Microsoft’s Game Pass, a gaming subscription service, boasts 34 million subscribers as of February 2024, as disclosed in a recent blog post outlining the company’s vision for the future of the Xbox business.
The latest figures indicate a significant deceleration in Game Pass growth. It took Microsoft three years from the launch of Game Pass in 2017 to reach 10 million subscribers by April 2020. Subsequently, the company saw an increase of five million subscribers within the next five months, reaching 18 million by January 2021, representing a growth rate of nearly 90 percent annually. A year later, the subscriber count reached 25 million. However, over the past two years, Game Pass has only gained an additional nine million subscribers, translating to an average annual increase of just 18 percent.
Game Pass offers players the opportunity to access an ever-expanding library of games for a monthly fee, playable on consoles or PCs. In a recent announcement, the brand’s leadership unveiled plans to extend Xbox games to more platforms, including the PlayStation 5 and the Nintendo Switch, both of which boast significantly larger user bases than Xbox. However, there are currently no intentions to introduce Game Pass on Sony or Nintendo’s platforms.
