Microsoft Xbox Game Pass Behind The Target Number of Subscribers

Microsoft has communicated great ambitions for its Xbox Game Pass, the achievement of which is also linked to special payments for CEO Satya Nadella and management. A financial report now shows: For the second year in a row, these growth targets have clearly been missed.

Nadella and colleagues have to forego the Game Pass bonus

Success in the gaming sector: For Microsoft, this goal is now closely linked to the development of the Xbox Game Pass. Moreover, the game subscription business is also one of the key factors regulators are scrutinizing in relation to the Activision Blizzard acquisition. Internally, the group currently ties its success to one number: the growth in subscribers. In this respect, the ambitious goals could not be achieved again.

As Axios reports, the development of subscriber numbers for group boss Nadella and other executives is associated with bonus payments when certain thresholds are reached. Microsoft had set a target growth rate of 73 percent for Game Pass for the fiscal year ending June 30, 2022. The current financial report now shows that this goal has been missed by a wide margin. The service achieved only 28 percent growth.

Second time in a row

Microsoft exceeded its targets for Xbox Game Pass subscriber growth in 2020. In the following year, however, they fell short of the goals they had set themselves for the first time, so this year they missed the target mark for the second time in a row.

Microsoft’s games boss Phil Spencer recently gave his perspective on this development in an interview with the Wall Street Journal. The growth of Game Pass on PC is “incredible” but has declined sharply on consoles. “Especially because at some point you reached everyone on the console who wanted to subscribe,” Spencer said.

Xbox October 2022 update

The manager also provides a few interesting figures that put the gaming business in the right light in relation to the group as a whole. Now, Xbox Game Pass accounts for 10 to 15 percent of the company’s revenue from content and services. Spencer adds that the game subscription is “profitable.”