Democratized among gamers and growing in appeal over the years, Xbox Game Pass has spearheaded Microsoft’s strategy, and it’s paying off.
The Xbox Game Pass has established itself as one of the best plans for video games. However, this is not only beneficial for the players. The Brazilian regulator that recently approved the Activision-Blizzard acquisition just released some interesting information: how much the service brings in for Microsoft. Spoiler alert: a lot.
Xbox Game Pass is raining billions
Microsoft wins big with Xbox Game Pass. With more than 25 million subscribers to the latest news, the service continues to grow. Everything from upcoming exclusives, day one releases, and regularly added nuggets. Was it a winning bet for the Redmond company financially? Clearly. The Brazilian competition authority reveals that Microsoft would have earned no less than 2.9 billion dollars in 2021 with Xbox Game Pass alone. Understand from this that these colossal earnings include only those of the service on consoles and not on PC, which is also very popular.
Overall, this accounts for no less than 18% of Xbox’s annual revenue. The brand’s games grossed $12 billion in 2021. One doesn’t cannibalize the other. To fully understand the scope of Xbox Game Pass, the regulator sheds light on the revenue of competing services. So Nintendo would have made just over $936 million from its online services versus $356 million from EA Play. PS Plus and PS Now brought in $3.6 billion in 2021, or 15% of Sony’s full-year earnings. A number that is likely to increase this year as the subscription formulas have changed completely in 2022. It remains to be seen what share the Game Pass PC really has to compare Sony’s numbers with Microsoft’s. One thing is for sure, the service is attracting more and more players.