Microsoft seems to have successfully sold their audience to the highest tier of Game Pass, at least based on evidence revealed in the EU’s decision on the Microsoft – Activision deal.
On page 161 of the document, on paragraph 680, the EU states this:
“Microsoft has been the first company to heavily invest in cloud gaming as part of its gamer-centric and device-agnostic vision and business models.
The launch and growth of Game Pass, including its top-tier Game Pass Ultimate that offers a cloud game streaming functionality, is a building block of such commercial strategy.
With Game Pass Ultimate, which accounts for nearly [70-80]% of the current […] million Game Pass subscribers, Microsoft may have a […] which Microsoft discusses in its internal documents.”
The EU’s main interest in Game Pass Ultimate lies in the cloud gaming option that is part of the subscription tier, but of course, as the top tier Game Pass option, it offers essentially everything that Microsoft has to offer.
That includes both Xbox and PC Game Pass, meaning you can access the same games under the subscription on both any Windows 10 or Windows 11 based device, and any Xbox One or Xbox Series console. Of course, those games are available as either direct download games for those platforms, or streamed via the cloud.
Game Pass also features both EA Play and Riot Games’ accounts. EA Play usually gets the lion’s share of attention, and for good reason. But, Game Pass also gives you an automatic Riot Games membership, and premium benefits for the games that you do play.
It’s most likely that the number one reason gamers are on Game Pass Ultimate is Day One Game Pass. To put it simply, Microsoft licenses some games, or publishes their own games, so that they will release on Game Pass on the same day that it gets published at full retail price.
This incentive makes it so that you can get the biggest games of the industry at a fraction of the price, and alongside dozens of other games, and even other big AAA games.
Not all Game Pass tiers have Day One Game Pass games. Given the pending release of Bethesda’s big name AAA, Starfield, on Day One Game Pass later this year, it’s obvious that Game Pass is a great deal to get into the Xbox ecosystem.
Conceivably, some players can just buy Starfield with an Xbox console. However, when you consider the cost of buying an Xbox Series console, acquiring it via subscription, which includes options to play it on PC or stream it, is clearly the better value for money.
For all the discourse surrounding Game Pass, this seems like evidence that it makes a lot of money for Microsoft.
