Phil Spencer 'Doesn't Envision' Every Xbox Gamer Will Use Game Pass - News
by William D'Angelo , posted on 07 December 2021 / 1,918 Views
Head of Xbox Phil Spencer in an interview in the latest issue of Edge magazine (and transcribed by VideoGamesChronicle) was asked if Xbox Game Pass was the sole focus for Xbox going forward. Spencer said it wasn't the only focus for Xbox.
"No, it's not," he said. "And I know it’s easy – I'm not picking on you when I say that, but you know, the thing I get a lot is 'it's all about X,' or 'it’s all about Y or Z.' And when you’re running the platform, it's all about X, Y and Z, right? It's all of those things."
He added, "Do I want, or do I envision, everybody who's on Xbox being a Game Pass subscriber? I don't. I want people to make their choice. Some people want to buy all the games we ship and create their own library."
Spencer did say Game Pass does give Xbox a "good continual revenue stream. And that's an important thing for any business, on top of the spikes that you’ll get around certain retail releases. That's why I talk about it really being a mix of things. It's not about one muscling out another.
"The business doesn't hinge on any one number. The retail sales number, the console sales number, the Windows engagement, Game Pass, xCloud engagement… it's really all of these things coming together."
A life-long and avid gamer, William D'Angelo was first introduced to VGChartz in 2007. After years of supporting the site, he was brought on in 2010 as a junior analyst, working his way up to lead analyst in 2012. He has expanded his involvement in the gaming community by producing content on his own YouTube channel and Twitch channel dedicated to gaming Let's Plays and tutorials. You can contact the author at wdangelo@vgchartz.com or on Twitter @TrunksWD.
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He would need to be out of reality if he expected 100% attach ratio.
Agreed. A lot of casual gamers I know really only play 1 or 2 games and that's it. Tends to be COD games and that's pretty much it.
Now you've made me wonder what the highest attach rate in console gaming history is. Anyone have a clue?
That's false then. https://www.nintendo.co.jp/ir/en/finance/hard_soft/index.html
500mil games sold on 61.91mil consoles is an attach ratio of 8, not 30 nowhere near that.
You right the source I was looking at I didn't realize they meant the NES classic edition that was released not to long ago.
https://vgsales.fandom.com/wiki/Software_tie_ratio
If we are talking about total SW sold it would either be X360 (I think it was like 12 or 13) and PS4 which is about 1.6B sold SW on a 110M HW give or take for the time you look at numbers (but more indies and digitals than X360 era). If you are talking about one individual game that is likely Wii Sport (even without the tie-in), or Zelda launch that had more SW sold than HW.
Naturally. I'm sure many users just wanna play a few games that aren't Game Pass content. In fact, most of popular games on the platforms have nothing to do with Game Pass.
More importantly, not every Xbox user needs to subscribe for Game Pass to fund 1st party games.
At the end of the day it's an option , and while it remains so that's fine the only concern is one day it may not but if that happens well just like the rise of digital we let it happen.
Why would that day ever come. I mean really think about it, why would MS leave money on the table, it does not make sense. There is nothing that I can think of financially that would make MS ever stop giving you the option to purchase a game outside of game pass because well, that 60 bucks no matter how you count it.
Because I'm talking about industry wide the nature of new things is once it gets past a certain adoption point it tends to replace what came before.
By the time that happens we will be to old to care. That would be a huge shift because it would mean that most of the steaming players are gone and there is only like a few left. I kind of doubt that is going to happen for a long time.
I think this is a reasonable position to have. If you are the type of person to really take your time with 1-3 games per year, or gaming is a casual or side hobby to you rather than a primary form of entertainment, then I think gamepass would be of limited value to you. Microsoft would be unwise to say something like “if you aren’t interested in game pass we don’t want you as a customer”.
For me, I was an early adopter of Game Pass. In my particular case, though I bought relatively few games they always included the latest Halo, the latest Gears, and the latest Forza Horizon, so it seemed a pretty safe bet for me. But yes, someone who mostly plays CoD and Madden each year would see hardly any value in Game Pass at all.
Someone that plays every Halo, every gears, and every Forza, even if you buy them at the full retail price, would not be better served by subscribing to game pass, If that's all you play.
The Zenimax purchase has obviously greatly increased the roster of must play titles that will be available on game pass. So, there's probably a lot more people for whom it makes sense now.
Yes it was, even though that was all I played. Remember I was speaking about doing so when it first came out. When it first came out you could load up with three years of Gold, and then convert 1:1 for three years of Game Pass. (You still can, in fact, if you jump through exactly all the right hoops.)
But I would have done it even without that promo. Game Pass wouldn't have to save me every penny of the Halo/Gears/Forza releases to be worth it, it would merely have to save me ENOUGH of the Game Pass subscription that I was paying so little extra it was worth it to have access to all that extra content.
And in any case, I don't pay anything for Game Pass Ultimate. I subscribed through the Gold-to-Game Pass promo, and renew via Microsoft Rewards.
I'd get gamepass and stay subcribed if I can play anygame I want, any time I wanted.
Everybody would sub to it if you could get every game made, on launch day, access them forever, and it still cost $15 per month.
Doesn't have to be every game made, so excluding system exclusives. But I don't like the fact that games disappear from the store, and if you did download a game and delete it, you then have to pay for it. Or maybe i'm wrong.
If I download a game, like on psn, does it stay in the history and can redownloaded, or if a game is taken from gamepass store, and you deleted it, it is no longer available ?
I don't think it matters if you deleted it. Once it leaves gamepass, you cannot play it unless you own it. Having it downloaded to your system doesn't make any difference.
They will focus on making thier money on both audiences.
i finally figured out that this is not the right guy for the job.
