Microsoft xCloud coming included with Game Pass Ultimate Sub

[JPDunks4]

https://news.xbox.com/en-us/2020/07/16/players-first-you-are-the-future-of-gaming/

 

Quote

You will get more from your Xbox Game Pass Ultimate membership. Finally, today we’re announcing that this September, in supported countries, we’re bringing Xbox Game Pass and Project xCloud together at no additional cost for Xbox Game Pass Ultimate members. With cloud gaming in Game Pass Ultimate, you will be able to play over 100 Xbox Game Pass titles on your phone or tablet. And because Xbox Live connects across devices, you can play along with the nearly 100 million Xbox Live players around the world. So when Halo Infinite launches, you and your friends can play together and immerse yourselves in the Halo universe as Master Chief—anywhere you go and across devices.

 

 

I think most of us expected this, but good to know.  After trying Stadia a little more, and trying some xCloud beta as well, I think there is definitely a place for Game Streaming.  This deal is essentially a Stadia killer in my opinion.  Stadia needed a Netflix type library available to stream immediately from, not a bunch of older titles everyone's played, that you need to rebuy.

 

It's going to be huge for Game Pass, where some games I kinda want to try, but don't necessarily care enough to download it.  Now you can instantly try the huge catalog of Game Pass games in seconds.  If you like it enough, download it for the optimal experience.

 

Now if Microsoft can deliver with a solid slate of quality games from its large portfolio of studios, this could really be a big win for Game Pass.

[Keyser_Soze]

Seems pretty value.

[Remarkableriots]

Wasn't this going to be used on Crackdown to make every building destructable?

[Remarkableriots]

I wonder if Halo infinite will have randomly generated Halos to explore so kinda Infinite?

[JPDunks4]

1 minute ago, Remarkableriots said:

Wasn't this going to be used on Crackdown to make every building destructable?

 

No, that was cloud computing.  xCloud is streaming games.

[Remarkableriots]

1 minute ago, JPDunks4 said:

 

No, that was cloud computing.  xCloud is streaming games.

Do they still have cloud computing?

[crispy4000]

xCloud at that cost sounds fantastic for those interested.  It also adds much needed value to Ultimate/Gold for those not planning on buying a Series X.

 

Only downside is that it likely means the online paywall for consoles isn’t going away this gen.  

[Remarkableriots]

17 minutes ago, crispy4000 said:

xCloud at that cost sounds fantastic for those interested.  It also adds much needed value to Ultimate/Gold for PC owners wanting a reason to pay, or those using xCloud on tablets phones.

 

Only downside is that it likely means the online paywall for consoles isn’t going away this gen.  

I highly doubt that's ever going away!

[crispy4000]

29 minutes ago, Remarkableriots said:

I highly doubt that's ever going away!

 

I bet they’ve generated more revenue with it than 1st party game sales this generation.

 

I wouldn’t even be surprised if that was true for Sony.  They release numbers for paying subscribers, they’re at 40+ million.

https://www.theverge.com/2020/5/19/21263492/sony-playstation-subscribers-active-users-ps4-subscription

[skillzdadirecta]

@JPDunks4 Do we know what phones and tablets Xcloud witll be compatible with? I'm assuming android and MS tablets are given. But what about Iphones and Ipads?

[stepee]

ios is already in beta yeah. Right now it’s limited to one game though, they need to work something out with apple.

[Brian]

If it ain’t on iOS then it’s useless to me. 

[JPDunks4]

I can't imagine them throwing away the entire Apple ecosystem with how much they want to scale this, so I'd assume it'll be compatible on Apple by launch.

[JPDunks4]

35 minutes ago, crispy4000 said:

 

I bet they’ve generated more revenue with it than 1st party game sales this generation.

 

I wouldn’t even be surprised if that was true for Sony.  They release numbers for paying subscribers, they’re at 40+ million.

https://www.theverge.com/2020/5/19/21263492/sony-playstation-subscribers-active-users-ps4-subscription

Well that's the goal now, at least for Microsoft.

 

The $50 for XBL or PS+ per year always seemed as a nice bit of extra revenue for both companies.  An extra billion or so per year.

 

Now if Microsoft can land people on Game Pass Ultimate, and keep that sub year round as just another sub so many of us have become accustomed to having, that's $180 per year vs the $60 they get now. 

