it into something noteworthy.

It doesn't really matter to me. I think GamePass is great and will continue to sub on PC even if I take a few months off from time to time while I play something on PS/Nintendo.
 
Humdinger

Humdinger

Gold Member
Three said:
Does Denny Fish have a good track record? I have my doubts about this report. I think this may be more to calm the Jan 29 report when it's not as bad as he is claiming regarding subs. Subs would likely see an increase. Gamepass has had a late 2024 price increase of 25% and a CoD boost. I just don't see how it could perform badly. In the overall picture of making their acquisitions worthwhile I'm not sure but it would certainly see a boost.
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I think that's likely, too. It just didn't hit the mark they were expecting. Of course, they were expecting the moon.

The OP text, at least the first two sentences, are somewhat at odds. The first sentence says that the AB acquisition "hasn't helped grow GP," which implies there has been zero or negligible growth. But the second sentence says there has been growth, but that growth has "yet to hit what MS was hoping for." Given that we know MS had absurdly unrealistic expectations for growth, we are left to wonder what level of growth was actually achieved.

Sound like growth fell somewhere in the range between "negligible" and "substantial, yet still short of expectations" - which is a pretty big range. Given the tone of the report, I'd guess it was more toward the negligible end, but that's just my inference.
 
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RetroGamingUK

RetroGamingUK

Member
adamsapple said:
Animated GIF
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Like clockwork…

6pdg9QK.gif
 
AmuroChan

AmuroChan

Member
Danny Dudekisser said:
I refuse to believe that Microsoft was incompetent enough to believe that this would just catapult GamePass to the heavens. It should've been clear years prior to the deal's completion that fueling it through pure acquisitions hadn't worked and wouldn't work in the future... sure as shit not to the level where this kind of expenditure made sense.
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They were incompetent enough with Zune, Beam, Windows Phone, Groove, Vista, etc. Giant companies aren't immune to making bad decisions once in a while.
 
Angry_Megalodon

Angry_Megalodon

Member
This is why in this industry strategic decisions must be made by people who actually play videogames, "one of us", not some tourist with a Harvard degree. You need to be completely delusional to believe that Gamepass could ever reach the numbers of other streaming services.
 
S

SneakersSO

Member
HeisenbergFX4 said:
Will repeat something I said here in maybe Aug or Sept that if COD in particular didn't move the Gamepass needle some bigger changes might be coming down the pipeline

I don't know how long this will stay on its current path

Money GIF
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Any expectation that MS will ever pursue a console like the OG/360/One/XS should be dashed right now. Those days are well and truly dead.
 
U

ungalo

Member
Microsoft probably already gave up on Gamepass. So i don't really understand the purpose of this article. Microsoft wants to be a third party publisher with some extra things so they can still boast about their ambitions. But the core of their activity is now trying to sell games and to make money, simple as that.
 
HeisenbergFX4

HeisenbergFX4

Gold Member
SneakersSO said:
Any expectation that MS will ever pursue a console like the OG/360/One/XS should be dashed right now. Those days are well and truly dead.
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I agree they should not go down that path but keep hearing they indeed are pursuing the console market with a wider variety of hardware

Would not shock me if they pull the plug on this endeavor at any second and announce Phil stepped down and they are restructuring their gaming division but as of now I am pretty sure they are going to take one more run at it
 
diffusionx

diffusionx

Gold Member
Xbox Game Pass isn't a good deal for most people. Gaming is not Netflix. Most people play a handful of games. They don't want to play dozens of games a month. If all you play is COD, then buying the game is cheaper than GamePass. If all you play is COD, then the existence of Indiana Jones or Avowed on GamePass or whatever doesn't really matter.

Game Pass is basially a service designed for NeoGAF posters and only NeoGAF posters.
 
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Humdinger

Humdinger

Gold Member
Danny Dudekisser said:
I refuse to believe that Microsoft was incompetent enough to believe that this would just catapult GamePass to the heavens.
Click to expand...

It seems bizarre to me, too, especially when you consider they bet more than 80 billion dollars on it. But based on highly reliable information (i.e., info supplied by MS to the FTC), it does appear to be the case. And as others have said, it wouldn't be the first time, either for MS for other megacorps, to badly misread the market (or to believe their own hype).
 
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S

SneakersSO

Member
HeisenbergFX4 said:
I agree they should not go down that path but keep hearing they indeed are pursuing the console market with a wider variety of hardware

Would not shock me if they pull the plug on this endeavor at any second and announce Phil stepped down and they are restructuring their gaming division but as of now I am pretty sure they are going to take one more run at it
Click to expand...
I think you're misunderstanding whatever you're hearing.

The next slate of HW devices, which includes the handheld, their own dedicated living room console, and the 3rd party hardware devices that will be utilizing XboxOS, are not intended to be a mass-market devices, or rather, they aren't intended to be a thing sold like their previous hardware gens, where they were shipping tens of millions of units all around the world.

The MS produced devices will be more expensive, with far fewer regions shipped to, and far less supply shipped in even their 'strongest' regions like NA/UK. There is absolutely no design that it'll be a marketshare competitor to either the Nintendo Switch or the Sony Playstation. Instead, they are merely vehicles for the XboxOS. It'll also feature less 3rd party support, as that will be decreasing year-over-year as we head towards that.

Their titles will be shipping to anywhere that can play them at launch, and you cannot build an actual global console marketshare without exclusives, among other things. They are not fooling themselves here. First time since the 360 that they aren't, to be honest. The Surface HW team seems to be far more grounded and realistic.
 
