Subscription Growth Has Flattened, So What Does That Mean For Xbox Game Pass And PS Plus?

You may have seen this coming, given that Microsoft has not shared Game Pass subscription numbers in two years, since January 2022, but it’s because in the wake of explosive pandemic growth, things have…slowed quite a bit.

[TwoPicklesGood]

Subscription services will be fine and one time they will get bigger.

[shinoff2183]

Idk man. I don't think it gets much bigger. Maybe 10 20 million bigger but unless it's forced. That's probably about it.

[darthv72]

Ive read it here many times. People sub when a game they want to play comes out.. then they cancel and return when another game comes.

I just choose to remain subbed as there is plenty of other stuff I like to try in the meantime. I've certainly gotten my $$ worth over the last few years.

[EvertonFC]

Sad fact billions just don't have the time for gaming, busy lives and ONLY a few hours spare for 1 hobby at best in-between TV.
Agreed the market won't grow much more.

[shinoff2183]

Darth, for sure. I don't feel ripped that I'm subscribed to both. I just think more people are interested in owning things in the end. I've bought alot of games based off of what I've tried on gp, and ps plus, sometimes I'll play games off there I already own. For instance ff12 I have the ff12 ps4 steel book version last I seen its worth a decent chunk of change so why open it at this point if I can play it on a service. I don't think services are bad but I definitely don't think their the greatest thing either. I feel they have a place in gaming just not the only place

[Nitode]

Agree, like some other people mentioned, people are to busy in this World. I myself dont have much time for gaming anymore in the grown up World. Working, taking care of my kids, family time, workouts for myself, friends and family visit, other interests/hobbys, taking care of the house and doing work on it etc etc… glad i have the switch and iPad, so i can sneak in some gaming fun. The ps5 will only be here until switch 2 arrives, dont have time, interest or energy for that type of gaming. Hopefully Nintendo will Keep on with their old school view on certain things.
And have to mention that the new generation has a different type of pressure on them. School is for many now very important, its not fully like before where you could just drop out and get work at a company and do good. Education has become very important and time consuming.

[Cacabunga]

That it’s not a driver for success.. of course subs will flatten at some point.
Only way to drive sales and growth is improving in the attach rate of gamers to the brand: by making great games and have gamers excited.

Sub model is broken, flawed and actually hurting games quality.

[MrBaskerville]

Probably, but Phil Spencer mentioned that they need to make significant progress before 2027 if they were to continue as we know them.

[Crows90]

Phil Spencer spouts tons of lies all of the time. Never know when he is actually telling the truth. It could've been a lie.

[MrBaskerville]

@Crows90
They are going all in on gamepass, obviously it will have consequences if they don't reach their targets. It's not like they weren't on the verge of exiting the gaming business before Spencer proposed Gamepass, so why wouldn't they consider it if gamepass failed to meet its goal?

[Barlos]

Hopefully not.

[Jin_Sakai]

Subscription services are far too many. People aren’t going to pay for 15 different services. It’s an over saturated market at this point.

[shinoff2183]

When we got rid of cable, for Netflix and Hulu and something else I want name, it was great, saved so much money, then at one point we had Disney, peacock, and a few other like wait this is just as expensive as cable what's the point. So we dropped everything but two services and that's all we keep now at a time.

[Hofstaderman]

@Shinoff2183 exactly. The average household cannot afford all subscription services. Something has to give.

[MrBaskerville]

I think the way to go is to pick and choose services on a monthly basis. But yeah, it's a mess. Also hard to keep track of where to see the films and series you want to watch. I find a lot simpler to just buy the dvd at this point.

[isarai]

Well I mean only one of those componies are completely centered around their sub service.

[blackblades]

And close to digital only.

[GamerRN]

I think it's flattened because of the lack of console sales growth. If they want to grow subs, need to grow consoles. The biggest mistake they made is not selling Series S for $200 and just taking the loss. They would have made it up eventually...

[Gamble20]

No they wouldn’t have. Xbox has already been an unprofitable hardware business its entire business Game Pass is also, as of this current time, a money losing venture.

