Recurring online service payments are replacing game sales as the guaranteed loss recouping strategy for consoles. Exclusive titles will rely heavily on the on

Recurring online service payments are replacing game sales as the guaranteed loss recouping strategy for consoles. Exclusive titles will rely heavily on the online service, driving long-term subscriptions and anchoring cross-platform DLC purchases. The loser is game devs, who must either (a) do extra dev AND pay higher fees to integrate deeply with each platform, or (b) integrate minimally with each platform and compete with titles that get a leg-up from users' sunk costs into the network service. tl;dr - the online service is the new console