this post was submitted on 27 Jan 2024
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Xbox has reportedly ‘shut departments dedicated to bringing games to physical retail’ (www.videogameschronicle.com)
submitted 9 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
18 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

With Ubisoft talking about getting gamers used to not owning our games...

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[–] [email protected] 34 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (3 children)

Microsoft doesn't want your money now.

Microsoft wants your money every month until the day you die. That is their end goal.

  • Don't buy games, pay for GamePass!

  • Don't buy Office, pay for Office 365

  • Don't save to your PC, save to OneDrive! Would you like to hear about our storage plans?

  • Are you interested in our Windows 12 premium subscription? It comes with CoPilot Plus!

GamePass right now doesn't make money (FTC leaks state this, plus MS financials obscure GamePass by putting it in with another business segment for a reason). They will 100% be upping prices. That's the business model. Tried and tested by the likes of Netflix and Adobe.

And you may say "I don't care, if it gets too expensive, I'll just stop paying - I already have a large games library"

And that's right. For you. Little Timmy in 10 years time will be saying "damn, another GamePass price rise? It's so expensive now", and what will his choice be? To continue paying, or immediately shell out hundreds, possibly thousands, on buying games to rebuild his catalogue? It's obviously what he and most others will do.

MS's dream is to trap people in this situation and squeeze money until death do you part. Companies and investors want the continual revenue stream that subscriptions provide.

Those subscribers will also have kids, and guess what? Their kids will want to play games too. They'll need a subscription. They'll get hooked on the same business model. And with luck, so will theirs. It's insidious.

Kill this shit in its infancy.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 9 months ago

SaaS - "software as a service", aka "subscription model".

This is why people need to ditch Windows, because even though the new fancy Nordic edition will remove telemetry (honestly if you have to run Windows, run that), it'll still most likely be subscription based.

The way I see it, Windows will become Co-Pilot OS. Eventually features will be taken out of Windows and replaced with prompts. At some point you can only do basic, basic stuff without Co-Pilot, and Co-Pilot will cost you a monthly subscription.

This will hopefully piss off the OEM's, because they'll see that they're paying Microsoft to give them clients. Hopefully that will mean they pivot toward Linux, but most likely they'll just hash out a deal with Microsoft and also push Co-Pilot like a mf.

This is a reminder that most laptops and systems today run perfectly with Linux. You don't need windows anymore, and the longer you stay reliant upon Microsoft, the deeper into that SaaS rabbit hole you go, eventually ending up as a captured audiences once more.

Again:

LINUX is super fucking easy nowadays, you have no more excuses.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 9 months ago

Agreed with everything you say, and I don’t have any solutions you haven’t said. I would like to add, buy your nephews, cousins, kids, students, etc physical games. Buy them the games they want, too, not just the ones that you think they should have. Get them used to going to the store to look at games and game boxes. Take them to the retro game store and let them pick something out. Encourage gaming to be more than passive consumption, and try to instill more positive associations with ownership. Avoid lecturing, or trying to create negative associations with digital or subscription products, and just help them share in your passion, it’ll take you a long way.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 months ago

I saw a YouTube short of a player trying to capture one of those rare flying creatures from Avatar in Ubisoft's new game just like in the first movie. He reveals how you can't interact with the animal as of now, and makes a joke about it referencing the plot of the first movie.

From the comments on that video I learned two things:

  1. I was so late to realize just how much of Trekkie-like cultists the fans of this franchise are.
  2. The first comment was something along the lines of "I hope in their next DLC they implement it just like in the film". I know there are free DLC, but I believe in popular knowledge DLC refers to paid updated content, right? So these people are already conditioned to believe that fixes must come in a third-to-half the full game price package!
[–] [email protected] 18 points 9 months ago (1 children)

This is the idea with gamepass. I imagine they will sell the next console at a loss to hook people with a gamepass subscription. A future xbox could be a tiny internet connected box that just streams and handles the peripherals.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Yeah if consoles just start streaming only I will going to PC game streaming is great and all until it doesn’t work then it’s useless.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 9 months ago (1 children)

plus you can stream games from your pc while actually owning them

[–] [email protected] 2 points 9 months ago (2 children)

Except for games purchased via Steam, Epic, etc which you also do not “own”.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 9 months ago

you own every game you pirate and properly crack though.

and most steam games can be easily used without steam with a steam emulator.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 9 months ago

That depends. Steam games do not automatically come with DRM/need Steam to launch. So long as you keep a copy of the game files around, you own those games. That's not true for all titles of course.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

10% were buying physical, versus 50% ps5.

They know their target. People who buy xbox don't want disks, overall

(I'm one of those, bought the series s for gamepass and digital downloads as i tend to just sell disks back to game stores since i was a kid. #povertylife

[–] [email protected] 10 points 9 months ago

You will own nothing and eat shit it doesn't matter if you're happy either

[–] [email protected] 8 points 9 months ago

It is not easy considering the cost associated with logistics of selling physical games when no one buying.

However moving towards digital with no clear plan for how you can own a digital game for ever instead of subscription is not right.

I think legislators need to find a way to force companies to provide an alternative to subscription based model where an individual can buy, resell and share or transfer the games.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 9 months ago

They're late to the party. Carl in the electronics section at Walmart hasn't unlocked the physical games glass case in 10 years, anyway.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 9 months ago

Unfortunately, nowadays games are released in such a buggy state that you have to download a patch as soon as you get a physical copy of the game.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 9 months ago

It's like all of you forgot valve is pretty much the king of digital only.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 9 months ago

They've continuously had problems sourcing parts for optical drives, the Chinese stopped making them long ago.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 months ago

With Ubisoft talking about getting gamers used to not owning our games...

I'm not too big of a fan of Ubisoft and not owning games but that whole thing was taken so much out of context. The full quote was just the guy explaining the kind of conditions that would be required for mass adoption of subscription services. That's all.

It wasn't even targeted at consumers, it was an article on a blog who's audience was for other developers.