- Hey y'all, Scott here. Can you imagine what life
is going to be like in 2019, we'll have more air, no
more murder, immortality and like two subscription services. - [Narrator] So I was
eating cereal this morning and it was dreadful thanks for asking. Oh my God I'm only $7.99 a month away from not watching anything. Subscription services are a
corporation's best friend. Why get money for one thing once, when you could get money
for one thing lots. This is the hip new thing now in the entertainment industry, paying a monthly fee to access
some jinx service online. Companies are trying to adapt to a subscription model
to every medium out there. Film, music, video game, storage units. It's all about obtaining
a continuous flow of money Regardless of the product offered. As an example, you buy one $20 digital movie
on the PlayStation store. First off, let me add to my
list of people I don't trust. And secondly, that was just
a one and done purchase. You paid $20 for one movie it's time to move on, it's over. But with a subscription
service that offers movies you have to pay a monthly
fee to watch the films on it. The monthly fee is usually pretty low, which makes us the more
attractive option to most people. A lot of people just want to be able to watch movies whenever they want they don't really care what movie it is, they just want something
to combat the loneliness. But as the months rolled
by, you keep paying the fee. People who would only
buy a few movies a year end up continuously
paying for these services they might forget to use
after a couple of weeks. That's how they get ya. I always have $5 leftover
at the end of the month. I just won't give it to Apple
TV Plus for doing nothing, they earned it. Of course the subscription
model wouldn't be offered if people weren't supporting it it works really well for a lot of things. Some truly offer value
that make them a no brainer to subscribe to. And then some just taste bad. Subscription services are flooding our screen breaks. Every single company
thinks their doesn't stink and they can make their own service. CBS All Access is pretty
much the same thing as saltines plus who wanted this? Who said cut now have CBS
had a subscription service. And if only. The whole subscription trend in the industry truly started with Netflix so, Netflix, right? It was all about renting DVDs
online delivered by mail. No late fees, what an idea. Because everybody knew
the worst aspect of going to the video store to
rent a movie was going to the video store to rent a movie. But after a while, Netflix start
to offer something amazing. Something that changed the
entertainment industry forever. Streaming video on demand. Videos on demand was and still is the most terrifying term of all time. To me, it means those
elusive movies for sale through your cable subscription. I felt like if I wasn't careful
enough, I'd accidentally buy a college semester worth of movies. But no you see streaming video
on demand through Netflix was so much breezier. Offered as a part of
your Netflix membership. You could instantly watch
so many different movies and TV shows through the power of Netgear. Now I jumped on the Netflix
train around 2011 or so. I nabbed a free trial,
downloaded the Netflix app on my Wii and enjoyed so so much content. Pretty much almost any movie or TV show you searched up on
Netflix it was there. They had such a wealth of
stuff available to watch, and for only nine bones a month, I knew I saved this for something. Netflix is amazing. (cash register ring) Netflix is okay. Various companies saw how
well Netflix was doing, how much people started preferring just having a Netflix
subscription compared to just the cable box and overall the money that could be made from an ongoing subscription model. And I don't like what I have to subscribe to like five different
apps to get all the stuff I used to get with just Netflix. Hulu used to be a website
focused on offering episodes of TV shows for free the
day after they aired. Now it's just a Netflix. Amazon Prime instant video. Yeah, everybody has it because
everybody has Amazon Prime. I enjoy spending $119 a
year for faster shipping on products, but apparently
a part of that offer, I get Amazon's own version of Netflix. Plus you taking some video out of my Amazon Prime membership. I wouldn't even blink. And then of course we have the newcomers Apple TV Plus and Disney Plus now Disney Plus was created because
Disney owns 29% of the world. The other 71% is water. And they obviously felt
like they had enough content of their own to push
their own service rather than just license it all to Netflix. That's fair enough. Now Apple made Apple TV Plus because, I don't know they were bored. And then we have HBO Now, CBS
All Access, Starz, Peacock, DC Universal oh for sake. - I hate this, it's just irritating. All these corporations
are pumping everybody up. Like, look guys, we're making your own subscription service it's going to be great. When they used to put all their content on Netflix and Hulu a few years ago. How am I supposed to respond to that? Like, oh yeah, I can't wait to
spend 10 more dollars a month on something I used to have access to but you ripped away from me. Oh yeah. - [Narrator] So I maintain
the opinion that Netflix is the best overall. I think it offers the best variety of content with both movies and TV shows for all different kinds of
people, pretty much anybody and everybody would be fairly content with a subscription to Netflix. However, if you can't find a TV show you want to watch that
means it's probably on Hulu. Hulu makes me wince, like they've got an incredible
roster of TV shows on here and like two movies, but I
despise how the app set up. I can see only three options at once and only see one image
for the one I'm selecting. I should be getting an
allowance for browsing this. I do like that you can subscribe to Hulu with advertisements
included for less money. And I subscribed to a lot of Ad-less stuff so I don't see a ton
of commercials anymore. And sometimes I feel like I'm
out of the loop on the ads people hate watching. Amazon Prime video. No. Okay first off Amazon, why
are you even trying to compete against Netflix if you're
