Head of subscriptions Nick Maguire tells us the service has been a hit, highlighting stats such as 'a billion hours of gameplay since that catalogue launched'. He also says that users of the service are, on average, spending seven times as much time on PS Plus than they did with PlayStation Now in the year prior to launch.
Maguire highlights some standout titles in the service, including Dead By Daylight, The Legend of Dragoon, Rainbow Six: Siege and, of course, the indie game Stray, which launched day and date in the service in July.
"Stray has brought in the highest number of players that have accessed that title over the first 12 months," Maguire says. "And Ghost of Tsushima has brought in the highest number of hours of gameplay. People have really stuck around and really invested in that game. That goes to the strength of our PS Studios titles, which have seen great engagement and lots of excitement.
Regarding Microsoft’s position in the broader game industry, it seems we have our answer: It’s now a publisher first, a subscription platform second, and a console hardware platform a distant third.
when i hear people use the word "exclusive"... all I can think of is the princess bride: https://youtu.be/dTRKCXC0JF...
Ybarra, who spent two decades at Microsoft, acknowledged concerns about the future of Xbox hardware by fans once more first-party games go multiplatform.
As an xbox guy, If porting some exclusives to sony and nintendo allows MS to continue offering gamepass day one, I'm all for it. Port them all if you need to.
Your way of thinking is why Microsoft is where they are. All they had to do was hold the line of the 360 circa 2010. Had the continued with thay strategy they would not have had to introduce gamepass which has spectacularly kneecapped them.
@hof, but then they would still be in the same position as sony, fighting for those same 150 million customers. As a publicly traded company, they still need to show growth. Once sony is day and date on PC, they will also need to find new customers, likely by embracing 3rd party. What you consider "kneecapping" I consider an incredible customer value in gamepass.
Kneecapping the xbox and pc owners are loving it I do t think u telise how popular gamepass is
They were faltering in the last year or two of the 360 era. Don't forget that they doubled down on Kinect, which might be part of the reason why they didn't have much to show going into Xbox One.
As a consumer, I really get that point of view.
As an ex dev seeing what's happened to the industry I have no doubt that GP is harming the industry I love by devaluing games, so my thoughts are little less positive about it.
I can agree with the sentiment that most of their games should be multi platform. Until they swallowed up these devs, most of the titles we are wating for would have been multi platform anyway.
@ThinkThink
"As an xbox guy, If porting some exclusives to sony and nintendo allows MS to continue offering gamepass day one, I'm all for it. Port them all if you need to."
I won´t say all, but definitely some games I wouldn´t care either as long excellence continues to be delivered to us.
I still find it funny that Microsoft is spinning its obligations that it has to releasing on other systems as if it is some noble decision. Before they bought the companies they did these games were all in development easily the last 3-5 years and had some type of standing agreement they absorbed.
People are acting like this is a dependency when in reality it’s them just trying to avoid major lawsuits. I am willing to bet any game that’s started development in the last year that would release in the next 5 will eventually be Xbox only unless in the next 5 years Xbox just fails hard.
And with the new skus they released I REALLY don’t foresee them having a huge jump. When now the disc version is a HUGE luxury at 600 with them not even having a physical presence anymore it’s them killing their physical market.
They just need super strong games and consistency. This showcase was the first time since the 360 era where I actually was excited for what Xbox has. I already own a paper weight Xbox Series X, but now it’s looking like it’s time to blow the 3 inch layer of dust off it and give it some loving.
What Xbox needs to do now is be consistent with the releases. Don’t let this be a one time thing and then back the the poultry exclusives and typical Forza, Halo, and whatever else they just release. If they can do that I honestly believe they can rebuild the brand and possibly get it back to how it was when the 360 was alive.
I agree with article and I believe sony will follow suit budgets to big development times to long none can sustain this forever and sony won't be able to either
I also think in 20 years we are going to look back and say "Remember when we used to have to buy a game publishers box to put under your TV in order to play their games?"
The former boss of PlayStation has responded to some recent comments made by Xbox head Phil Spencer in a recent interview. The wide-ranging interview covered a variety of topics, with the conversation at one point leading Spencer to mention that he doesn't want to do "slimy platform things" to force gamers to play games a certain way, which has now prompted a response by PlayStation's former leader.
“Phillip W. Spencer III:"Xbox’s aim with Call of Duty is to give players choice, not "do slimy platform things" that make one option more appealing."
Yet Xbox were the ones who started this exclusive crap with CoD during the 360/PS3 era. This guy is something else.
Yep, some of their fans also parrot this hypocritical line, MS started and popularised that trend, then spent 80 billion.
Pot kettle black.
