Are Sub Services Dying?

gamesreviews.com:

Game Pass is getting restructured. First party games are leaving PlayStation Plus, and there’s no evidence they’re coming back. The grand experiment is over, and it looks like the glory days are gone.

It was supposed to be a shake up on an industry that desperately needed shaking up. The traditional model of paying increasingly high amounts for increasingly safe and padded out video games was starting to feel hard to justify. Many of us were paying pennies for most video games, and getting better and bulkier experiences as a reward for waiting.

The sub service was the equaliser in that. In return for a regular fee, you could access the biggest games sooner. Maybe even on day one with Xbox. I can safely say both companies got more money out of me than they otherwise would have done.

This week has seen to blows to both console services. The first was on Xbox. Game Pass standard, its new lower tier service, will only get new first party games “up to 12 months or more” after release. That non-committal statement says it all – don’t expect Microsoft games on standard game pass and you won’t be disappointed. Ultimate, the more popular section of the service, will continue to get games day one.

But it’s not just Xbox subscribers who will have to get used to changing days. Further disappointment came from PlayStation. They’re removing Horizon Forbidden West from their own service. This is an odd move anyway, but no new first party game has been added since Forbidden West. If you subbed for the Sony games, you’ve been left wanting. That’s despite a major price increase.

It may be a bit premature to say that these services are dying. On the other hand, it’s hard to say they’re thriving. If you wanted a new, more accessible entry into this industry, you’ll soon be out of luck.

Detractors will say it’s a sign the business model wasn’t working. Perhaps that’s true to an extent, or at least at the scale we’re currently at. The Netflix of gaming is hard to get right when even