The problems with subscription services are two-fold, as has been made clear by video streaming platforms:
First, there's a finite amount of people who want them. Once everyone who wants a subscription has one, the revenue changes from driving new subs to trying to retain existing ones or minimizing user 'churn' (user's subscribing for a while, while others drop off for a while). That's why you see companies like Netflix taking aggressive stances on things like password sharing now. They used to be fine with it, but now they're cracking down in the hopes that it drives new subs from the people currently 'sharing' accounts. Bear in mind that video streaming services are platform agnostic whereas game streaming services are platform dependent, so Game Pass and PS+ will hit the ceiling much faster than video services.
Second, subscription services end up in an arms race to provide content to keep subscribers "engaged". Like subscribers, there's a finite well of material that can be put on the subscription service. This ultimately ends up leading to a system of quantity over quality. Again, with video streaming we see this with the sheer number of projects being greenlit only to be canceled part way through, or only after one, season. It's already happening on game streaming services as well -- most notably Game Pass, since it's the older of the two. This push for constant content is how we end up with stinkers like Redfall. Had Redfall needed to survive solely on sales, I doubt it would have launched in the state we got it. But
sales were a secondary thought -- using a big, hyped, first party title to drive engagement for Game Pass subscribers was more important than the quality of the title itself.
How did I
know this was going to be your response?
Continuing to prove the point as to why software sales on Xbox is abysmal compared to PlayStation.
Because Xbox fans expect everything to show up on Game Pass or they simply won't bother.
Game Pass has fundamentally warped Xbox fans' brains into
not buying games.
And then they wonder why output is dismal.