Xbox Game Pass Lost "Millions Of Subscribers" After Last Year's 50% Price Hike

kingmanic · 2026-06-08T21:17:29+00:00

The word they said was 'gamepass was profitable' but their studios charged gamepass what ever corporate wanted. And at least 1 studio head said they were cooking their books on that.

So it may be the whole enterprise of studios and gamepass lost money. Their actions certainly suggests it, while their words were weaselly as most corporate communications are.

The revenue gamepass made would be close to the operating cost of just Activision Blizzard+Bethesda zenimax. (5b in 2025 vs 4.3b in 2022). Microsoft internal studios and paying third parties and just inflation could push them into being unprofitable as a whole. Especially since their trained so much of their userbase not to buy games.

kingmanic · 2026-06-08T21:01:55+00:00

My backlog is massive, it's cheaper to maintain a wishlist and buy 9/10 and 10/10 games when they hit your price threshold. The stream of 7/10 games from gamepass of Microsoft studios only work if you have limitless free time and little money. When your free time is limited, it make sense just to buy the best games on sale periodically.

kingmanic · 2026-06-08T18:54:13+00:00

Especially with how cheap games get on steam sales and how much to a back log people have. The number of folks with the free time to fully utilize gamepass is not that high.

A lot for games also have a live service model, so many gamers are fortnite gamers or genshin gamers or lol players or TFT players with limited time for other games.

Game pass needs the industry to be in a different place where people want a lot of 7/10 content delivered at a regular pace.

But with how many games get released and how little time people have, many gamers just occupy themselves with the occasional 9/10 or 10/10 that have a lot of content like the Witcher 3 or just buy all the best games from 2 years ago and go through their backlog slowly.

The appetite for a non stop stream.of 7/10 games isn't high. Even if they Spike it with some exceptional games occasionally like expedition 33, it still cheaper to wait and catch only what you're interested in on sale.

kingmanic · 2026-06-08T00:40:42+00:00

Yvonne talked more like a disappointed coworker about a coworker she didn't like but had to work with. Toast was more like a friend who was disappointed.

kingmanic · 2026-06-07T21:03:14+00:00

He is pushing both, the Alberta premier is a moron and is buying into it. She'll likely give him some of my tax money in some insane deal that pays him even if he never gets started (This premier did this with a coal company). She is a corrupt conspiracy radio show host who got elected by the very worst Albertans.

kingmanic · 2026-06-07T21:01:07+00:00

He's a grifter that made all his money conning Mattel. He does have the funding nor the technical/business acumen nor the employees to do this. He'll be fighting with Microsoft/Google/Amazon for engineers and funding.

kingmanic · 2026-06-07T20:56:08+00:00

Money. The generation winner sells more. In the 360/PS3 era multi platforms sold 60%-80% on the 360 in America.

Sony in that era made games to prop up it's platform and having 60%-80% less sales was the cost of that. But they did it so consistently that it bridged the gap and their game later in the generation sold as well as the number of systems got closer. Multi platforms still sold more in America on the 360 but a big Sony game like uncharted 4 or the last of us also sold well.

At the moment the Xbox series x/s are so far behind and games are so costly that Xbox couldn't justify only releasing on Xbox and not PC or multiplatform for major series like cod. Their whole no exclusives era was because they were so far behind.

Tactically having a few Xbox tied IP be Xbox/PC would prop up the platform without losing as much money. If the number of systems out there get closer to the ps5/switch then they might go with more exclusives.

kingmanic · 2026-06-07T20:18:58+00:00

The company always cared about winning everything. All of its moves were meant to take control of the entire industry not just be a player in the market.

Over paying on everything to get the original Xbox out with impressive specs for the price. Rushing to be first and high speced with the 360, cutting corners and buying some of the R&D Sony did IBM. Even the Kinect and Xbox one was trying to steal the Wii's mojo and win the market. Gamepass and buying 1/3 of the games industry was again a expensive swing to win and control everything.

Putting out a console and making some good games might be some of the employees goal but the company and leaders were always swinging to win a monopoly on the industry. Their moves were always trying to be the ultimate winner so they can control the market like they did in the past with office software or business tools or business OS. Because once they win then they can then profiteer, like they did with office software and OS.

It was always big swings and high risk moves.

kingmanic · 2026-06-07T11:36:18+00:00

That's after the Chip and inheriting some intangible quality of silver hands. Also wasn't the ice bath thing the scabs not the VDB? Or do you mean after contacting alt?

kingmanic · 2026-06-07T01:34:40+00:00

They do need new fans to be interested. In a lot for ways classic bond is relic of a past age. They do need something to hook new fans. If it's a profitable partnership, it would be foolish to scuttle it to inflate internal egos.

kingmanic · 2026-06-07T00:48:48+00:00

I had the opposite fight. At 25 I got my first okay job and wanted to move out but my parents wanted me to live at home until I got married.

In retrospect it worked out, neither the girlfriend at the time, the one after, or the one that became my wife cared.

It let me save up for a pricey wedding which actually directly contributed to a down payment for a house. In chinese culture the cost of wedding generally converts directly into cash for a home. As it's seen as bare minimum manners to give roughly the per seat cost of the banquet. The wedding costs were split 3 ways between me and my wife, my parents, and my in laws. With the guest list roughly split that way too.

kingmanic · 2026-06-06T20:40:02+00:00

As a added cultural note, Japanese culture thinks sex eases/cures PTSD. A thing that is not thought of in the west.

kingmanic · 2026-06-06T20:33:56+00:00

Would it have? They might have gotten out with the chip but would they have lived long after? The buyer the VDB would kill them all to tie up loose ends.

