HolyHalfDead said:You do know Microsoft have no control over what goes on sale.
Microsoft cannot force Rockstar to sell RDR2 for $5 - even though Microsoft own the store. The best Microsoft could do is sell it for $24 by not taking their $6 cut. They could even sell it for $20, but they would still have to give Rockstar $24 for every copy sold. Likewise Microsoft cannot refuse CDPR from selling Cyberpunk for $1. They would still take their $0.20 cut though.
Not true ... Xbox determines minimum sale price upon a few factors, with the 30% cut being one of them, as well as "perceived value" & "predicted uptake". For example, "SW: Jedi Fallen Order Deluxe Edition" is on sale this week for $14.99, but was $12.49 over at PSN for the last 2 weeks. With about 90% of games, you'll ALWAYS find equal or cheaper prices over at PSN simply because Sony doesn't have the profit margin & adoption-rate goals that are put upon the Xbox Marketplace team. The publisher CAN choose to go WAY cheaper, such as $1 for Cyberpunk or $5 for RDR2, but obviously they'd never go that low, plus Xbox looks at prior sales, and only if adoption was "low" during the last sale, then they'll drop by an additional 5-10%, but still with a profit margin to maintain.
HolyHalfDead said:Microsoft can choose not to promote a sale. I don’t think people realize that Major Nelson only promotes US sales, and the list is not everything that is on sale in every region every week. When Australia have their back to school or spring sale, in the US the kids are half way through the school year, or it is autumn/fall. I used to publish a current sales blog each week/day, and I would find “unannounced by Major Nelson” sales.
"Major Nelson" (aka Larry Hryb) is an employee of the Xbox Community Outreach team, and as such, he publishes whatever Marketing & the Xbox Marketplace teams tell him to. He won't research sales on his own, nor publish those "unannounced" publisher or price-match deals (within the USA), because he's down the chain from the sale's decision makers & publisher liaisons. He certainly won't publicize deals outside of North America, because those regions like ASIA/SP, WE, CEE, MEA, or LATAM all have their own Xbox Community teams (which sadly could be 1 person, or even non-existent). As such, he's not privy nor incentivized to promote a last-minute or limited-exposure sale coming from outside the Xbox Marketplace team, since the promotions he DOES know about are scheduled 1 fiscal quarter in advance with-respect-to quarterly targets for profit & adoption.