Joost van Dreunen, PhD for alistdaily:
Now that free-to-play is an established revenue model and accepted by both game companies and consumers, the underlying economics have shifted. Specifically, where initially the market for MMOs focused largely on acquisition, it now emphasizes retention. Keeping your players happy is a much more effective way of spending your time than to merely churn through them and get new ones.
However, following any successful launch, free-to-play MMOs face the difficult task of retaining their players for as long as possible in a process that can seem chaotic and unpredictable. Analyzing the login data we collected from a diverse set of free-to-play titles over five years, we have identified several general patterns that guide player retention and isolated key trends in this process.
According to a renowned analyst, the Nintendo Switch 2 will have a slower adoption curve than its predecessor due to its backward compatibility and higher price. Game Pass will increase subscribers to 50 million.
50 million gamepass subs in 2025? This is a Michael pachter level prediction, pure fantasy lol.
I see it coming to Nintendo before PlayStation, just because Nintendo doesn’t get a huge benefit from 3rd party. GamePass would only come to PlayStation as an absolute last resort.
If his prediction turn out reality, 2025 is gonna be an amazing year for MS.
Gamepass reaching another big milestone for subscribers while Xbox games charts on former competitors platforms.
I think if the new Mario Kart turn out to be cross gen via backwards compatibility, it will definitely have an negative impact on the more expensive and not so powerful Switch 2 hardware. Especially now with Trump using tariffs to start a trade war.
Last but not least, I think his predictions about GTA VI to be on point. I also believe that R* will keep the standard edition at $70 while charging up to $200 for deluxe/premium/collectors editions.
The new Mario kart will not be cross gen it's premise of 24 racers at one time was impossible on the switch
Nintendo have historically launched their and ended their consoles with one big game that bookends their lifecycle
Dinosaur planet (Starfox adventure) was intended and developed pretty far for n64/GameCube
Twilight Princess for GameCube/wii
Wii was the exception here but it's big game was new super Mario Bros U and that was just a new iteration of nsmb
And Wii U / switch botw
I believe Metroid prime 4 will be that bookend for switch and start switch 2 Mario kart is Nintendo's most effective game to move units everyone can pick up and play it there's no way it would be cross gen
How is MS going to gain 50% subscribers in a year? And that’s supposing the 34million is accurate
It's possible, but I don't see it happening this year. They'd have to release a ton of higjly wanted games as gamepass exclusives. Imagine GTA6 was only playable via gamepass sub 😂
“Imagine”.
Yeah, imagining is usually what happens when you solely depend on Xbox. Fortunately for the gaming world, GTA VI will have options on where to play it and it will be most purchased on PS5. 😉
They will tweak the numbers to include players on PlayStation and Nintendo and talk about their ecosystem.
PlayStation and Nintendo players will boost that ecosystem number while not translating to subs
Unless they bring back the £1/$1 a month subs i don't see it.
Or I guess if the release a real big game everyone wants to play for a month you may get a month or 2 of 50 mill subs
20 million to 50 million gamepass subscribers this year
call of duty, didn't move the needle
Indiana jones, didn't move the needle
xbox sales are at an all time low
apparently xbox gamers believe it
It was 34 million as of February 2024 after Microsoft converted the Gold subscribers to Gamepass. We haven't received any numbers updates since then. The last mention we heard is that Black Ops 6 gives them a record number of Gamepass subscribers and sales on PlayStation. No actual numbers, unfortunately.
"Launching the NX and delaying Zelda is the right call, analysts say, but Nintendo's place in the modern console market is not assured."
Same thing they said about the NES before it released in America.
Nintendo's not doomed, haters.
Sit down and stop whining so frequently about every little thing Nintendo does differently.
Article #2 of a 4-set of negativity incoming.
"Same thing they said about the NES before it released in America."
That was over 25 years ago, before PlayStation took over and Microsoft joined in. Nintendo is struggling to stay relevant in the console space, today.
No, they really aren't.
No one talks about irrelevant things.
And right now, no one can seem to shut up about Nintendo, plus they've been making enough profit to stay comfortably afloat and to keep making both games and systems despite what the sales charts say.
