Apple might be planning to launch gaming subscription

Cupertino based company Apple is said to be planning to launch a subscription service for games. Reports say that the iPhone maker is in talks to game developers to be a part of a new subscription service. The new service will be somewhat similar to Netflix and the users will have to pay a set fee for unlimited access to a selection of titles. More details like the pricing or the availability are not yet available.

The talks include like the Apple is likely to be the publisher for titles which means that the company would get more hand-on approach in the release of the games. It is noticed that the app store is usually dominated by games. But those games are almost exclusively fermium titles which are free for the users to be downloaded. They also include in-app purchases that can be bought repeatedly like an independent currency. It is also noticed that the freemium model does not really translate to a $9.99 / month subscription service.

With a new gaming subscription service there are chances that there would be potentially new income avenues for more serious games titles than the games like Candy Crush that favour addictive hooks over the ones with deep narrative and rich gameplay. The iPhones and the iPads come equipped with the A-Series CPUs and GPUs and are more capable to compete with the consoles like the Nintendo Switch. During the iPad Pro event during last fall, Apple had demonstrated the comparison between the power of the A12X to an Xbox.

There is one possibility that Apple signs developers with exclusivity deals that can result in a series of gaming titles only being available on its platforms. The Game Centre which is the existing game service is almost like abandoned. It was removed from the iOS in iOS 10. The executives of Apple have clearly indicated that the service is at the front of their mind.

Photo Credits: