More Players Joining Microsoft Xbox Game Pass But Microsoft Is Disappointed

Microsoft’s Xbox Game Pass offers more titles than a normal gamer can use in a lifetime and is of course correspondingly popular. Nevertheless, it has remained below expectations. Because Microsoft has now published current figures and is (itself) disappointed.

Whining at a high level: that’s Microsoft’s motto when it comes to Xbox Game Pass. Because the game subscription for console, PC, and mobile / cloud (at least in the Ultimate version) is growing and thriving, but a little less impressive, as one would like to have in Redmond. Because as Eurogamer reports, citing Axios Gaming, the number of subscribers has increased by 37 percent at the end of June this year (year-on-year).

That sounds like a number that would pop the champagne corks in any company, but at Microsoft, the expectations were significantly higher. Because internally one has predicted an increase of 48 percent. The number and thus also the optimism can, however, be explained, because in the previous twelve months the increase was a whopping 86 percent.

Actual number of subscribers unclear

The publication of these figures has one flaw, however, because it is not known exactly how many subscribers are in absolute terms. Because Microsoft last announced a specific number in January of this year, at that time there were 18 million subscribers. However, due to the timing, it is difficult to extrapolate to current values, as Microsoft only records or announces the increases at the end of the fiscal year, so a number in the middle is not suitable for arithmetic.

Unofficially, however, Windows Central editor Jez Corden was able to find out the number of 23 million subscribers, the Xbox Game Pass is said to have had as many regularly paying customers as on April 20, 2021. It is even more difficult to assess the financial impact of the Game Pass because it is not known how the external game providers are rewarded.