 

Most people put Game Pass at roughly 12-15 million subscribers now.  I know a lot of subs are probably on entry level specials, but plenty probably aren't.  13 million @ $180 a year, is 2.3 billion.  And that is with Microsofts 1st Party output not being anything too special, and no xCloud integration to try to scale it. 

 

If they can grow Game Pass to 50 million subs paying close to full price, they have a huge winner on their hands.  

[Mr.Vic20]

More service, no additional cost? What's to say, but OK! 

[XxEvil AshxX]

20 minutes ago, JPDunks4 said:

Well that's the goal now, at least for Microsoft.

 

The $50 for XBL or PS+ per year always seemed as a nice bit of extra revenue for both companies.  An extra billion or so per year.

 

Now if Microsoft can land people on Game Pass Ultimate, and keep that sub year round as just another sub so many of us have become accustomed to having, that's $180 per year vs the $60 they get now. 

 

Most people put Game Pass at roughly 12-15 million subscribers now.  I know a lot of subs are probably on entry level specials, but plenty probably aren't.  13 million @ $180 a year, is 2.3 billion.  And that is with Microsofts 1st Party output not being anything too special, and no xCloud integration to try to scale it. 

 

If they can grow Game Pass to 50 million subs paying close to full price, they have a huge winner on their hands.  

 

The Xbox One "failed" and had "no games" this gen, and yet MS annual gaming revenues still hit like, $11 billion.

[crispy4000]

39 minutes ago, JPDunks4 said:

Well that's the goal now, at least for Microsoft.

 

The $50 for XBL or PS+ per year always seemed as a nice bit of extra revenue for both companies.  An extra billion or so per year.

 

Now if Microsoft can land people on Game Pass Ultimate, and keep that sub year round as just another sub so many of us have become accustomed to having, that's $180 per year vs the $60 they get now. 

 

Most people put Game Pass at roughly 12-15 million subscribers now.  I know a lot of subs are probably on entry level specials, but plenty probably aren't.  13 million @ $180 a year, is 2.3 billion.  And that is with Microsofts 1st Party output not being anything too special, and no xCloud integration to try to scale it. 

 

If they can grow Game Pass to 50 million subs paying close to full price, they have a huge winner on their hands.  

 

The cost of sustaining Games Pass and xCloud would still be exponentially higher than keeping Xbox Live multiplayer going.  It’s not as simple as them getting more revenue with these services.  Gold is far and away the best value in their gaming portfolio for them. (And the least consumer friendly for their console-owning base)

 

Like PSN+, it isn’t just a bonus for them.  It’s not “extra” cash.  It’s a critical portion of their revenue they rely on to push forward in their other initiatives.  Including pricing decisions for Games Pass and xCloud.

[Keyser_Soze]

24 minutes ago, XxEvil AshxX said:

 

The Xbox One "failed" and had "no games" this gen, and yet MS annual gaming revenues still hit like, $11 billion.

 

Hacked by @TomCat?

[TwinIon]

1 hour ago, Remarkableriots said:

Do they still have cloud computing?

MS is still a leader in cloud computing in general, but it really seems like all talk about offloading game processing to the cloud has gone away (and never really surfaced to begin with). I think the calculus basically was that if you're going to host latency sensitive calculations in the cloud to begin with, may as well just render the whole game. The split model just didn't make sense.

 

13 minutes ago, crispy4000 said:

The cost of sustaining Games Pass and xCloud would still be exponentially higher than keeping Xbox Live multiplayer going.  It’s not as simple as them getting more money with these services.  Gold is far and away the best value in their gaming portfolio for them. (And the least consumer friendly for their console-owning base)

 

Like PSN+, it isn’t just a bonus for them.  It’s not “extra” cash.  It’s a critical portion of their revenue they rely on to push forward in their other initiatives.

Netflix is the obvious model here. When they started streaming movies, I believe it cost them more to stream it than mail the dvd, but they still added streaming in as a free add-on. 

 

Microsoft wants that subscription money to be the backbone of their gaming division, and I think that's a smart play. Have a lull between big releases? It doesn't matter, because you're still collecting that monthly revenue. Customers thinking about changing platforms? Maybe not so much if they rely on that subscription to play their games.

[crispy4000]

11 minutes ago, TwinIon said:

Netflix is the obvious model here. When they started streaming movies, I believe it cost them more to stream it than mail the dvd, but they still added streaming in as a free add-on. 

Streaming ultimately replaced physical media.  Game subscriptions won’t replace online multiplayer.

