This information is incorrect though. It suggests that everyone subscribing to Xbox Game Pass Ultimate is doing so for cloud gaming, which is obviously nuts.
> It suggests that everyone subscribing to Xbox Game Pass Ultimate is doing so for cloud gaming, which is obviously nuts.
It does not.
It says that Microsoft plans on using extremely popular content to boost their cloud platform. Not even Microsoft is denying that:
> Microsoft submitted that, given the five-year period captured by the LTV, any incremental growth of Game Pass is being captured in the LTV calculation.
And they admit that they will be doing it, so they will capture more cloud gaming market and eventually increase profits:
> On the other hand, CoD’s addition to Game Pass may cannibalise some of the B2P sales of CoD. In its valuation model, Microsoft estimated this cannibalisation to be []%, [].617 The fact that Microsoft is nonetheless adopting this strategy suggests that it expects it to be profitable in the long run. This would also apply to overall revenue from customers switching from PlayStation to Xbox.
They own “60-70% market share” in large part due to the failure of every other cloud gaming company to gain meaningful usage (Google Stadia and Amazon Luna) and in small part because the CMA inflated the count of active users to include EVERY Xbox game pass ultimate subscriber, regardless of whether they’ve touched it. Luna is available to every prime member yet they aren’t counted in that MAU calculation. Only Microsoft is treated differently.
If you have Game Pass, would you use its cloud gaming service, or would you go out of your way and play in Luna, which by the way, does not have as many games?
Also, Amazon does not have the software platform, nor the hardware, to compete with Microsoft (Windows, Xbox).
Microsoft could and does bundle a Xbox app in Windows, which also features their cloud platform very prominently [0].
Essentially, every single Windows user is being introduced to Microsoft's very own cloud platform. It's not that Microsoft is "treated differently", they are indeed different.
Let’s put it another way. Just because I can buy a product doesn’t mean I have bought a product. That theoretical purchase is purely speculative and hasn’t happened yet and can’t count for market share. If you want it your way, though, then I’d expect that you insist every prime subscriber should be included in the count of Luna MAU as well. Your same logic applies.
I have both prime and game pass ultimate and use neither bc honestly cloud gaming sucks, even with google fiber.
> Just because I can buy a product doesn’t mean I have bought a product.
But you have. Inadvertently, but you did.
I think you don't understand Microsoft's idea of vertically integrating your gaming experience, and it isn't even a new concept for them, as they have been doing it with pretty much every single market they have got into, e.g. Office, Internet Explorer.
Microsoft bundled cloud gaming inside their subscription, because that's how they target users who want to play games. Same goes to the fact that they very prominently provide access to their cloud gaming service from their two gaming platforms, Xbox and Windows.
It is fair to say that people with a cloud gaming subscription from Microsoft are, in fact, gamers.
In comparison, Amazon bundles several services in Prime. I didn't even know I had free access to some Luna games. The other day I found out that I could stream some free music as well. I don't agree with their model either, but I bet that the vast majority of Prime members aren't paying Amazon just to have free access to Luna.
If you read the report then the CMA comes across terribly. They don't understand basic technical facts. Apparently a competitor to Microsoft told the CMA that they solved latency issues with cloud gaming by increasing GPU power. Someone should alert the nobel prize committee about conquering the speed of light.
They make other bizarre claims like apparently everyone that subscribes to xbox game pass does so for cloud gaming. Cloud gaming isn't even offered in most markets. There is no way people are subscribing to game pass for cloud gaming, its not even good.
Its obvious to anyone with a brain that peer-to-peer is the way forward with game streaming because it solves the latency problems.
>If you read the report then the CMA comes across terribly. They don't understand basic technical facts. Apparently a competitor to Microsoft told the CMA that they solved latency issues with cloud gaming by increasing GPU power. Someone should alert the nobel prize committee about conquering the speed of light.
This is because input latency goes down if you run at a higher framerate. Nvidia worked on this and published some data on it. It's real.
>They make other bizarre claims like apparently everyone that subscribes to xbox game pass does so for cloud gaming.
Gamepass includes Xcloud. Not sure what your point is. CMA made a true statement.
Yes, increasing framerate reduces latency. But you quickly reach a point of diminishing returns, and no amount of framerate increase is going to overcome the baseline network latency, where the speed of light is a real and noticeable problem for anyone not very close to the datacenter their stream is coming from.
> Total input latency, not network latency. Referring to the issues with cloud gaming by discussing input latency is pretty spurious.
No, it's not. This is the actual quote from the report:
> In terms of latency, some providers noted that they have already successfully streamed graphically complex games, such as CoD, with good results in terms of gameplay.
Which is accurate, e.g. Doom Eternal.
> XCloud is not available in most markets that Gamepass is present.
It's available in the UK, which is the domain of the CMA. Any other country is irrelevant to the discussion.
This isn't correct. They use global numbers not UK numbers.
> In relation to cloud gaming services, we found that Microsoft already has a
strong position. It owns a popular gaming platform (Xbox and a large portfolio
of games), the leading PC operating system (Windows), and a global cloud
computing infrastructure (Azure and Xbox Cloud Gaming), giving it important
advantages in running a cloud gaming service. With an estimated 60-70%
market share in global cloud gaming services, it is already much stronger than
its rivals.
