Microsoft claims Xbox Game Pass profitable, despite slow growth

IANS

San Francisco, October 27

Microsoft has claimed that the Xbox Game Pass is profitable, despite a slow subscription growth.

According to The Verge, 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”.

“Game Pass as an overall part of our content and services revenue is probably 15 per cent,” he was quoted as saying in the report.

“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.