 

I think the comparison is flawed.  With Gold, it’s more like if Netflix made you pay more to see the last episodes of shows on your TV.

[TwinIon]

4 minutes ago, crispy4000 said:

Streaming ultimately replaced physical media.  Game subscriptions won’t replace online multiplayer.

 

I think the comparison is flawed.

Netflix added a service that was (at the time) very expensive to provide, for free, to customers of their existing offering. Over time, more and more of their focus shifted to that service, and more and more customers were subscribing for that thing that started as a free add-on.

 

I think MS is doing the same thing by putting xCloud in with Ultimate. You're right that sustaining xCloud right now is certainly much higher than Game Pass by itself, but MS likely expects that game streaming will eventually become the thing that people are subscribing for, and not just a bonus.

 

It's an incomplete analogy, and I think you're right that streaming isn't going to eliminate normal game sales or standard multiplayer subscriptions, certainly not anytime in the foreseeable future, but I still think the Netflix approach is what MS is following here.

[The def star]

This is actually cool as I have a friend who I gave a year of Xbox Game pass so we can play games together on two xboxes at my house. He doesn't have an xbox but at least now he can play xbox game pass at his house via his android phone.

[JPDunks4]

58 minutes ago, crispy4000 said:

 

The cost of sustaining Games Pass and xCloud would still be exponentially higher than keeping Xbox Live multiplayer going.  It’s not as simple as them getting more revenue with these services.  Gold is far and away the best value in their gaming portfolio for them. (And the least consumer friendly for their console-owning base)

 

Like PSN+, it isn’t just a bonus for them.  It’s not “extra” cash.  It’s a critical portion of their revenue they rely on to push forward in their other initiatives.  Including pricing decisions for Games Pass and xCloud.

 

I wasn't disagreeing with you.  I was just highlighting just how much money there is in subscriptions, and why I think Microsoft is making all the decisions they are making.

 

The things so many Fanboys on the internet attack them for, "I can play those games on my PC, why do I need an Xbox".

 

Building up their subscription base has the potential to make them more money than just focusing on Hardware sales and the extra revenue tied to that.

[number305]

3 hours ago, JPDunks4 said:

 

 

It's going to be huge for Game Pass, where some games I kinda want to try, but don't necessarily care enough to download it.  Now you can instantly try the huge catalog of Game Pass games in seconds.  If you like it enough, download it for the optimal experience.

 

 

It will be interesting to see how well this works.  For users with older PC's and high bandwidth the optimal experience may be streaming.  Hell this opens up the whole library of current games to people without even needing to add a graphics card to their pc.  

[Keyser_Soze]

1 hour ago, The def star said:

This is actually cool as I have a friend who I gave a year of Xbox Game pass so we can play games together on two xboxes at my house. He doesn't have an xbox but at least now he can play xbox game pass at his house via his android phone.

 

Wow, I would hate to be on the Halo team with the scrub who's using a phone to play.

[crispy4000]

2 hours ago, TwinIon said:

Netflix added a service that was (at the time) very expensive to provide, for free, to customers of their existing offering. Over time, more and more of their focus shifted to that service, and more and more customers were subscribing for that thing that started as a free add-on.

 

I think MS is doing the same thing by putting xCloud in with Ultimate. You're right that sustaining xCloud right now is certainly much higher than Game Pass by itself, but MS likely expects that game streaming will eventually become the thing that people are subscribing for, and not just a bonus.

 

It's an incomplete analogy, and I think you're right that streaming isn't going to eliminate normal game sales or standard multiplayer subscriptions, certainly not anytime in the foreseeable future, but I still think the Netflix approach is what MS is following here.

 

You're looking at it from the perspective of Microsoft adding value through xCloud, and that being a Netflix thing to do.  I wouldn't disagree.

 

My issue with the analogy is that Netflix isn't charging for anything like Xbox LIVE Gold.  There are no artificial barriers like that on Netflix that cut content out of their shows and the like.

[crispy4000]

1 hour ago, JPDunks4 said:

 

I wasn't disagreeing with you.  I was just highlighting just how much money there is in subscriptions, and why I think Microsoft is making all the decisions they are making.

 

The things so many Fanboys on the internet attack them for, "I can play those games on my PC, why do I need an Xbox".

 

Building up their subscription base has the potential to make them more money than just focusing on Hardware sales and the extra revenue tied to that.

 

I was highlighting that I don't think you went far enough.  Multiplayer subscriptions are an absolute bedrock for these companies now, not something extra.  Games Pass is more or less the add-on to it for most of their console customers.

