Apple Arcade leads gaming subscriptions with over 100 million subscribers! (Beats PS Plus, Switch Online, and Game Pass combined)

Eddie-Griffin

Eddie-Griffin

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As many as a hundred million people may have now tried Apple's subscription gaming service, Apple Arcade, iMore has learned.


The sky-high numbers — which would make Apple Arcade one of the most popular game services on the planet — were suggested during the high-profile launch of Football Manager 2023 Touch(opens in new tab) onto the platform, with Miles Jacobson of Football Manager developer's Sports Interactive telling iMore "nine-figure subscribers" have reached the service.

"I'm told nine-figure subscribers, I have no idea if those numbers are right or not," said Jacobson, speaking at an Apple press event for the simulation franchise's first foray onto Apple's gaming subscription service, which sees the game now reaching players on iPhones, iPads, Macs and Apple TV set top boxes with cross platform play.
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Their VR headset will take off for sure.

These are huge numbers that could potentially be more than the rest of the competition combines. Apple still has the ability to make people buy their products in droves.

Of course, we don't know who the source is but considering he was at an Apple event he was probably given the 9-figure number from an Apple executive.

Keep in mind this is still a report.
 
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Honestly lower than I would have expected with Billions (with a B and S) of iPhones/iPads sold...especially considering it's only $5/mo and Apple's key demographics actually go out of their way to pay money for stuff that's free elsewhere, never mind for a service that's actually a good value.
 
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"As many as a hundred million people may have now tried Apple's subscription gaming service, Apple Arcade, iMore has learned"

Come on OP. They give away these subs with a new phone. This tells us nothing about who is paying to use it right now.
 
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I hope they have bigger games than the typical mobile fare coming. Drop some cash to fund some games that really make Apple Silicon shine.
 
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I've 'tried' it. Never played one game, but I got a free month subscription with an apple TV.
 
I better post this here.
KingT731 said:
Because of the Apple One service...
BGQcykx.png
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So is the estimate just 'users who have tried the service at some point' or 'users currently subscribed'?

In any case I'm sure they have a ton of subscribers considering how many Apple products there are in the wild. 90% of the software is crap though, and the majority of users will be extremely casual "gamers".

I have a very hard time imagining people who play Candy Crush on their way to work will run out to buy a VR headset For gaming.
 
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Robb said:
So is the estimate just 'users who have tried the service at some point' or 'users currently subscribed'?

In any case I'm sure they have a ton of subscribers considering how many Apple products there are in the wild. 90% of the software is crap though, and the majority of users will be extremely casual "gamers".

I have a very hard time imagining people who play Candy Crush on their way to work will run out to buy a VR headset For gaming.
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It's one apple service. See post #14
 
I have it since I use Apple One for the family. I've played a few titles, but the rest of the family gets a lot more mileage from it.
 
You're not including Xbox Live subscribers? Xbox Game Pass and Xbox Live are separate subscription services, obviously Ultimate includes Xbox Live.

You're just counting Game Pass with 25+ million subscribers on PC and Xbox consoles.

The graph is kinda misleading.
 
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I have the Apple News, Apple Music, Apple Arcade bundle. It's a fantastic deal.

No need for a console (though I'd welcome one), because games are already great on an iPad or iPhone.
 
My friend redeemed the free 3 months with his apple tv to play Fantasian so rest assured those numbers are inflated.
 
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This is nothing.

I've heard that Nintendo Switch Online has more than 150 million subscribers. I have no idea if those numbers are right or not, but that's impressive!
 
Not surprised, I have it with my apple one family plan and have never used it. Not saying that nobody does, just saying that it is basically a freebie.
 
This chart alone is the sole reason why MS will have nothing to worry about Activision deal. MS doesn't really care about Sony, they just want the big pie of that apple cake.
 
From the article "I'm told nine-figure subscribers, I have no idea if those numbers are right or not.". I guess those numbers are fed by Apple One, so there are people that got Apple One for TV and Music but don't even use Arcade.

Also why is that people use PS Plus number and compare it to Xbox Game Pass? Then include Xbox Live too...
 
The numbers aren't right, you can easily verify by looking at Game Center players across the games on a weekly basis. People are bundled in, but probably aren't consistently playing games. For the record, there's a lot of killer games on the service. Apple's cornered the women market and has a shitload of Sims-like games on the service. All the meanwhile other game services are groveling over a worn out market. I do believe Apple is at the top, but it's not quite the number shown in the graphic - they focus on kids and women.

Anyways, the service has Hot shots golf, the last Final Fantasy (Fantasian) and stuff like Bloons. A lot of parents don't want their kids spending money on games off the app store & will just let them go wild on the service. Plus it's apple curated so there's no scummy P2W tactics in the games.
 
Eddie-Griffin said:



Their VR headset will take off for sure.

These are huge numbers that could potentially be more than the rest of the competition combines. Apple still has the ability to make people buy their products in droves.

Of course, we don't know who the source is but considering he was at an Apple event he was probably given the 9-figure number from an Apple executive.

Keep in mind this is still a report.
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You do know that Gamepass is counted separately from Xbox Live Gold, right? You can't compare Gamepass directly to PS Plus.
 
nocsi said:
The numbers aren't right, you can easily verify by looking at Game Center players across the games on a weekly basis. People are bundled in, but probably aren't consistently playing games. For the record, there's a lot of killer games on the service. Apple's cornered the women market and has a shitload of Sims-like games on the service. All the meanwhile other game services are groveling over a worn out market. I do believe Apple is at the top, but it's not quite the number shown in the graphic - they focus on kids and women.

Anyways, the service has Hot shots golf, the last Final Fantasy (Fantasian) and stuff like Bloons. A lot of parents don't want their kids spending money on games off the app store & will just let them go wild on the service. Plus it's apple curated so there's no scummy P2W tactics in the games.
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I believe the Apple numbers, only detail with them is that probably the greatest share of it is because the service is bundled with the Apple all in sub. It's easy to get those numbers that way and I think the majority of those people are not really playing the games. I also have the all in sub and I like to play the Apple Arcade games now and then. They're not bad to be honest for phone games.
 
Like I said, Apple is targeting women, children & the elderly & they won. There's so many spongebob games on the service. But then there's occasionally something like Fantasian
 
pretty sure its bundled in with some of their other subscriptions tho, which will seriously inflate their numbers
 
100 m of "I don't care what happens to my subscription in the next 3 months".
 
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It's actually the best sun service features wise.
They remove all the MTX and F2P shite from the arcade version of games and has a lot of good time wasters.
 
I remember back in the day when a "gamer" was considered anyone who was into Monster World to Candy Crush, because they're the same... then my left ball started to hurt, and I wonder why. Same stuff could be said about that
 
Honestly why even post shit like this in gaming.

We all know this isn't actual games or gaming. Let's stop pretending grandma flicking her gems about is the same as us playing actual fucking games. Nobody here should give a flying fuck about apple arcade.
 
TrebleShot said:
It's actually the best sun service features wise.
They remove all the MTX and F2P shite from the arcade version of games and has a lot of good time wasters.
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Yeah that's one of the good things about the service. Definitely better than the MTX laden mobile games usually available. It's nice to be able to unlock things without having to pay for it via MTX.

I was subscribed to Arcade for the $5/mo. price before Apple One was available. After I switched the family over to Apple One to also have access to Apple Music/TV+ and the extra icloud storage.
 
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