Microsoft continues its dominance with Xbox Game Pass as it reaches 10 million registrations for its services and subscriptions.
Microsoft released a press release confirming that its Xbox Game Pass has achieved an all-time record achievement amidst the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.
The Xbox Game Pass is a subscription service which allows players to access a vast selection of PC and Xbox games. It was first launched in 2017 with just a 100 titles on the list for just $10 (15AUD) per month.
The achievement comes with consistent growth of active Xbox Live users and new Xbox Game pass subscriptions as reported on their Quarter 3 financial reports.
We saw record engagement in gaming this quarter:
• Xbox Live has nearly 90 million monthly active users
• Xbox Game Pass has more than 10 million subscribers
• Project xCloud has 100s of thousands of active users in preview across 7 countries, with more coming— Frank X. Shaw (@fxshaw) April 29, 2020
A steady quarter
The 10 million subscriber milestone is the first time the company has disclosed their subscriber numbers. However, it will be impossible to predict what type of revenue that drives this achievement.
This is because there are a lot of various price points for the Xbox Game pass which are:
- First-time registrants only need to pay $1 (1.5AUD) for the first few months
- A typical subscription at $10 (15AUD)
- An Ultimate version which ties the Gamepass to PC for $15 (23AUD)
This did not cause a significant spike in Xbox’s overall sales performance since they are mostly going flat year after year.
There gaming income has gone down by one percent and their services by just two percent. The quarantine brought by the COVID-19 pandemic is the main cause for the small boost in the services department.
In other sectors, profit from hardware sales have gone down by 20% – a predicted decrease as their console has consistently been on sale and people are saving for next generation consoles.
Project xCloud
Project xCloud is Microsoft’s game streaming for technical trials. It remains closed for beta testers but the company has stated that it already has thousands of users which are testing the service.
The coverage of the testing includes the United Kingdom, Korea, Canada and the United States. They are planning to expand further in Europe.
Leading the competition
While the COVID-19 pandemic has brought a large scale disruption across the globe, it also had significantly affected the usage home entertainment services.
Microsoft is obviously one of the recipients of the trend. However, the looking at the numbers today states that some of Microsoft’s gaming services such as the Xbox Game Pass had already been increasing far from the expected numbers.
EA’s contending subscription services, Origin Access and EA Access has achieved the 5 million subscriber milestone last year, proving that Microsoft’s Xbox Game Pass has an overwhelming lead.
Featured image courtesy of Future Game Releases/Website Screenshot