Jim Ryan, President of PlayStation, made statements in which he claimed that after consulting with video game companies, they unanimously responded that they do not like Xbox Game Pass, which sparked controversy and a new debate about the pros and cons of the service. Ultimately, it is known to be a market and distribution option that can have positive or negative effects, and those who have benefited from it did not hesitate to express their support, such as the head of Football Manager.

Head of Football Manager supports Xbox Game Pass

During an interview with Eurogamer, Miles Jacobson, the head of the Sports Interactive studio responsible for Football Manager, stated that the distribution and business model of Xbox Game Pass has been very beneficial for them. Regarding this, the executive pointed out that Microsoft's service helped make the simulator more well-known, reach more people, and ultimately resulted in a profitable business.

"Each studio will have different opinions on this, and different studios will have different data because different games work well in different situations. For us, it's nothing but positive on all three platforms. We run a pretty tight ship, and I like our studio being profitable because SEGA took a big bet on us many years ago, and its shareholders, strangely enough, should be rewarded for that. So we don't tend to make deals that are bad for any part of the business."

Subsequently, the head of Football Manager stated that the success the franchise has achieved since its arrival on Xbox Game Pass has allowed them to explore new horizons, such as Apple Arcade, and understand firsthand how games as a service, their platforms, and their audience work.

"The simple fact is that Xbox Game Pass and Apple Arcade have brought new people to the franchise who had never played Football Manager before. I have enough confidence in our games to believe that we will now have those consumers for a long time, regardless of the platforms we are on. Financially, it makes sense. Creatively, it makes sense. In terms of learnings, it also makes sense. We were looking at games as a service. Game Pass and Apple Arcade are game service platforms that we are on. So you're learning a lot more about that audience as well as moving forward. And there's no way we would have reached 5 million players in FM23 without the audiences on those platforms, with PlayStation being an additional advantage on top because we've done much better on PlayStation than we expected."

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