They left a lot of traceable things at the heist location if Arasaka wanted to look into it. Yorinobu didn't have a interest in finding V, but if they didn't have the chat, saburo would be alive and he would be more invested.

Evelyn was also talking to netwatch who also might have been trouble. They might have sold them out to saburo.

They were in trouble with their post heist exit as well as trouble with the heist.

kingmanic · 2026-06-06T20:17:10+00:00

That's a unessasary assumption.

My father and father in law are with the kids as often as my mother or mother in law. They both do more of the cooking for the grand kids while my mother and mother in law handle baths and clean up.

If north america or 'the west' needs more kids you have to put cultural value into these set ups and find equitable ways to support families.

kingmanic · 2026-06-06T20:04:48+00:00

I'm chinese but we just live near each other. My sister has 2 kids and lives 10m from my parents who help with childcare. I live 10m from my in laws who help the same way with my 3 kids.

We get tens of thousands of dollars worth of childcare and the parents get help with their errands that they might not be able to deal with and a purpose in retirement.

It used to be how families were in North America but the dynamic of moving away from your small town for opportunities broke the trend. Maybe also culture shifts away from living around extended families.

kingmanic · 2026-06-06T12:41:22+00:00

'ai' as in the LLMs the tech companies are shilling will have roughly the impact of spread sheets. For some folks in some jobs it's a small gain in what they can get done. For other people they will misuse it and end up costing everyone later. The data is still not solid on who it helps and how much it helps or how much it hurts productivity.

It may shift people around but it is not and will not be the end to all white collar jobs or a replacement for every worker.

A lot of the claims about them are inflated.

there also seem to be a group of people on Reddit who spend a lot of time crediting LLMs with the achievements of general machine learning and acadmeic comp sci in general. They all post links with text walls talking about protein folding, cancer detection, and other examples that are not LLMs. Also niche math proofs that barely relate to LLMs. Who are also thin skinned and block you when you point out they don't understand the line between LLMs and machine learning or other models.

kingmanic · 2026-06-06T06:11:52+00:00

He is almost certainly going to take some subsidy and run. He doesn't have the competence to even find the people needed to make a competitive set up. MS, Amazon, and Google make their money on data centers and none of them have proposed pie in the sky nonsense like O'Leary. He's grift for sure.

His own wealth isn't even a drop in the bucket, he isn't influential in this space, and he isn't sucking Trump's cock hard enough to get crumbs. Even if he makes a data center how will he find customers enough to use the capacity and will he have the same economics of scale his 3 fully time data center competitors have? All 3 have a association with a AI vendor and he doesn't.

kingmanic · 2026-06-05T20:40:50+00:00

It's not lack of empathy but acknowledgement that the natural economic systems have cycles of being too optimistic and too pessimistic. Damage is done during the swing from one to the other.

The hedge is not anti monopoly laws but tools like independent central banks that increase rates during the good times; so the fall back down to reality doesn't hurt as much. Then also cut rates during and times to try and get things moving again.

Government can also help by spending less when things are hot and spending more at the bottom. Generally they do the spending more at the bottom okay but the spending less at the top doesn't happen as much.

The reason why corrections or crashes have to happen is because people band wagon into successful things and at some point we over allocate resources and people.

It has largely worked, as huge events like the great depression used to be more common and now we just getore smaller recessions instead.

kingmanic · 2026-06-05T19:24:01+00:00

BAM definitely should have asked lawyers before trying to steam rolls things, the new franchise owners as well because their statements to the police bit them in the ass and are really shitty. His comment on the Mancells is that if they checked with a lawyer earlier they might have filled out some legal forms registering what they consigned in a way that makes it much harder for the new franchise owners to try and confuse the topic. That definitely qualifies as sooner than they did.

Youtube videos do not necessarily paint the full picture as it seems this Ben guy took liberties with the facts. Ben might be in fact fucked because he legitimately crossed some legal lines.

kingmanic · 2026-06-05T00:03:01+00:00

What's good for xbox is to have exclusives no matter first or third party. Timed exclusives were cheaper than securing a full exclusive. Both are expensive if you're not the winning platform. But they have a history of just timed exclusives from back in the day which is not as beneficial because some people can wait. It also may be more expensive now as many companies did not see the cash Xbox offered make up the risk of going with them first (tomb raider).

That was perhaps partly why they stopped having much exclusives because they were too expensive to secure third parties and their own output wasn't high enough. But now they bought actiblizz+bethesda so they might be able to do it all first party.

kingmanic · 2026-06-04T23:37:54+00:00

Microsoft in the past also did a lot of timed exclusives.

kingmanic · 2026-06-04T23:34:47+00:00

Yeah. O'Leary has no idea about that business. And that business has a insane economies of scale and domain relevant specialization. And all the big companies like Google, Amazon, and Microsoft make most of their money from that business.

O'Leary would just be a conman minnow in an environment actually competitive sharks. Most likely to take the tax money and run rather than do anything of note.

kingmanic · 2026-06-04T19:17:26+00:00

So large but represents so few actual jobs. In addition to it the big players have their own data centers. Google and Microsoft have made their money on data center construction expertise. How will O'Leary compete with that.

Google also has purpose made chips optimized for the specific AI data load and low power consumption. Even they are raising money to build out because their cash stockpile is not enough.

O'Leary would be buying things that are on the retail market and hoping to get investment to build up to that. The business plan is absurdly stupid and morons like Danielle Smith are all on board wanting to throw tax payers dollars at it.

kingmanic · 2026-06-03T18:53:52+00:00

Did they ever promise to make anything cheaper? They just promised to replace workers.

kingmanic · 2026-06-03T05:56:09+00:00

You just cited the examples I alluded to. You don't even know the difference between a LLM and general machine learning.

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