Microsoft Studios Head on Games as a Service & Longevity vs Traditional Games

When I hear “games as a service” I think about subscriptions, MMOs, and things I’ve been doing for the past 20+ years of gaming. I’m not sure what Microsoft Studios head Matt Booty means by his use of the phrase. He also has a lot to say on game longevity and the nature of the business models / approach to Microsoft’s first-party strategy in June’s MCV issue.

“There will always be single-player games with maybe 20 to 30 hours of gameplay, we love those kinds of games and there’s a place for those, but it’s also certainly the case with the focus on watching, streaming, broadcast and esports that it’s really important to think about the longevity of a game,” Booty explains.

“It’s really difficult for anybody to think about making a large scale triple-A game these days without having in mind a content and service plan that goes one to two years into the future out of the gate.”

“Games really have become much more social, much more mainstream, much more widespread. We know that the games industry is growing, and that’s taking nothing away from what you call the ‘single-player, narrative, cinematic game’ but we see a lot of interest from our players in more community-driven ongoing franchises. I think that is in alignment with a lot of the trends we see in gaming overall.”

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Xbox Game Pass is the Netflix of Gaming

Netflix emailed me today to let me know my subscription price was going up. After being a little disgruntled, I realized the $14 price tag, despite being increased a couple dollars, is still a crazy good deal for how much I use that service.

Then I saw this today: Xbox Game Pass (which I wrote about early last year) now gets all first-party exclusive games added to the Xbox Game Pass subscription service on release date. For just one low price of $9.99 a month, you get access to over 100 games. With the promise if new games every month — including new titles like Sea of Thieves — and the first party titles going straight there, that’s a decent value.

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This is something we've been talking about for years, and we're finally starting to see it come about: Monthly subscriptions to hardware platforms allowing access to software. Microsoft just announced…

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Gears of War 4 – Cross Play is here!

Graev and I picked up Gears of War 4 and are currently working our way through the campaign. It's really, really good. I don't want to focus on any of…

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The Winners of E3

Every year we like to talk about who won the best of show at E3. We mostly focus on the 'big 3' -- Microsoft, Sony, and Nintendo. Without needing to…

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