This is just more gloom-and-doom trash.
Everyone was talking about the WiiU before it released, be it positive or negative, and look how that turned out ;)
Will history repeat itself?
So many downvotes...I don't know what to say anymore other than it's pathetic, it truly is. I don't see how there can be so many irrational people out there that can't think for themselves and just go along with the negativity. There are a lot of weak-minded individuals out there and it's very sad.
There's no accounting for good taste, apparently.
So many of these yahoos hate anything that isn't traditional so much that they're willing to bury Nintendo for the mere mention of something different, rather than giving it a chance.
I'm just sick of them; they care more about the stupid controller than they do about the games. and not a single one of them are aware of what "irrelevant" really means, considering they keep trying to label Nintendo with it.
Mobile is the next, and arguably most important, frontier in the rollout of virtual reality, says SuperData's Joost van Dreunen.
Mobile VR already doesn't suck compared to regular VR. I've had much better experiences with the GearVR than with the Oculus and PSVR, due to your phone having a much higher resolution.
Low resolution in VR headsets is way too huge of a problem right now. Their bonus power compared to mobile doesn't really compensate enough. All in all, I feel like VR could've waited another 4-5 years. The tech is not quite ready/affordable yet.
I haven't tried the Vive yet, though. And I probably won't anytime soon, because I am not a millionnaire
I just got my free Gear VR with my new S7 and do think its an excellent gateway to VR.
However, I am on the fence about getting a Rift right now (I currently have the rig to run it) and I did find out that the Rift in fact has a worse PPI than the S7 does.
This is concerning as you can see some screen door with the S7s 2K screen....
What I've read is that people aren't taking into mind the gap between pixels is actually supposed to be really small on the Rift and PSVR which eliminates the screen door for the most part. No one can say if it's better than phones though.
My issue with Gear VR is the content itself is really low res, not the screen and also doesn't have a high enough framrate. Rift is High poly graphics and framerates.
However, the Gear VR is completely wireless which is nice. Cables look to be an issue with both Rift and Vive and I would need to buy a powered USB hub to use.
Thoughts? Have you had any experience with the consumer Rift??
I haven't tried the consumer Oculus, but apparently its resolution is only 15% higher than the dk2, which is not a lot. And I've tried the PSVR, which was pretty much the same as the Oculus dk2. In both cases, the resolution is low enough that you can see every single individual pixel, almost like there's a black grid overlay on the screen. It can get really hard on the eyes after 10-15 minutes.
As for the framerate, I'm pretty sure all apps that don't run at a 75 FPS minimum will not reach the gearVR/oculus store. 75 FPS is pretty much a "safety" requirement at this point
Regarding refresh rates.....I did double check the specs cuz I could swear I read it before but the Galaxy s7 screen is locked at a 60hz refresh rate so thats not fully true about allowed apps.... : )
I wish you could try a Rift in stores. Best Buy or someone needs a demo kiosk. Hard to spend $6-800 bones on somthing I've never used. I can assume PSVR will have demos in stores but who knows when Sony is going to do anything these days.
Curious if Oculus has a return policy if it sucks.....back to Google!
I'd imagine most big box electronics stores will be pushing VR pretty hard. Having a room-scale Vive demo would be pretty enticing for both average consumers and tech enthusiasts.
Resolution is only one part of the equation here. Yeah, phones are pumping out higher pixel counts than consumer VR is, but it's the high-refresh rate and low persistence displays that make the biggest difference.
Also, head tracking. You need positional tracking for mobile VR to really work well. Current phones don't have a way to do that.
You don't know what you're talking about, the GearVR is cool for a stop gap but is massively inferior to the main headsets. It's far more complicated than just resolution. I really can't bothered to explain everything to you as it's all available online easily, but do some research because your ignorance is only bringing you embarrassment.
Retention works in the players favor often as not. Many F2P games have regular updates. One of my reasons for leaving WoW was when they stopped doing regular updates and it became basically one big update in between the major expansions. I don't know if that has changed been years since I left, but I know it always bothered me when they moved away from monthly updates.