"Yet Xbox were the ones who started this exclusive crap with CoD during the 360/PS3 era. This guy is something else."
That's not actually true. Sony paid to keep games off of Nintendo and sega back in day. Plus they payed blocking rights to keep certain games off of gamepass which is probably what Phil may be referring to. Imo that makes them slimey too if we're being honest. At the end of the day it's just business. There is no doubt in my mind that if sony could make huge purchases like Microsoft, they would. You probably won't see sony respond with an official statement because they know they are just as guilty.
"Sony paid to keep games off of Nintendo and sega back in day."
That's not actually true.
Nintendo (and Sega) had licensing of games exclusive to their system way before PlayStation even existed, and both used 3'rd party developers to make licensed games exclusively for their hardware.
You and Microsoft are literally trying to rewrite history.
To be fair here, Einhander, Phil didn't mention Sony by name with his comment, it was just implied.
That said, the practice goes all the way back to the "Nintendo Seal of Quality" that not only limited developers to publishing on NES, but also limited the number of games they could make per year to 5.
Nintendo did it, sega did it was business at the end of the day. Y'all people gotta stop rolling on the Sony did it back in the day nonsense. Always blaming someone and back in the day was back in the day stop going that far back in time.
The first instance of this crap I remember is Soul Calibur II. GameCube got Link, Xbox had Yoda and PS2 had Darth Vader.
you are thinking Soul Calibur 4 for the SW characters. Soul Calibur 2 had Link (GC), Spawn (XB) and Heihachi (PS2). Then Soul Calibur 3 was exclusive to the PS2 while Soul Calibur 4 was on 360/PS3... no Nintendo version until Soul Calibur Legends for Wii.
Adding on to what darth said, Soulcalibur II HD came out later on PS3 (maybe Xbox 360 too?) and it included the PS2 exclusive character Heihachi and the Xbox exclusive fighter Spawn but unsurprisingly, Link wasn't included
Soul Calibur IV on Xbox had Yoda (hate fighting that short bastard) and PS3 had Darth Vader but each platform had the other fighter as paid DLC.
True... and yet the kind of 'exclusivity' MS paid for was usually timed. The same things would still come to the PS but when Sony does it they make it so what they pay for stays exclusive.
I get paying to get something sooner, but paying to keep others from ever getting it too... that shit is slimy AF.
"but paying to keep others from ever getting it too... that shit is slimy AF "
So than you agree the Act/Blizz and Zenimax deals are slimy AF becasue there are definitely former multi-plat games PlayStation gamers lost becasue of the aqusitions.
Phil says things but it's the actions of the company he runs that just nullifies all of his statements. You can't call a company slimy for using money to buy exclusives when you do the exact same thing by buying out studios and making their new games exclusives. At least up until the point you realize you're not selling enough and need to put them on that other platform to make the game studios stick around and exist.
You're a joke Jin. Only commenting on articles like this but nowhere on any of the successful Xbox showcase articles....
Jim Ryan is trash, games as a service is trash, PS blew their lead and has no decent upcoming games
Phil was and is the right man for the company he is working for. Slimy..through and through. The Persons as well as the company itself.
POS boss for a POS brand with POS fans, that's what xbox is.
So good to see them begging for Sony and Nintendo money and making all their games multiplatform, they are the ultimate losers and got what they deserve.
Phil Spencer surely must have the world record in the amount of times a CEO can put his foot in his mouth throughout his career. I honestly wonder why Microsoft even lets him do interviews at all at this point.
One thing I wish for from either Xbox or PlayStation on their services would be to let me play a disc game without needing the disc in after I install it.
Idk how the logistics could work to prevent soft-piracy like disc sharing and playing at the same time (I.e. if there's an ID for the disc their servers can track and you have to be online), but I think of how nice a feature that would be every now and then.
Horizon for example - it's been a year and my disc is put away in storage. Burning Shores came out and HFW being on PS+ now meant I just bought the DLC on my phone, and played it a few minutes later, no need to disc swap out with Hogwarts Legacy.
It would be a very For-the-Players move and, imo, would encourage both physical purchases and maintaining a concurrent subscription. A disc for the collection with the ease of digital.
""I was personally surprised that Premium has ended up being a bigger share of the base than Extra. We all thought that Extra would be where the majority of people went to first, but actually Premium has been more popular and bigger," he reveals.
I didn't expect that...
The only two problems I have are
1. They should be putting more ps1 and ps2 games in the service
2. There’s no incentive to have premium really. Essential is just as good for less money.
"Stray has brought in the highest number of players that have accessed that title over the first 12 months,“
What a great game. Quality over quantity.