Gamepass subs increased from 18 million to 30 million from Jan 2021?

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cormack12

cormack12

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Last official numbers referenced by Spencer from Jan 2021 here on an earnings call:

www.videogameschronicle.com

Xbox business reports surging revenue on the back of Series X/S | VGC

Microsoft’s second quarter gaming revenue up 51%
www.videogameschronicle.com www.videogameschronicle.com

In a recent interview Take Two executive Strauss Zelnick mentions that Phil has 30 million subs. Timestamped at 34min 30secs.

Phil just laughs and references the announced public number. Strauss rolls back and just settles on huge numbers. Cat out the bag or nothing burger?




Edit: doesnt differentiate between xGPU, Gamepass etc
 
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i think that's probably too high and might be a rounding error. I do want to see if it had an impact on the stock price
 
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Mercedes Reaction GIF
 
I'd expect Strauss to know. As mentioned though, it might be just below that figure or MS might be waiting for some reason to publicly announce this.

Really well deserved though. Only thing I can say to the sceptics is it reminds me of PS Plus during the PS3 years. Amazing service. The growth continues at a great rate.

Super Saiyan Soccer GIF
 
Havent we gotten exact percentage points of growth on services per quarterly report? Wouldnt someone be able to extrapolate increases at whatever they started with at the beginning of the year? I dont believe 30 million because personally Going from 18 million, to thirty with no major software drops and hardware less than 10 million sold in a year? That would assume game pass has a 100 percent attach rate per console sold which is impossible. There is no way this number is real.

Unless theyre including people who have subbed, dropped the sub, resubbed, etc. Zellnick has been critical of the gamepass model in the past, maybe this was more of slight at gamepass like "Youve at least reached 30 million, right phil wink wink."

And since the numbers arent close to 30 million all phil can do is say 18 million is the official number.
 
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I
Dabaus said:
Havent we gotten exact percentage points of growth on services per quarterly report? Wouldnt someone be able to extrapolate increases at whatever they started with at the beginning of the year? I dont believe 30 million because personally Going from 18 million, to thirty with no major software drops and hardware less than 10 million sold in a year? That would assume game pass has a 100 percent attach rate per console sold which is impossible. There is no way this number is real.

Unless theyre including people who have subbed, dropped the sub, resubbed, etc.
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There's no reason why existing Xbox players can't sign up, doesn't have to be new purchasers only.

I don't know anyone who has Gamepass who thinks it's a bad deal, I think it's entirely possible that new and existing customers could be coming to the service in great numbers.
 
30 million subs before Forza 5 and Halo Infinite would be fucking massive. I don't believe it but you never know...
 
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Dabaus said:
Havent we gotten exact percentage points of growth on services per quarterly report? Wouldnt someone be able to extrapolate increases at whatever they started with at the beginning of the year? I dont believe 30 million because personally Going from 18 million, to thirty with no major software drops and hardware less than 10 million sold in a year? That would assume game pass has a 100 percent attach rate per console sold which is impossible. There is no way this number is real.
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I don't think its 30 as well but it's not only new customers whom could count towards that number, it's also
- existing xbox live customers without GP
- pc users
- people whom are getting GP as part of a mobile plan.

I think you will get a better idea in a month in terms of the growth in xbox revenue (estimated earnings call is the 28th Oct)
 
This will be a very long thread when it finally runs it course. That I am fairly certain of.

What I am uncertain of is just how likely 30 mill is. I can't imagine sitting on this information personally, but if I had strategic press releases in mind then who knows. And we aren't talking some random youtuber that Phil was talking to, and it was this very week that someone posted about it getting harder to make new sub accounts. If people keep making accounts to get a deal, and tons of people subbed mainly for PC, then who knows. I'm not a PC gamer, but some of the stuff I read blows my mind as to how many PC gamers there really are. 30 million subs might be a real thing by now. I don't know, but is 12 million new subs to get Bethesda's back catalogue unrealistic when factoring in PC?
 
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I'm a new sub after E3. I'm sure that virtually everyone buying an Xbox now is subbing as well.

Have they sold 12 million Xbox Series consoles? It shouldn't be impossible to have an educated guess.
 
skit_data said:
Isn't the bigger story here the complete shut down of any acquisition rumors regarding Take Two?
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This IS the next "take 2 acquisition rumor. Youre going to see the jez cordins and cult eastwoods crawl from the floorboards with things like: 'I had been hearing close to thirty but couldnt believe it takes." The entire twitter sphere of xbox infleuncers will come out and say its gospel. Jeff grubb will wear a shirt that says "30" on it. And in the next quarterly report from MS we'll find out subs are close to 22 million, if that, and then we'll be on the next insane, untrue rumor after that.

Zelknick was probably mocking phil, or goading him to say real numbers.
 
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Chukhopops said:
I don't think it's 30 but it's probably not too far from it either. You'd expect a guy in Zelnick's position to have at least some estimate.
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GTA V was on Gamepass if I'm not mistaken, so he probably knew more than estimates. The biggest game series ever being on there probably required detailed negotiations. And I'm sure those are always ongoing for future games.
 
Punished Miku said:
I'm a new sub after E3. I'm sure that virtually everyone buying an Xbox now is subbing as well.

Have they sold 12 million Xbox Series consoles? It shouldn't be impossible to have an educated guess.
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They have most definitely not sold that many consoles yet, PS5 is sitting at just under 11 million and I guess a lot of Series S/X buyers were already subbed to Gamepass. But it's possible Xbox One and PC players could make it 12 million.

It's possible, but I doubt it personally because I think they would've made some sort of announcement if this was the case.