 

And I don't think "I can play those games on my PC, why do I need an Xbox" is an attack, really.  No more than "I can play those games on my Xbox, why do I need a PC."   It's just kind of a fact of what Microsoft has chosen to do here.

 

I agree that for Microsoft particularly, there's potential for a lot more money in subscriptions.  I also like the idea of them not chasing AAA so much, and letting many of their studios pump out smaller games to keep interest sustained.  Their output generation illustrated that something had to change.

[JPDunks4]

13 minutes ago, crispy4000 said:

 

I agree that for Microsoft particularly, there's potential for a lot more money in subscriptions.  I also like the idea of them not chasing AAA so much, and letting many of their studios pump out smaller games to keep interest sustained.  Their output generation illustrated that something had to change.

 

 

What makes you think they aren't going to be focusing on AAA?  It sounds like just about every Studio they purchased were given the resources and did the hiring, and mostly all will be working on AAA Projects.

 

And the Fanboys comment are talking about PlayStation owners that continue to beat the drum that putting games on PC is a horrible thing.

[stepee]

i hope i can actually purchase a kishi for ios before this comes out

[JPDunks4]

14 minutes ago, stepee said:

i hope i can actually purchase a kishi for ios before this comes out

I just got one in, I like it quite a bit actually.  Used it for Stadia so far, and it's a decent solution for this type of application.

[Brian]

1 minute ago, JPDunks4 said:

I just got one in, I like it quite a bit actually.  Used it for Stadia so far, and it's a decent solution for this type of application.

How are the buttons? Reviews were mixed on the feel. 

[crispy4000]

39 minutes ago, JPDunks4 said:

 

What makes you think they aren't going to be focusing on AAA?  It sounds like just about every Studio they purchased were given the resources and did the hiring, and mostly all will be working on AAA Projects.

 

The subscription model.

 

It's not that AAA won't be a focus at all.  It's just there's a need, like Netflix, to keep new content coming on a consistent basis.  I don't expect Microsoft Studios to keep pumping out open world games one after another, for example. Stuff that takes a shorter amount of development time and resources would be welcomed too.

 

I think it'll be normative for most of their studios to have multiple ongoing projects at a time.  That's reflected in most of the studios they already bought actually.

 

39 minutes ago, JPDunks4 said:

And the Fanboys comment are talking about PlayStation owners that continue to beat the drum that putting games on PC is a horrible thing.

 

It's perfectly reasonable to think that console manufactures sell their platforms short by taking away exclusivity.  It's bad for that, at the very least.  But times are changing, and so is competition.

 

I don't mind Microsoft doing their thing, Sony doing their thing, and Nintendo doing their thing.  That'll be a sliding scale of exclusivity most likely, and I'm fine with it.  It's easier to pick platforms nowadays.

[TwinIon]

1 hour ago, crispy4000 said:

The subscription model.

 

It's not that AAA won't be a focus at all.  It's just there's a need, like Netflix, to keep new content coming on a consistent basis.  I don't expect Microsoft Studios to keep pumping out open world games one after another, for example. Stuff that takes a shorter amount of development time and resources would be welcomed too.

 

I think it'll be normative for most of their studios to have multiple ongoing projects at a time.  That's reflected in most of the studios they already bought actually.

When Amazon's video metrics were leaked, they focused on "first streams," shows that were the first thing people streamed when signing up. They used it as a stand in for the content that lured people to the platform. With Netflix, once they'd been established, they focused on content that people wouldn't want to go without. Neither is necessarily aligned with a constant flow of content releases, and I think that both are the kind of things that would justify AAA development.

 

The subscription model actually makes some lull periods between big releases much more sustainable for MS, because as long as there is something of value people have and something they're looking forward to, very few will cancel on a month by month basis. Yes, they do need a certain amount of content coming out, but that's more of a question of volume rather than type. Given the success that Sony is having with their AAA single player games, I think it's reasonable to assume that MS will want to create competing content, at least where it aligns with any given studio, and that the subscription model will incentivise those types of games.  

[stepee]

3 hours ago, JPDunks4 said:

I just got one in, I like it quite a bit actually.  Used it for Stadia so far, and it's a decent solution for this type of application.

 

For ios?!

 

Im set for an alert when it comes in

[JPDunks4]

24 minutes ago, stepee said:

 

For ios?!

 

Im set for an alert when it comes in

Nah Android4Lyfe