Ed fries, a former vice president of game distribution at Microsoft, recently talked about his concerns about XGP subscription services, noting that such a very successful service may lead to people no longer willing to buy games. Fries worked at Microsoft from 1986 to 2004. The former executive is best known for launching the first generation Xbox Console in 2001.
This message is from Xbox An interview with the expansion podcast. Fries talked about many different topics, but the most interesting is the future of the game. When asked if he would make any changes to his strategy if he was still a member of the Xbox team, the former executive pointed out that the XGP service made him uneasy, and then he delved into how the service might bring down the entire industry.
"XGP makes me uncomfortable because there's a similar thing called spotify that was created for the music industry. When spotify began to grow rapidly, it destroyed the music industry. I mean, it cut the annual revenue of the music industry in half, and it stopped people from buying music," fries said
Fries hopes the game industry can avoid the same fate, "We have to be careful not to create the same system in the game industry. These markets are more vulnerable than people realize... XGP worries me. As a consumer, I like it. As a consumer, I also like spotify and all the music I want is in it. It's a good deal for consumers, but it's not necessarily a good thing for the industry," he said
Previously, Microsoft and Playstation have said that subscription services will never become the dominant mode of video games. Although Microsoft XGP has more than 25 million users, it still has a long way to go to reach the level of spotify (182 million) and Netflix (222 million).