Vi kan vist allesammen blive enige om, at Xbox Game Pass er en ret god deal, men hvad der oftest sås tvivl om er om hvorvidt det er en langtidsholdbar løsning for branchen generelt, altså om hvorvidt udviklere og udgivere tjener nok på at have deres spil tilgængelige der.
Microsoft, og andre udviklere for den sags skyld, har skudt igen imod denne bekymring i adskillige omgange, og de pointerer nu at abonnenter på tjenesten faktisk bruger flere penge på platformen, snarere end færre.
I et interview med Forbes fortæller Microsoft-chef Saran Bond, at Game Pass-abonnenter faktisk bruger 20% mere tid på at spille spil, spiller 30% flere spil, og er over 40% mere tilbøjelige til at udforske nye genrer.
"When you subscribe to a channel that enables you to watch a video, like Netflix, that's kind of the end of the monetization cycle that you have with that piece of content. In gaming it's the opposite: there are items that you can buy in the game, there are extensions you can buy, there's a next franchise you can purchase, there are other genres that you can leap to.
There are 200 million people who buy a console, and there are 3 billion people who play games. Today, a lot of those people don't have the option to play many of these amazing experiences and iconic games that you see.
When you really look at what we're doing with Game Pass is we're making that possible by linking that to subscription, and putting our streaming into subscription. We're able to make the economics of all that work"
Naturligvis er der herigennem opstået en frygt for at udvikleren bliver mere tilbøjelige til at inkludere aggressiv monetarisering, når nu spillet alligevel er tilgængeligt via Game Pass.
