In the 90s of the last century, Nintendo, Sony, Sega launched a multi-year console war. But neither Sega's Saturn console nor Nintendo's N64 broke Sony's PS series consoles. Today, Sega has no longer entered the console market, but focuses on game software (True Goddess Reincarnation series, Persona series, Sonic series), Nintendo has also abandoned the arms race with Sony, but launched the main convenience, family fun NS game handheld, only Sony is still focusing on the development of high-performance game consoles. But who would have thought that the Microsoft Xbox game console that came out later could be three times with Nintendo and Sony today!
But today, what I want to talk about is not the arms race between hosts, but more important software ecological services. You can think that Microsoft, as a latecomer, can occupy an important position in the cruel game market, and it must have the means to change the rules of the game industry, which is the XGP subscription service (Xbox Game Pass).
In fact, in the original Microsoft internal discussion meeting, XGP game service wanted to be launched in the form of rental, and the name at that time was not XGP but Arches. But then the idea was rejected by the top, and the project was also dominated by streaming services such as Netflix and Spotify. But the Xbox team did not give up, they changed their thinking to change the form of rental to a subscription service, and then let everyone call Maka the XGP game subscription service was born. It can be understood that as long as you join XGP membership, you can play all the games in the member library, although the game is not yours, but as long as you are still a member, you can play unlimited games.
But things didn't go very well, and Microsoft didn't launch the XGP service until February 2017. The reason for the delay was that many game makers were reluctant to add games to the XGP library, and Microsoft finally used its banknote ability to add more than 100 games to the library. These games include popular games such as Halo 5: Guardians, Gears of War, Borderlands, BioShock and more, priced at $10 a month. Of course, this price may be a bit high for now, but it undoubtedly increases the number of Xbox game console users and lays a good foundation for future development.
Fast forward to 2018, XGP game service after a year of development, continuous accumulation of experience and game manufacturers, finally made a bold decision. That is, the first-party games (games of Microsoft's game studios) will be released to the XPG game subscription library, which means that as long as you are an XGP member, you may be able to play most of the first games on the market for free without spending extra money to buy. However, the quality of XGP's first game has always been tepid, resulting in XGP game services not out of the circle, so that more players accept.
But in 2022, XGP Game Services added a large number of third-party high-quality games to the library after considering the commercial value and game art value ("Stalker 2", "Plague Tales: Requiem", "Atomic Heart", "Persona 5F", "Persona 3D", "Crouching Dragon: Skyfall"). And Microsoft is still slowly making the acquisition of Activision Blizzard, although it is somewhat difficult, but the acquisition process is only a matter of time before it is completed. In the future, we will even see super IP titles like Call of Duty appear in XGP game libraries. And now we only need to spend about 200 yuan to open a year of XGP game services, which can be described as a price reduction and an increase.
In contrast, Sony's PSN game business will not launch the PS two-level membership subscription service until 2022, and the price is also very high (515 Hong Kong dollars a year). Although there are also many excellent games in Sony's PS game library, basically no games will be released into the PS game library for the first time. In this regard, relevant people from Sony believe that the first release of a new game into the game library will affect the quality of the game. In this regard, many netizens also said: Sony just can't bear it, there is no Microsoft's consciousness. And Xiaobian believes that the reason why Sony launched the PS two-block membership subscription service is also due to the pressure of Microsoft XGP. After all, whether it is the price of the game, the price of the game console, or the price of the game software service, Microsoft Xbox has the advantage (the same game Sony may be 500+, Microsoft first released into the warehouse).
In fact, a game is a product that must be marketed and sold in a strict sense, but it is also a product of human creation, a combination of art, technology, music and so on. There is no doubt that the original intention of XGP game subscription service is not to think about how much money it can make, but to let more players play more games at a good price.