Despite questions about its profitability, Microsoft repeatedly assured journalists and consumers that the business model was sound and not supported by the embarrassing fortunes of its parent company. This is despite it switching to a financial reporting strategy that obscured the true nature of its numbers, focusing on revenue rather than cold hard profits.
PlayStation, when asked, said the strategy simply wasn’t “sustainable” – a line that would continue to be repeated several times. “We’re not going down the road of putting new release titles on a subscription model,” CEO Jim Ryan told Games Industry.biz afterward. “These games cost many millions of dollars, over $100 million to develop. We just don’t see it as sustainable.”
He was, of course, accused of being a profiteering liar – and this became another arrow in the quiver of Ryan’s biggest critics, many of whom felt he was unfit to lead PlayStation despite his unprecedented success in business.
Sony continued to reinvent its subscription offerings, combining PS Plus with PS Now to create a more compelling trio of levels that included a wider selection of PS5 and PS4 games. And later it would experiment with adding smaller, day one titles to its offering, such as Tchia, Humanity and most recently Animal Well. While there are still question marks over the most expensive PS Plus Premiumthe value of PS Plus Extra has been widely applauded.
However, while the experiment has proved successful for PlayStation’s bottom line, allowing Sony to extract more revenue on average from each individual subscriber, the total number of PS Plus members has remained largely static – standing just under 50 million. Despite this, in the United States specifically, consumer spending on game subscriptions has hit a brick wall, with year-over-year growth of up to one percent during some months of the year.
All of this culminated in some seismic changes to Microsoft’s business model overnight: including the introduction of a Game Pass tier that no longer features first-party day-one releases. A new subscription called Game Pass Standard will come into effect from September Purge the promise of day-one games – despite still commanding a hefty $14.99 per month fee.
The Redmond firm isn’t doing away with the concept entirely, but those who want to play titles like Fable and Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 at launch will now have to pony up $19.99 a month to do so. PC Game Pass will keep the promise of day one games, though its price is also going up from $9.99 to $11.99.