Bernardougf

Bernardougf

Member
Well the Trojan Horse was a tactic utilized in ancient Greece... so eventually people would wise up to it.. some people at least
 
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Sooner

Sooner

Member
It's difficult to know because it isn't the only variable. Maybe a lot signed up for Call of Duty, but even more left Xbox when they decided to put all their games on PlayStation, Switch and PC.
 
HeisenbergFX4

HeisenbergFX4

Gold Member
SneakersSO said:
I think you're misunderstanding whatever you're hearing.

The next slate of HW devices, which includes the handheld, their own dedicated living room console, and the 3rd party hardware devices that will be utilizing XboxOS, are not intended to be a mass-market devices, or rather, they aren't intended to be a thing sold like their previous hardware gens, where they were shipping tens of millions of units all around the world.

The MS produced devices will be more expensive, with far fewer regions shipped to, and far less supply shipped in even their 'strongest' regions like NA/UK. There is absolutely no design that it'll be a marketshare competitor to either the Nintendo Switch or the Sony Playstation. Instead, they are merely vehicles for the XboxOS. It'll also feature less 3rd party support, as that will be decreasing year-over-year as we head towards that.

Their titles will be shipping to anywhere that can play them at launch, and you cannot build an actual global console marketshare without exclusives, among other things. They are not fooling themselves here. First time since the 360 that they aren't, to be honest. The Surface HW team seems to be far more grounded and realistic.
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Oh I totally agree with you they are not looking to go toe to toe with Playstation anymore, I even said that here on these forums in the Summer of 2023 is when I first heard that

That also does beg the question why build these machines at all?
 
Sooner

Sooner

Member
Negotiator101 said:
It could come from Joe the old guy at the pub, as long as it's negative Microsoft news Gaf will eat that up all day 👌
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Yeah, Xbox's struggles are a NeoGAF conspiracy. They didn't stop sharing numbers. They aren't putting all their first-party games on the "competition". GAF is just making crap up.

Xbox is selling gangbusters worldwide. It's a global phenomenon.
 
B

Brakum

Member
Not surprised, on xbox everyone that was interested in game pass probably already had it. The bigger margin for growth would be on PC, and there wasnt anything on PC to boost it. Barely anything has been added, CoD isn't big on PC, they got diablo but it wasnt a launch thing so most people interested in diablo had already bought it.
 
GHG

GHG

Member
HeisenbergFX4 said:
That also does beg the question why build these machines at all?
Click to expand...

Because going cold turkey in the same way that they did with zune and the windows phones would result in meltdowns of biblical proportions, and they are fully aware that they are not equipped to deal with that from a PR perspective.

My opinion is that these devices will exist purely as transitional ones, as a means to let people down gently while milking every last final dollar they can from the diehards.
 
SEGAvangelist

SEGAvangelist

Member
GHG said:
Because going cold turkey in the same way that they did with zune and the windows phones would result in meltdowns of biblical proportions, and they are fully aware that they are not equipped to deal with that from a PR perspective.

My opinion is that these devices will exist purely as transitional ones, as a means to let people down gently while milking every last final dollar they can from the diehards.
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My exact thoughts once they gave up early last year. They are trying to soft-transition the Xbox library to PC.
 
P

PauloRoberto

Member
You dont need a report to understand that... MS is a specialista in number spinning... if there's a way to show GP growth, they already would show that... I mean, we don't even know how many bullets were fired in COD BO 6 :-D
 
diffusionx

diffusionx

Gold Member
Evil Calvin said:
They haven't put hardly any Activision games from the back catalog on Gamepass. What the fuck do they expect?
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they've put quite a few, and nobody really cares about these old games. Nobody is going to pay $15 a month or whatever to play 10 year old PS4 games you can buy on sale for like $7.
 
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MikeM

MikeM

Member
MS trying to treat gamers like their other business lines lol tell me you don’t understand the market without telling me you don’t understand the market.
 
dem

dem

Member
No shit... they have to sell hardware. They don't sell Gamepass on Playstation.
PC Gamepass at least has a runway. But its gonna be tough sledding.

They didn't even have an Xbox COD bundle out for Christmas.

Microsoft marketing is an absolute disaster.
 
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NickFire

NickFire

Member
HeisenbergFX4 said:
Oh I totally agree with you they are not looking to go toe to toe with Playstation anymore, I even said that here on these forums in the Summer of 2023 is when I first heard that

That also does beg the question why build these machines at all?
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A couple off the cuff guesses would be: preserving the hardware business in case they wanted to get back in full steam or sell it; a mechanism to shift people from steam to their own eco-system maybe; and keeping the hardware business viable to reduce the lost leverage when they negotiate royalty deals (etc.) with Sony, Nintendo and Steam.
 
M

mayham2199

Member
Negotiator101 said:
Well the point is when Halo comes nothing, but are we talking old Halo games or new Halo? I think that's the bigger question.
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I don't see that as a bigger question at all. I think it's fairly obvious what MS is doing and anybody really questioning it is exactly who they are doing it for. They knew most people would see through their BS on that podcast but they didn't do it for those people. They did it for the people who would hear that podcast, believe their BS, and then go out and spread it to everyone else.
 
S

SneakersSO

Member
HeisenbergFX4 said:
That also does beg the question why build these machines at all?
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Based on some things, theres about ~20m or so core users of both GP and Xbox HW that will stick around no matter what. Thats still a sizeable amount of ongoing yearly revenue. Not just that, but SteamOS is now in a position to actually threaten Windows PC gaming if its adoption reaches an inflection point which it could actually achieve.

The point of this future strategy is to decouple XboxOS from Xbox Hardware. This is why this line of devices will not be able to install Steam, for example. Its not a version of Windows thats running them - its a version of XboxOS.
 
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