Microsoft has claimed that the Xbox Game Pass is profitable, despite a slow subscription growth. About 15 per cent of the company’s total Xbox content and service income comes from Xbox Game Pass, CEO of Microsoft Gaming Phil Spencer has announced at The Wall Street Journal’s tech live conference. Spencer said that he wants Xbox Game Pass to stay at near 10 to 15 per cent of the company’s Xbox content and services revenue since “it is profitable for us”. Additionally, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said that subscriptions to PC Game Pass increased by 159 per cent over the previous year.
“Game Pass as an overall part of our content and services revenue is probably 15 per cent,” Spencer said.
“I think the overall revenue grows so 15 per cent of a bigger number, but we don’t have this future where I think 50-70 per cent of our revenue comes from subscriptions.”
Spencer suggests that Xbox Game Pass won’t make for the majority of Microsoft’s gaming earnings as only Xbox console owners can subscribe to the service.
“We are seeing incredible growth on PC. On consoles, I have seen growth slowdown, mainly because at some point you have reached everybody on the console that wants to subscribe,” he explained.
Recently, Microsoft Chairman and CEO Satya Nadella had announced that more than 20 million people had streamed games using Xbox Cloud Gaming, double the 10 million figure from earlier this year.
At the company’s quarterly earnings call, Nadella said that subscriptions to PC Game Pass increased by 159 per cent over the previous year.
The company is transforming how games are distributed, played and seen through cloud gaming. The service has been used to stream games by more than 20 million users so far.
Additionally, the company is adding support for new gadgets like the Meta Quest, and handhelds by Logitech and Razor.
“We’re innovating across the entire tech stack to help every organisation, while also focusing intensely on our operational excellence and execution discipline,” Nadella said.
(With inputs from IANS)