Support NeoGAF

[Topher]

"Last fiscal year, Xbox Game Pass sales reached a record high of $5 billion. It's a profitable business, and as more creators join Xbox Game Pass, payments to creators increase, so we think it's a good business for creators."
-Sarah Bond

Original article in Japanese:

「ROG Xbox Ally」はゲーム体験の可能性を広げる。Xbox サラ・ボンド氏インタビュー【TGS2025】

「東京ゲームショウ2025」に合わせて9月25日に放送されたマイクロソフトの配信番組「Xbox Tokyo Game Show 2025 Broadcast」。今回は全25タイトルの情報が公開され、「Call of Duty: Black Ops 7」や「Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024」では日本マップが追加されるほか、日本を舞台にした「Forza Horizon 6」が発表されるなど、日本にフォーカスしたサプライズが多数用意された。

game.watch.impress.co.jp

edit:

 

[RetroGamingUK]

Remember when they used to give subscriber numbers?

 

[StueyDuck]

Trust us guys, it totally is

 

[HeisenbergFX4]

 

[lh032]

 

[adamsapple]

 

[Elios83]

It's profitable!*

*By only creating the metric to make it so, like offloading first party development costs and lost revenues elsewhere

 

[SJRB]

 

[Thief1987]

Yep

 

[clarky]

Pretty sure most of GAF has responses to Gamepass topics ready to go on clip boards.

 

[bighugeguns]

CODpass keeps the world turning.

 

[Punished Miku]

I expect Gamepass haters to really ramp up the effort in October.

6 day 1 games so far, including Ninja Gaiden 4, Outer Worlds 2 and Keeper. The best place to play video games in October is on Gamepass, literally.

 

[Astray]

Pretty sure most of GAF has responses to Gamepass topics ready to go on clip boards.

I think the debates will rage on as long as MS keeps hiding P/L figures.

When no one knows for sure what's going on, everyone is going to try and read the tea leaves and confirmation bias will kick in.

 

[clarky]

CODpass keeps the world turning.

Honestly GP is a great fit for that game.

 

[Xion_Stellar]

You can report all the revenue numbers that you want as long as you refuse to post actual subscriber numbers and actual profit numbers having all the revenue in the world won't make people believe that this is a profitable business.

 

[GoldenEye98]

Yep

uhhh I kinda hope not. COD being day one on PC GamePass is largely why I have it.

Xbox Cloud being in all tiers is cool but it is technically inferior to Geforce Now and it is basically useless for me.

 

[dotnotbot]

Talks about being profitable, cites revenue numbers.

 

[Physiognomonics]

"...sales...of $5 billion. It's a profitable business, and as more creators..." this means Game pass is not profitable for MS.

It it was profitable they would have said "Gamepass is profitable", this is not what they said. They are were talking about revenue then put a period to separate the 2 sentences. Then they talk about the point of view of creators and state about that business been profitable (so only for some of them).

Like this they are not lying to shareholders with the period between both statements. But this is 100% PR spin.

 

[Thief1987]

uhhh I kinda hope not. COD being day one on PC GamePass is largely why I have it.

Xbox Cloud being in all tiers is cool but it is technically inferior to Geforce Now and it is basically useless for me.

They said that the part about PC gamepass should be announced in the coming hours so will see

 

[Punished Miku]

They said that the part about PC gamepass should be announced in coming hours so will see

PC GP will for sure have to be radically changed or removed. It's just common sense. ROG Ally is up for purchase. They're transferring people from console to PC. They're obviously not going to be transferring Ultimate members to something that is half price. And it would make sense to do it when they have an onslaught of games coming in October, and then Call of Duty in November.

 

[Robb]

 

[Three]

Yep

If this is true which PC gamer is going to subscribe to Gamepass Core? A subscription tier designed to charge for online play. They don't have that audience by the balls like they do Xbox users.

 

[GoldenEye98]

They said that the part about PC gamepass should be announced in coming hours so will see

Ahhh shit. I paused my GamePass subscription while BF6 is coming out and was going to resubscribe at some point after Blops 7 came out.

I will probably just go back to buying COD games directly.

 

[saintjules]

I said this once before. Gamepass has been around since 2017. If it wasn't profitable by now it would have been dead already. So how is it still continuing despite others saying it isn't profitable?

I don't really game all that much on GP these days but if there's a multiplat game releasing on there day 1 and it doesn't perform well on Playstation I'll play on there.

 

[mdkirby]

profitable? That sounds like some creative accounting to me, they spend billions creating or securing the content for the service every year, so sure maybe it just slipped into a technical yearly profit, just, but only if you "forget" the 90billon they spent on acquisitions. Even if it makes 2billion in profit every year, it'll take decades to actually be "profitable"

 

[winjer]

Revenue is not the dame thing as profits.
That Microsoft continues to be do underhanded with the real numbers, is a bad sign.

 

[Tiago Rodrigues]

We went from getting game sales...when those failed we started getting gamepass subscriber numbers...when those started to decrease we started getting revenue numbers (which at the end of the day doesn't mean much).

The way Xbox as a brand needs to be studied right now...

