Futility, thy name is XBox

I was looking over the VGChartz table that I linked in my previous post, and I noticed something interesting.

I used VGChartz's Tie-Ratio tab for my cost-benefit analysis of Game Pass, but gaming system Tie-Ratios aren't the only data available to us. Tie-Ratio is the number of games sold for every console. To calculate a Tie Ratio, you naturally must know: 1. the number of games sold, and 2. the number of consoles sold. And VGChartz have, helpfully, broken those numbers out separately.

And if you switch from Tie-Ratio to just look at the hardware numbers, you can see something interesting.

Microsoft changes the deal

XBox Game Pass, already not the best deal in gaming, has just become a worse deal. As reported by Polygon:

Microsoft has announced sweeping changes to the pricing and structure of its Game Pass subscription service. There are price rises across the board; Xbox Game Pass Ultimate is going up to $19.99/month, an increase of $3. And the basic console tier is to be phased out and replaced with a new Xbox Game Pass Standard tier that will not include day one releases like the forthcoming Call of Duty: Black Ops 6.

The changes were reported by Windows Central and confirmed by Microsoft on an official Xbox support page.

[...]

Witnessing a moment of clarity

Jesus. Was it really three years ago that I first posted about Game Pass?

There are users for whom Game Pass is a good fit; heavy users who really will save money using the service, wealthy gamers for whom the cost of the service is essentially irrelevant, and ruthlessly opportunistic gamers who will pay for a single month only, and only when they "need" it, to play exactly one newly-released game and then cancel [...]

Game Pass is not a good deal; its value proposition is not, and never has been, "insane;" it is not a value option at all, really, except for people who semi-professionally play a wide variety of games, or people who may well have burgeoning video game addictions. So, be honest with yourself. 

Do you have a problem? Are video games taking over your life, in ways that are possibly self-destructive and unhealthy? If so, then you don't need Game Pass; you need help, and there's no shame in asking for that help.

For a long time, I thought I was alone, screaming my frustration into the void. Because the deal really was bad, but nobody else seemed to be willing to call it out for the anti-consumer nonsense it was. Even as every multimedia conglomerate on Earth launched their own subscriber-driven Contentᵀᴹ service, only to watch them all beat hasty retreats after those services lost boatloads of money, Game Pass was made of Teflonᵀᴹ. Nothing ever stuck; the narrative never evolved.

That is, until today. From Ethan Gach at Kotaku:

It’s Time To Start Killing Your Subscriptions

The prices are going up and you probably barely use them anyway

I feel so seen right now.

The Math Has Not Changed: XBox Game Pass is still not a good deal for the average consumer

It's been a good while now since I last posted about how, for the average consumer, Game Pass is simply not as cost-effective as just buying the games you're actually interested in. My conclusion, based entirely on the numbers, was that most consumers would be better-served by just buying what they want. 

Well, E3 has happened since then, and Microsoft and Bethesda showed off all the games that will be "coming day one" to game pass... eventually. Naturally, this has caused a lot of people to lose their minds. 

Paul Tassi's take, over at Forbes, is pretty typical:

It’s clear that Microsoft is slamming the accelerator on Game Pass, with or without a console attached to it, and they’re going to try to not just have a large roster of old games, but continue the idea that every new first party game debuts there, and now that includes all future Bethesda games too [...]

Sony, meanwhile, has taken the opposite path. This generation they’re not only sticking with selling individual new releases as they’ve always done, not rolling them up into any sort of subscription, but also increasing the price of their PS5 games from $60 to $70 [...]

It’s not ideal for each game you go to purchase [...] but once you really start digging into this math, the longer this goes on, and the more games are released for both systems, maintaining a roster of games on PS5 is going to be very, very expensive compared to Xbox.

Let’s say you want to play 12 Xbox Series X first party games over three years, and 12 first party PS5 games over three years. 

No normal consumer is going to want to do this. 

Unpopular opinion: XBox Game Pass is not a good value for the average consumer

Have I mentioned lately just how crazy it makes me, every single I hear someone describe Microsoft's "Netflix for gaming" Game Pass subscription service as the "best deal in gaming?" Because it really, really does, and it keeps happening.

Just fucking Christ... People, it's real talk time. 

For most gamers, Game Pass is not a good value. 

That's not just my opinion; quite simply, it's the math. So, let's look at that math. Specifically, let's look at the average attach rate of a videogame console.