not even going to invest in making a decent video player. And then this selection oh my God. They should rename Amazon Prime video to puppet movies and friends. It seems like pretty much anybody can make their content available through Amazon Prime and it shows. But what did the show
you want to watch isn't on any of these services? Well, it's probably on one of the apps nobody gives a about. Netflix used to be incredible, I loved it, but now I feel like companies just keep
pulling their stuff up just to make their own streaming service and I personally find it
kind of dumb in some cases. Take for example, The Office. Became more popular than some
religions in recent years and you want to know why? Because it was on Netflix. And then NBC said, we'll make
our own streaming service and put The Office on it, exclusively. Stop it. The Office experienced a huge resurgence in popularity because of Netflix. Everybody has Netflix and seeing The Offices' icon mocking you on the app constantly
while everybody's bound to watch the full series three times in a row at some point. Now I'm forcing people to subscribe to an infinitely inferior
streaming service with less original content
and less old content which costs roughly the same price. I'll say goodbye to the growing popularity of The Office NBC. Lugging the show behind
your own app makes it less likely people who weren't
even born when The Office premiered are going to
discover it for the first time. I mean, Peacock is fundamentally going to be a streaming service for The Office at this point, who's subscribing to this thing for Punky Brewster. You will appeal to people who
are already fans of the show but you're making it a lot harder for people to become
new fans of it this way. And then there's DC Universe a streaming service for
DC Comics content, why? At least with Marvel content,
that's a part of Disney Plus which is less expensive than DC Universe and it includes a larger
variety of content. See this is how I see things, DC has their own streaming service great, good for them I knew they could do it someday. They get all the money from
people subscribing to that. But the fact, a lot of
this content is locked behind a DC centric streaming service. That means it's only going
to appeal to DC fans. For what reason with somebody
who's never seen DC content before subscribe to DC Universe? Loneliness. See if DC partnered with
Netflix or Hulu or even, (gasp) they wouldn't immediately
get as much money from that, but they'd get more exposure more people would be
able to watch this stuff and have chances to
become fans of DC content. And thus you'd sell more
merchandise and movie tickets. All these companies think they can have their own streaming service. And it's just getting kind of ridiculous. If you need one service, just get Netflix you get the most variety and good content with that subscription. Hulu is fine I think they have a
better roster of TV shows but I hate browsing the green lagoon. And then Amazon Prime video. I always see myself
saying, oh this exists. But of course that's just the movies and TV show subscription services. You know how things roll around here I love all things this and yeah, video games are starting to be pushed into the subscription service model. See pretty much most of the big game companies are
pushing their own services. And I admit the idea of having a Netflix style app for games, it's amazing, in concept. Movies and video games are far more different than they initially seem. See I keep subscribing to
Netflix because I get thousands of movies and TV shows I can just pop on in the background
while I'm busy evading or I can watch some stuff
at the edge of my seat. Movies are much more flexible in terms of how you can consume them. They're much less of a time sink, there's not much of investment you have to make to watch one. Playing video games
requires you to be much more deliberately invested, and many games take 10
plus hours to play through and it's not like I can
just throw a video game on in the background, I'm
actively controlling it that entire time. To me, I'm much more
invested in picking a game I'm going to sit down and play compared to picking a movie I'm going to watch. I don't know, man well, let's take a look at the video game subscription services see if they can win me over. Well here we have EA Access $5 a month for access
to the entirety of EA. We can play FIFA 20, FIFA 19, FIFA 18, FIFA 17, FIFA 16, FIFA 15. Yes so EA Access gives us
free trials slash early access to new EA games as well as an unlimited supply of EA
classics, unlimited equals 30. The game library is more
robust on Xbox One with some X-Box 360 titles available a part of that subscription,
but here on PlayStation 4 I'm going to throw it out there EA you did it. You officially changed
the definition of value. Having the past couple
of Maddens and FIFAs take up a good chunk of the huge collection of games available is like Netflix having in the past five months of
the weather channel available. These games are downloaded
onto your system and you can do all kinds
of things like play them. It's just not a great
variety of games here and most of the games available for free a part of the subscription,
aren't worth anything anymore. On top of that, a lot of these games, aren't good. Maybe five bucks a month, but
we can get it for $30 a year. And okay. I mean the trial access
to the newer games has up to 10 hours can be played for free and that's pretty generous. I think there's some value to that. Just like how there's some value to death Like thank God there's no EA Access in the afterlife. Well Ubisoft has their own take on the subscription service UPlay+ it's all about spending (spitting) 15 bucks a month makes us one of the most expensive subscription
services and offer what? Uno, Rayman Forever. UPlay+ features over 100 titles most of which are significantly
less than $15 right now. Sure if the service includes recently released Ubisoft titles as a part of your subscription,
but, they're Ubisoft titles. Like those things go on sale
a week before they release. Also, I don't know who would
ever say, you know what? I love Ubisoft and only Ubisoft I wish there was a
