Axios: Microsoft misses Xbox Game Pass subscriber target for second year

[Rivet]

Oh look I was right and Gamepass is a failure, despite what the MS cheerleaders wanted us to believe. 28% growth vs 73% expected is abysmal, especially when you basically give away subs for $1 / month as an upgrade.

No surprise here. Nobody asked for more cheap mediocre games, and that's what Gamepass mostly sells. Everybody already has hundreds of them for free everywhere and nobody wants to play those.

Gaming is time constrained more than money constrained, so you have no reason not to buy the best games every year and play inferior games instead. Gamepass is a solution searching for a problem that doesn't exist.

 

[Hezekiah]

Oh look I was right and Gamepass is a failure, despite what the MS cheerleaders wanted us to believe. 28% growth vs 73 % expected is abysmal, especially when you basically give away subs for $1 / month as an upgrade.

No surprise here. Nobody asked for more cheap mediocre games, and that's what Gamepass mostly sells. Everybody already has hundreds of them for free everywhere and nobody wants to play those.

Gaming is time constrained more than money constrained, so you have no reason not to buy the best games every year and play inferior games instead. Gamepass is a solution searching for a problem that doesn't exist.

I think for some people they'll think it's great, but you're right gaming isn't like TV. On average it takes way longer to get through a game than it does to binge a few episodes or a film. Also requires more effort as it's active Vs passive entertainment.

As you say most people have a backlog and would rather play games that they want, not just what's available on a service.

For me GamePass is something I might try for two or three months of a year if MS has any decent releases. When they have a release schedule like 2022 has been it's a hard 'no thanks'. It appears lots of people feel the same way.

 

[riesgoyfortuna]

I’m perfectly calm, homie. Just correcting your poor reading comprehension.

Maybe they planned for 70% growth or whatever before 2022 saw so many delays .

nah mi pequeño verdecito they planned that with forza and halo being released

 

[Gods&Monsters]

The other thing that's probably dawning on them is that hardly anybody gives a shit about x-Cloud.

That's the biggest takeaway from these awful numbers. Basically no one on cloud only subscribed after the big cloud push in 2021-2022.

 

[Deleted member 140]

Oh no this is painfully sad

 

[Alabtrosmyster]

Why do they set their expectations so high, nothing wrong with being more realistic than shooting for the moon.

Is it to generate interest or something?

Executives always do this. Either they drink their own cool aid or they put high targets to push employees to reach for three moon.

 

[DonFerrari]

nah mi pequeño verdecito they planned that with forza and halo being released

And the 2022 games that were delayed. Not just first party, but some of the GamePass day one games got delayed as well

Not a hard concept to grasp, homie.

 

[Vertigo]

Their aspirations were ridiculous.

They’re planning as if every move they make will be a surefire success and go according to plan. Well, don’t think it has…. It was all banking on Halo being Apex and Warzone levels of success to grow gamepass.

This is not a good year for gamespass without heavy hitting day one releases. It’s in trouble until starfield unless something comes out of nowhere to take off. Well, it wasn’t crossfireX and powerwash simulator.

Scorn didn’t even chart in the top 50. The most successful new release is the third release of Persona 5.

And then you have PS Extra which has surprising been delivering. And for only 40$ more on top of your existing ps plus it’s even more consumer friendly with its entry price. PS plus basic delivering lately is an extra bonus.

This is giving Sony the time to catch-up with their own sub service. And seeing how Sony’s playerbase is significantly larger… ummm lol…

 

[laynelane]

I remember reading something about how MS wants to change how people approach gaming - hence their emphasis on Game Pass and Cloud gaming. I wonder if they saw what happened with other media and thought they could achieve the same thing in the gaming sphere. It could be too soon to tell, but it looks like they may have underestimated how big a challenge this is. And also don't understand the very people they're trying to win over. Many people don't want their version of gaming - quantity over quality. I get that they have released good games, but the emphasis always seems to be on everything but games - most powerful hardware, Game Pass, Cloud, etc.

The suggestion that Sony should put Game Pass on PS just really cements that lack of comprehension. Success in gaming relies on understanding people have choices and making sure your product is attractive enough for people to choose you. Buying publishers to take away choices from people and actually believing your competitor should have your service on their platform is just them approaching gaming similarly to how they've succeeded in other sectors. It isn't working so far and it will be interesting to see if they course correct - or they could just keep blaming Sony. There's always that option.

 

[thicc_girls_are_teh_best]

Oh look I was right and Gamepass is a failure, despite what the MS cheerleaders wanted us to believe. 28% growth vs 73% expected is abysmal, especially when you basically give away subs for $1 / month as an upgrade.

No surprise here. Nobody asked for more cheap mediocre games, and that's what Gamepass mostly sells. Everybody already has hundreds of them for free everywhere and nobody wants to play those.

Gaming is time constrained more than money constrained, so you have no reason not to buy the best games every year and play inferior games instead. Gamepass is a solution searching for a problem that doesn't exist.

TBF the 73% was for the salary bonus (which is only 5% of Satya's total salary so he's not losing out on anything. Also kind of shows how little the company as a whole prioritizes GamePass and Xbox, otherwise the amount of his salary dependent on this would be much higher).

However, I wouldn't be surprised if the internal growth target was at least 50% or just a bit higher, meaning they still failed to hit their growth goals by at least half. Which is quite harrowing. They are using PC GamePass growth in an attempt to make the numbers look better but everyone knows the total sub count for GP on PC was very low and has had slow momentum, because it has to compete with Steam on PC and just lacks the value proposition of that service as a whole.

That's the biggest takeaway from these awful numbers. Basically no one on cloud only subscribed after the big cloud push in 2021-2022.

Cloud gaming isn't even that big on mobile so it isn't surprising. Companies like Microsoft are vastly underestimating the strict data limits of mobile plans that the vast majority of phone owners in America are on. They'd rather spend that bandwidth on Tiktok, Instagram, Youtube, Netflix and other social media than playing games over the cloud.

Ironically if Netflix makes a push for cloud gaming on mobile they would be more successful than xCloud simply because of the appeal of the Netflix brand among the mainstream.

 

[riesgoyfortuna]

And the 2022 games that were delayed. Not just first party, but some of the GamePass day one games got delayed as well

Not a hard concept to grasp, homie.

Poor soul