I don't see how you can say that the takeaway from that quote is that they won't invest in those games.
Right, it isn't going to get any easier there either. It is difficult all around.
But it will because once again, those games generate money hand over fist. I was playing wildlands with a friend. I was level 5 with a decent assault rifle and a starter sniper. He was like "check this out"
Infamous Second Son actually sold 1M in 9 days.
Again there's a difference between what works as a third party dev and as a platform holder. Nobody is arguing that GaaS aren't popular and don't make a shitlod of money. The issue is that the real success of a platform needs to come from more than individual games. It's more important for MS to draw people to the Xbone than it is for them to sell individual games, because they'll get a cut from all the games sold on their platform as well as all the micro transactions
Those games work when on as many platforms as possible to reach the widest audience possible. Again, your anecdotal evidence of your buddy dropping $40 isn't representative of all (or even most) players. Most players won't buy DLC or microtransactions. But if you cast a wide enough net, and get enough people to play the game, if only 10% of players bite the hook and spend extra money, you've made a lot of extra revenue. If those games are limited to one patform, with a smaller userbase, then they are going to have less people biting that hook, less people talking about the game and getting new people to buy it, etc.
Yeah the demand for a first party title when there was none for 3 months would do that. Same goes for Zelda, of course it sold well, it was the only game on the system really worth buying for the general public.
There have been successes beyond that period as well. Horizon Zero Dawn is one of the strongest selling new IP from this generation.
