As you’ve already heard today more than likely, Microsoft has laid off another 650 people from its gaming division, continuing the downward slope of the gaming industry in 2024. Between this year and last, some 20,000+ people have lost their jobs, and things continue to expand on that front. Just when you think that the layoffs are stopping, they aren’t. Focusing on Xbox right now, they’re in a position where they’re attempting anything and everything to stay afloat, and that apparently includes betting big on an upcoming title to save the Xbox Game Pass. Why do they need to do that? Reports claim that its growth is minimal at best.
This comes from multiple sources based on the new layoff news, where people like Tom Warren noted that the Game Pass was “stagnating” in its growth, and due to that, Microsoft is betting big that Call of Duty Black Ops 6 will bring some change to matters.
There are many elements to this, and Warren himself noted that the “change” we’ll see likely won’t be immediate for obvious reasons. After all, you can play a game initially, beat it, and then leave. The true “verdict” may not arrive until 2025, when people will possibly return to the FPS because of new content, modes, maps, etc., and stay with it for a while. Do recall that Xbox made it very clear that the game would be “Day One” on Xbox Game Pass, and that’s meant to bring as many people to the table as possible on that launch. We know that part of the tactic has worked, as the game recently announced it had the most successful beta in series history!
Yet, whether it can help Xbox or save the Game Pass is possibly wishful thinking. There have been many reports, including during the period of the first wave of Microsoft layoffs in the gaming division, that stated how the Game Pass was basically a money sink that wasn’t making back what it was paying developers to get the game on the service. Microsoft kept thinking that the subscriber numbers would “continually grow,” and yet they haven’t. It doesn’t help that the Xbox Series X/S numbers are terrible, so that’s limiting growth, too.
Counting on one game to save them is “wishful thinking” because that one game, no matter how popular, will have ebbs and flows. Just because people “stick around” for a time with it doesn’t mean they’ll stick around forever. Only time will tell if the gamble pays off, though.