subscription service for me. Oh my God. Contrary to popular belief. There is such a thing as too much Ubisoft. Well, let's jump into the big boys here we have PlayStation Now, Sony's
big subscription service. This is primarily focused around streaming the games
to your console or PC. It's truly like Netflix for games. And just like Netflix. It's fine. PlayStation Now was pretty much created as Sony's way of making
PlayStation 3 games playable and God forbid on something other than the PlayStation 3. They had a bizarre infrastructure which makes playing its
games on other hardware difficult to do so they
had to take the hardware and stream the games being
played over to your hardware. And the end result was
surprisingly all right. Not great, but far from unplayable. There are a few PS2 and
PS4 games playable here, but the bulk of the lineup
is PS3 and it's great they have Ratatouille for PlayStation 3. You don't see that on EA access. The graphical quality is
almost like a YouTube video. You know how some videos
when you stream them look a little washed out or blurry. Yeah. Yeah that's PlayStation Now games. Now the PS4 titles can be
downloaded to your system which is a nice feature. And the price point is rock solid. 10 bucks a month with actual games people want to play
right now getting thrown on the service recently. Yeah back when PlayStation
Now first started up I remembered you needed a subscription. And on top of that, you had
to rent most of the games. Oh man, how could one Sony be so stupid? Right now PlayStation Now
streaming isn't perfect, but it works fine enough. For games that require pinpoint
precision, playing them through the internet is a
death sentence but games that are a little looser with how you control them work all right. But you see, streaming games has always, worked, but it's never been ideal in my opinion. That's where XBox Game Pass comes in, the Messiah of gaming
subscription services. Game Pass has a library that is crazy good. Pretty much any of the
XBox exclusives you want including all the recently
released ones day in day alongside the standard release. Tons of third-party offerings,
old games, new games, games from all different kinds
of genres, all downloadable to your console, playable offline. Best part about it it's 10 bucks a month and it's usually on sale for like one. Well, there's also a
Nintendo Switch online We get a bunch of (indistinct)
IES games for signing up and some pretty solid SNES games as well. It's $20 a year okay it's fine. - All right so let's wrap everything up with these
subscription services. All right, Netflix, they're pretty good. Not as good they used to be, but hey, none of us are, so it gets a B. All right, Hulu that's a mighty fine selection
of TV shows they have there and their layout reminds
me that I still feel pain. Legitimately stops me from
using the app most of the time. So they get a C. Amazon Prime video so first off never getting Amazon prime on any device as they have a big slug of a time and the selection is Netflix
and Hulu's table scraps, D. All right, Apple TV Plus you get a Y for why. Disney Plus not bad they
have a lot of content but I still feel like Netflix is superior because it has a wider range of content. I feel like Disney Plus caters
to a lot of specific fans but I still feel like Netflix is better for generally everybody, so B minus. EA Access so this is one of the most unnecessary
subscriptions of all the time. EA doesn't create a broad enough range of content to really warrant
having a subscription. It would have gotten an F but the fact that it's $30
a year, and you have a lot of trials of newly released
games where you can play for up to 10 hours, D minus you did it EA. UPlay+ will go down in history as Ubisoft's
expensive subscription service that absolutely nobody subscribed to. I've been waiting for the past 10 seconds
to give another D minus. PlayStation Now, back in the
day it was laughing stock, right now, it's not bad. B minus. Now Xbox game pass is
pretty much a better version of PlayStation Now. You don't get as many games as you do with PlayStation Now but you download all
the games to your system which means you don't have to worry about the problems that
arise with streaming. You get a ton of new releases, and with PlayStation Now
the newest games that run that service are about
a year old, so B plus. And Nintendo switch online. It is $20 a year, which
means it gets a pass. So subscription services,
some may offer value some definitely not. It can be really convenient
to have all this content available to you for a small
monthly fee, but it can get really irritating how every
single company thinks they can start their own. Also Netflix, doesn't
accept, check by mail what the hell? Now I personally think video
games aren't the greatest fit for the Netflix model. Even with game pass, you
have to wait for the games to download and with streaming
and there's too many downsides. It still takes awhile to
load on PlayStation Now and the quality takes a bit of
a hit and there is input lag. But overall, my main takeaway
about all of this is, we don't need this many. (upbeat music)
Anybody else getting General Mills Plus? We finally get to find out how Captain Crunch became a captain!
Scott ought to elaborate a bit on Xbox Game Pass since the $1-2 fee is merely a way to get a great amount of newcomers to try the service and hope a percentage will stay and subscribe for $10-15 a month. Not to mention that you may need XBL Gold for multiplayer games.
$15 a month for PC/Console and XBL Gold is a better deal than Uplay+ though.
Also, using Nintendo Switch Online just for NES/SNES games isn't what the service is for. I do want to see Virtual Console games, but it seems Nintendo just sleeps on N64, Gameboy, Gameboy Advance, and DS ports.
-
and as Scott said, all of these fragmented content sucks for the regular watcher. Netflix was popular because it had the ease-of-access with the variety of content.
Take away that ease and people will find the free way to accomplish what they want to see.
Eventually some company is gonna be like VRV but instead partner with CBS, NBC, and the like to have streaming services available in one package. Kinda like paying for cable.