Sure that’s how it is now. As soon as the technology is mature enough, they will slowly begin to make a push for cloud only games. In that way they have total control. They can’t do it now because the technology is not quite there yet, and people is not ready. But you can see where they are heading. All business software such as Office and other cloud services is already there.
Comment on Microsoft says it needs games like Hi-Fi Rush the day after killing its studio
bolexforsoup@lemmy.blahaj.zone 4 months agoXcloud =/= Gamepass and most people don’t use xcloud.
DaseinPickle@leminal.space 4 months ago
bolexforsoup@lemmy.blahaj.zone 4 months ago
Gamepass is clearly not doing well and xcloud has been in beta for years now. I wouldn’t worry too much. Sony also has cloud gaming yet we are talking about the company that’s currently floundering lol
pycorax@lemmy.world 4 months ago
There’s also GeForce Now and they seem to be doing okay but at supposed 25 million registered users, that doesn’t seem like that much all things considered. For comparison, I can’t get the number of registered Steam users but they alone have around 30 million concurrent users on a typical day.
bolexforsoup@lemmy.blahaj.zone 4 months ago
GeForce Now requires you to own the game already. Completely different ballgame.
DaseinPickle@leminal.space 4 months ago
Sony is just as bad. Sony use the same tactics to vendor lock its users.
bolexforsoup@lemmy.blahaj.zone 4 months ago
No doubt about it. Yet all we ever hear about is Microsoft! The only heat I’ve seen Sony get in in the last five years is charging $70, which everyone ended up doing, and linking accounts for helldivers 2, which was a very isolated thing and got reversed anyway because even they understand when the PR damage is too much.
Everybody focuses on Microsoft/xbox but no one wants to look too closely at Nintendo or Sony. Brand loyalty is a motherfucker. All of these companies are trying to get as much money out of us without giving us anything in return
Sabin10@lemmy.world 4 months ago
I’d argue that xcloud and gamepass are equally disruptive to the industry. In either case you don’t own the games and they are tied to a subscription. Whether the game is running locally or in remote hardware doesn’t change how it impacts development and sales of games.
Cloud based gaming is not going to replace owning hardware unless they can ensure sub 20ms response time for every and I don’t belive that target is feasible but either case is bad for gaming as a whole. Games with 100 million dollar budgets are never going to see a positive ROI on services like gamepass and are reliant on gamers being willing to pay full price at launch.
My point is that Gamepass and similar services will kill AAA games if they become the primary way people access games and that is something that is best avoided. Games need a 6-12 month buffer to hit sales targets before they are considered for subscription services, otherwise the entire business model will fall flat on its face and take gaming with it.
bolexforsoup@lemmy.blahaj.zone 4 months ago
The first comment i responded to was about cloud gaming not subscription services.