4 ms·
I see a lot of negative energy here. I'm not a fan of Microsoft by any stretch, but i do want to play devil's' advocate here. 1. Cloud gaming currently represe
by ralfn 3y ago
I see a lot of negative energy here. I'm not a fan of Microsoft by any stretch, but i do want to play devil's' advocate here.
1. Cloud gaming currently represents a neglectable portion of the market. Clearly it needs a very large player to even attempt to make it work.
2. Gaming as a Netflix/HBO/Disney+ style subscription is not a crazy idea. It requires at least one party to get some critical mass and prove the market actually exists, and then competition will appear who were initially more risk averse. The streaming wars of video content definitely improved the market for consumers compared to risk-free hollywood blockbusters and cheap reality TV that came before it.
3. All-you-can-eat gaming as a subscription might actually increase the diversity and quality of games. Games are currently so expensive to produce that very few risks are taken. This allows much more space for niche games that have a small loyal following.
4. The assumption that Microsoft would use XBox live as a lock-in to sell you a subsidized console seems absolutely silly. This is more about them finding an exit to just discontinue the XBox console all together. You can already play XBox live games on a Steamdeck or an Android TV.
5. The gaming world is much more volatile than people seem to understand. Activision's dominance is only sustainable if they keep making games that are more compelling and just like is the case for Ubisoft or EA who are having a really bad decade, that seems to require more than just money and banking on the past. It's a fiercely competitive industry and the actual lead actors (i.e. the hero developers) jump ship or start a new developer company every other day. So all they end up buying is IP and managers. The rest would cost just as much to keep as they would to steal.
I understand people might not like Microsoft to be the one taking the initiative here, but is the initiative itself really that bad for consumers or the developers?
Because i'm one of those people who would appreciate the change in the market. I spend more money on streaming services where i also give more things a try, than i ever would if i would be buying or renting music/tv-shows/movies. I spent more _and_ get more value.
Why is the same notion for gaming somehow worse for everyone?
- paulryanrogers 3y ago> All-you-can-eat gaming as a subscription might actually increase the diversity and quality of games. I'm curious how that could work. Because if it's a subscription then how do they pay back the creators? Is some portion based on play time? If so I can see that actually funneling more money up to the well known games and less to indies.
- ralfn 3y agoI suspect it is similar to how Netflix does it. Reward producers: - that produces the first thing that makes an inactive customer active again - that produce something that is consumed by those who don't consume much else on the platform - that complements existing content rather than being more of the same However it's less about producers being rewarded for their success. Especially if the content is developed in-house and the decision is driven by market research. It's easy to be saturated within a genre. Most games take quite a while to finish. If people stop playing on your service it's not because they finished all the games there. It's because they are bored with the offering, i.e. the diversity of the offering.