This is realistic and I don't even mind. They give you Drive Club, a $60 game for $50 right off the bat, plus the rest of Plus bonuses. A non-issue for me.
He doesn't care because this game is coming to phones and tablets soon, where he is going to clean up. There are so many people giving the game high praise who can vouch for it on PC that hopefully mobile gamers will have at least heard of it when it comes out.
I'm not against this. Way less people would outright buy karaoke channel access at whatever price they would ask, but if you gotta pay $5 for a 2 hour karaoke party at your house, I'd rather have that option than pay $15 a month for the karaoke channel and barely use it.
MuffintopX's comments