 

[Baemono]

Sarah "34 million Game Pass users* can play Diablo IV" Bond now comes with its sequel "it's profitable, look at the revenue**"

*Not actually all 34 million users

**revenue isn't profit, and you can't guess the profits based on revenue alone

 

[clarky]

Yep

I don't sub anymore but isnt this how it is already? Apart from the price increase that is.

 

[GoldenEye98]

I said this once before. Gamepass has been around since 2017. If it wasn't profitable by now it would have been dead already. So how is it still continuing despite others saying it isn't profitable?

I don't really game all that much on GP these days but if there's a multiplat game releasing on there day 1 and it doesn't perform well on Playstation I'll play on there.

Profit arguments aside, $5B/yr in revenue is not trivial and Microsoft can sell that metric to shareholders....especially if it's growing.

 

[Baemono]

Yep

They should rename the service Game Station

 

[Thief1987]

I don't sub anymore but isnt this how it is already? Apart from the price increase that is.

Well it's cost 12$ for PC gamepass currently, so it's potentially more than 2x increase in price

 

[owandeseis]

I don't sub anymore but isnt this how it is already? Apart from the price increase that is.

Not for PC, it had day 1 games, with that change it wouldn't, and we'd have to pay an over 2x more expensive sub, which means bye GP on PC obviously.

 

[clarky]

Well it's cost 12$ for PC gamepass, so it's potentially more than 2x increase

Price increases are par for the course with these sub services but x2 would be pretty ballsy.

 

[MisterXDTV]

 

[Angry_Megalodon]

It's so profitable that we can't provide actual figures!!! People are dumb and would not understand!!!

THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION TO THIS MATTER!

 

[clarky]

Not for PC, it had day 1 games, with that change it wouldn't, and we'd have to pay an over 2x more expensive sub, which means bye GP on PC obviously.

Day one games are still there according to thst post.

 

[Xion_Stellar]

I said this once before. Gamepass has been around since 2017. If it wasn't profitable by now it would have been dead already. So how is it still continuing despite others saying it isn't profitable?

I don't really game all that much on GP these days but if there's a multiplat game releasing on there day 1 and it doesn't perform well on Playstation I'll play on there.

Have you ever heard of a sunk cost fallacy? Basically they have spent so much time and money on this idea that if they stop spending money they would have admit to their investors that this wasn't a good idea and that it's loosing them money but by reporting grand revenue numbers they can obfuscate this potential truth from their investors.

Now that sounds dumb and stupid to someone normal like you or me but it's not to them heck the Epic Game Store has been running since 2018 and it still isn't profitable but instead of admitting this as a loss of profit Epic decided to word it as the Store still being in the "Growth" stage.

So if Epic is willing and able to pointlessly burn money on the Epic Game Store for the past 7 years Microsoft can do the same thing for Gamepass.

 

[CLW]

 

[Skifi28]

Yup, that's revenue. Thanks Sarah.

 

[Baemono]

but instead of admitting this as a loss of profit Epic decided to word it as the Store still being in the "Growth" stage.

And suing everybody

 

[owandeseis]

Day one games are still there according to thst post.

Yes on GP Ultimate they are still there, but it'll cost over 25$ according to Shinobi602 (known leaker) instead of the 12$ the PC GP sub costs today (this sub will be rolled into GP standard (or core?) according to the user, which would mean not all games going day 1 there

 

[Men_in_Boxes]

GamePass is going on year 9.

Microsoft obviously likes the metrics.

 

[Xion_Stellar]

And suing everybody

Which is where we got this snippet of information from because Epic wasn't going to willing exposed this themselves just like Microsoft wouldn't willingly admit that Gamepass isn't a profitable venture.

We got this nugget of information when they were forced to admit it to the court during their Trial against Apple.

 

[HeisenbergFX4]

Yes on GP Ultimate they are still there, but it'll cost over 25$ according to Shinobi602 (known leaker) instead of the 12$ the PC GP sub costs today (this sub will be rolled into GP standard (or core?) according to the user, which would mean not all games going day 1 there

Have to ramp up that cost before COD hits since I would bet a lot of people sub for one month to play it a bit and stop

 

[Jaybe]

Two issues.
1) they basically relabeled Xbox Good (the service about 9 million people subscribed to to simply play games online as "Game Pass Core" to count it in Game Pass numbers. This service was basically pure profit.
2) if I remember correctly, they never any cost of developing their first party games as a cost to Game Pass.

 

[bighugeguns]

GamePass is going on year 9.

Microsoft obviously likes the metrics.

COD is a fucking beast, dude, the numbers are probably terrifying.

THE NUMBERS, MASON!

 

[Karim]

I expect Gamepass haters to really ramp up the effort in October.

6 day 1 games so far, including Ninja Gaiden 4, Outer Worlds 2 and Keeper. The best place to play video games in October is on Gamepass, literally.

 

[Mattyp]

Ah yes the same replies out in force, while the rest of us continue to enjoy the best value in gaming for nearly a decade straight now

The next few months are fucking stacked.

 

[owandeseis]

Have to ramp up that cost before COD hits since I would bet a lot of people sub for one month to play it a bit and stop

Yes i thought the same, honestly many of us couldn't care less about CoD or any Activision game, i understand it did cost a lot but maybe we should get a tier without these games without having to get this crazy raises.

Activision's deal has been terrible, makes the Bungie deal look like a bargain compared lmao