Edit: We don't really know how many PS5s have been sold, it might be north of 11 million. It was 10 million at the end of July, so doing a fairly basic estimation(that might be off) puts it at around 12,3 million consoles sold atm.
 
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Dabaus said:
ItsThis IS the next "take 2 acquisition rumor. Youre going to see the jez cordins and cult eastwoods crawl from the floorboards with things like: 'I had been hearing close to thirty but couldnt believe it takes." The entire twitter sphere of xbox infleuncers will come out and say its gospel. Jeff grubb will wear a shirt that says "30" on it. And in the next quarterly report from MS we'll find out subs are close to 22 million, if that, and then we'll be on the next insane, untrue rumor after that.
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Colin Jost Shrug GIF by Saturday Night Live
 
You can see the service is accelerating when you look at the games being added each month, a year ago it was around 5-8 per month and now it was 19 (not counting PC only releases) in August and 19 again in September (excluding PC only again).

If people think the service is actually losing subs then well I don't think it can be reasoned with.
 
I don't believe it. In fact, I think Gamepass is a revolving door with people signing up for a low cost then leaving the service until the next game they're interested in

It's just a hunch
 
I think it's going to make unprecedented growth due to simple word of mouth, the three people who I've showed the service to have all signed up. My son has got all his friends to sign up so they can all play the same games together without much outlay.
When people realise the value they snatch at it.
 
I don't see how this is hard to believe; Gamepass has had some quality games release onto the service the last few months especially, and is gearing up for a heavy holiday season with Forza Horizon 5 and Halo. Between Xbox and PC, 30 million is completely reasonable.

I mean really, this subscription-based business model has emerged for television, music, and movies; I don't understand why people think gaming is such a fundamentally different medium that Gamepass and services like it can't work.
 
Microsoft treats things nobody cares about like xcloud like the second coming and make mountians out of mole hills almost daily. And you want me to believe theyve just been sitting on 30 million subscribers like its no big deal? How gullible are some of you?
 
Dabaus said:
Microsoft treats things nobody cares about like xcloud like the second coming and make mountians out of mole hills almost daily. And you want me to believe theyve just been sitting on 30 million subscribers like its no big deal? How gullible are some of you?
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Its because the Business now is connected to the rest of the company in terms of growth sectors. So as a whole it matters to them and their share holders to see Gamepass growth along side Office 365. Because that means possible more use of xCloud which runs on their servers that they tout like Azure. Which is where a lot of their money is.

More growth they show over all in services, the more their net worth increases because of all the other underling sectors if the company are now connected to it.
 
Topher said:
Just watched it. Strauss asked PS what it was and guessed 30 million. Phil corrected him and said the last publicly announced figure was 18.

No news here.

Edit: Timestamp: 34 minute mark or so

news.yahoo.com

TheGrill 2021: Fireside Chat With Strauss Zelnick & Phil Spencer

news.yahoo.com news.yahoo.com
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I did not interpret that as a correction myself. Seemed like a skilled dodge to me.

Also, wouldn't Strauss be fairly likely to know where it stands? It seems like information that MS would need to share with Take Two as part of any negotiation to put their games on gamepass IMO.
 
30 million per month is pretty insane. thats $180 million in guaranteed revenue every month. They can easily buy big name exclusives with that money every month. Something like BF would sell 10 million in its first month, but that would split across 3 platforms. If MS can promise $180 million in guaranteed revenue along with any other revenue they would make from selling retail and digital copies then I can easily see MS getting AAA games like BF, AC and Far Cry on Gamepass on day one.

The only problem might be those $1 subs and those folks who converted their XBL Gold subs to Gamepass subs but seeing as how they have gone from 12 million monthly subs to 30 million in 18 months, it's fair to see that the people who sub for $1 or convert their subs have stuck around.

If by the end of the gen, they have 50 million monthly subs, I can easily see them just hand out a $300 million check to Rockstar and get GTA6 on gamepass on Day 1.
 
Topher said:
I think Phil Spencer would be screaming 30 million to the ends of the earth if he had that many.
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Indeed and actually they stopped reporting numbers and Phil Spencer was not willing to confirm this "guess".
What's the point if it was true?
They don't want people to know how fast they're growing even in their financials?
 
Punished Miku said:
I'm a new sub after E3. I'm sure that virtually everyone buying an Xbox now is subbing as well.

Have they sold 12 million Xbox Series consoles? It shouldn't be impossible to have an educated guess.
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It won't be anywhere close to 100% - especially at $15/mo. I'm subscribed, but only because I got it for the $1 deal over 2 years. I still prefer to buy and own just the games I want to play.

I'll still happily buy games on Series X when it's something I want to play. But, paying $15 a month is still too much when there are many months I'm completely into a new PS5 or Switch (or even Xbox game that isn't on GamePass) game and don't even touch the service.

Same with PS Now. I got that super cheap too. But there are times I won't turn my PS5 on, because I'm playing the latest Zelda, Mario, Tunic, or whatever other Switch or Xbox game that I hate that I'm just flushing money away on PS Now.
 
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Dabaus said:
Microsoft treats things nobody cares about like xcloud like the second coming and make mountians out of mole hills almost daily. And you want me to believe theyve just been sitting on 30 million subscribers like its no big deal? How gullible are some of you?
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Don't understand this line of thinking; does
Microsoft have a history of just announcing subscription numbers out of the blue? As far as I'm aware that kind of thing typically coincides with some other event; the announcing of the Bethesda acquisition and an earnings call back in January comes to mind.

Like, I don't assume Netflix or Spotify is bleeding subscribers just because they're not giving me monthly updates on the numbers; I don't see why people do that for Gamepass.
 
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