Rumour: Xbox Has Talked To 'Every Major Publisher' About Potential Game Pass Partnerships

I think they will bring their older Gabe's in like EA play. They won't be day n date like the Ubisoft+ service but for their their older Gabe's it makes sense. They might get some microtransactions or old DLC sales out of it so it's just icing on old cake for them. Reality is more and more people are going to buy less games because they have a lot already paid for in gamepass. I honestly don't expect to pay full price for a game again if I buy any. Also Ubisoft apperently has a lot of family games as well and they have all the South Park titles. So not just Assassin's Creed games.

It’s ok having older games like EA have done as long as it does not put the price of game pass up.
I’m more interested in having the new games on day of release.

If game pass increases in price because of more old games like EA joining has done then I may consider leaving game pass.

But if game pass got say Ubisoft / EA with all their new games on day of release and the price went up I would probably pay the increase and stay with game pass.

I like new games and new experiences thats why I have been playing games since the day games were born in the 1970s.

I don’t want a price increase because more old games end up on game pass. I have the games I wanted to play when they were released.

Ubi is a reasonable fit because they already have their own similar service for their own games like EA, so it's only a matter of semantics getting them to expand that profitably to combine with another service. Plus they're 200% in on the streaming future, so any move to align better with the digital subscription space will be seen as a forward move by them.

Most other publishers, though, not so much. I could see warner doing it. They're big on deep discounts and market saturation for mtx. Not many others would benefit though.

It's an interesting battle with this on one side and 2k/acti/Sony pushing for even higher prices and a a pro-corporate consumer base that's proud to help corporations keep with inflation. I can't imagine a push for increased revenues via ever more premium products will fare well in the mass market while the competition is focusing on increasing the value proposition.

Though there's a point where it offers "too much value"and then becomes it's own premium. Like cable/tv that keeps adding channels you don't want and then charging more for the luxury. Hopefully they'll walk that tightrope.

Still, i think the "i for one am happy to use my wallet to help corporations keep up with inflation, after all they have employees to pay more to!"are the artistic types that can't quite figure out how business and creative finance work.... And can't quite see that these "struggling" companies are making yearly windfall growth targets despite pesky inflation..... MS can afford to not focus on that kind of profit goal and focus only on market share at any cost for now, only because of their income in other sectors.

I think we'll see more publishers jumping on board, but probably more like we see on Amazon Luna, with channels, or higher tiers.
Can't see them adding Ubisoft to Game Pass and not bumping up the price unless it's literally just catalogue titles like EA Play.

@NEStalgia "Still, i think the "i for one am happy to use my wallet to help corporations keep up with inflation, after all they have employees to pay more to!"are the artistic types that can't quite figure out how business and creative finance work"

We call those people the corporate slaves. Just like the guy on NintendoLife who was supporting the idea of games being lost forever and no one being able to play them just they aren't released on a home console.

On topic - https://wccftech-com.cdn.ampproject.org/v/s/wccftech.com/microsoft-admits-xbox-game-pass-isnt-really-making-a-lot-of-money-right-now/amp/?amp_js_v=a6&amp_gsa=1&usqp=mq331AQHKAFQArABIA%3D%3D#aoh=16102733075806&referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com&amp_tf=From%20%251%24s&ampshare=https%3A%2F%2Fwccftech.com%2Fmicrosoft-admits-xbox-game-pass-isnt-really-making-a-lot-of-money-right-now%2F

They're trying to hook you in for the inevitable milking. Someone here even said they'd be ok with a price increase. Microsoft have trained him well.

I doubt this would require an increase in price. A Ubisoft access vault thing will likely just mean games that are older than a year, similar to EA. By that point the publisher relies more on deep discounts and DLC to monetize the games, so they won't feel they are losing much in sales, and having MS giving them a steady revenue would be pure win for them.

Plus, the bigger Game Pass gets, (subscribers wise) the more money MS has to do deals.

@Menchi The strategy for game pass, from the current management anyway, I don't think it's about baiting for a price increase and milking necessarily. I think they're aiming for the Walmart model more or less, razor thin margin moved in tremendous volume. It's how Walmart continues undercutting everyone. They make pennies on every item. But they move billions of them. I think that's their idea with gp. Cut margins per sub to pennies, but move a LOT of those subs. Then with reliable income, invest that money and profit off the investment of the revenue advance. And instead of selling units, sell time. Gamers don't buy as many games as it seems, there's only so much time. Yes we have huge libraries but we're the fringe. Long term, $120 in subs is no less than the average gamer already spends per year... They get the perception of more value but in reality spend the same and it didn't cost anything to deliver the option of more content.

So i see where they're going. The more the sub base grows those pennies add up to millions, then billions. And consumers get to feel like they're stealing.

That's pretty much what greenberg said there as well, though i trust him about as much as Jim Ryan. I think current management continues with that plan. When things get ugly is when different management eventually comes in with the idea of milking it instead. The leaders really matter...

Ubisoft's games plummet in price about a week after launch nowadays so Game Pass seems like a likely outcome.

If they talked to "every major game publisher" does that mean they talked to Nintendo and Sony as well? I wonder how that went.