[GamerRN]

Ummm, actually, despite having less consoles in the market, Xbox has been more profitable than PlayStation due to GamePass.

Not sure where you are getting your facts from. It's almost like you made it up

[mkis007]

Go look up your xbox vs playstation stuff again. Playstation bought bungie which is the only reason you can claim lower profit for a year.

[GamerRN]

Xbox bought a company also... I forget the name, some indie company...

But anyway, Xbox has been more profitable each year, you might wanna do your research.

Personally, I'll take sales over profitability for the popularity argument, but clearly Xbox is still doing good if they can make as much and more with significantly less consoles

[JEECE]

I really thought Starfield would have a bigger impact than what it apparently did.

[Asplundh]

Same, it just didn't live up to the hype.

[GamerRN]

I agree, it was a great game just wasn't what anyone expected. It was Space Fallout, and honestly that sub 30fps nonsense really killed me.

Fun game just not the 300 hour play forever game I expected... 7.5, maybe 8/10 ...

[Crows90]

It didn't live up to anything...the hype wasn't a problem.

@gamerRN

Not space fallout. Fallout has exploration. Fallout has fun quest lines. Fallout has interesting environments.

Starfield was it's own thing and it failed at it.

[shinoff2183]

As saddened as I was i feel starfield will in time.

[GamerRN]

@crows

All you stated was that you enjoyed Fallout as a theme more than space travel. Personally I looked the quests and works better in Starfield, but also still felt it was lacking in key areas.

[outsider1624]

I wonder if Indiana Jones will. The game so far looks good

[Majin-vegeta]

Seems It being FPS kills a lot of excitement..wtf were they thinking.

[GamingSinceForever]

When in history has any Indiana Jones game made an impact? It may be a good game but it will not move the needle.

[CrashMania]

It does look good but if starfield didn't do a thing I doubt this will have much of an impact, looking forward to trying it though.

[EvertonFC]

Looks like a Wolfenstein control scheme with Indy makeover. Controls will be tight, looking good so far.
No doubt they'll be a cave mining cart section 😊

[GamerRN]

I'm not looking forward to FPS Indy... I would have preferred a 3rd person Uncharted beater... The timing was perfect, and they missed it. ..

[GamerRN]

@GamingSinceForever

Fate of Atlantis, Last Crusade, great games!

[Lightning77]

It was number 3 in Steam revenue at 235m$ behind Baldurs Gate number one and number 2 Hogwarts.

[JEECE]

I bought it on Steam so I won't dispute you. I'm talking about the impact on Gamepass. I thought we'd get an announcement in the wake of Starfield about some crazy jump in subscriber numbers.

[CrashMania]

I don't see many people disputing it wouldn't have sold well on Steam, Bethesda games are always big on PC and it was a given imo, but it was in development for many years and probably had a really big budget.

The debate is around it's impact on xbox console and GP subs, and MS don't give any numbers so not sure why people are expected to think.

[Crows90]

I wonder how many refunded...

[shinoff2183]

No doubt but look at the people on steam talking about it. Alot of disappointed people. Sales were solid though on there. I think I've read you have to buy a game to review it on steam.

[BrainSyphoned]

It did have an impact, at launch. We bought the Series X bundled with two years of game pass at launch expecting to get Starfield within that time span. The big impact it had is that my disappointment cost $800 and 2.5 years of just three games played (Grim Dawn , Monster Train and Vampire Survivor) before I played Starfield 30 minutes and quit.
And went back to playing Skyrim on PS5.

Game Pass has been great for the kids though, hardly ever have to buy them games.

[babadivad]

Still haven't played it yet. Got it installed but never launched it.

[Brazz]

For Gamepass > Doom and Gloom for the model. Phil Spencer himself talked about the need to hit more players, and this is not happening. GP needs growth, or It will die. This realy sucks for Xbox, likely a "game over" scenario.

For PSN > Bad, but not the end of the world. Playstation still focused on selling games. Also their user base is like 1.5X that of Gamepass. It hurts, but not nearly as much as It hurts Xbox.

[Eonjay]

So the thing about Microsoft is that they are the ones setting those goals. Remember Satya missing one of his bonuses because they couldn't convert enough new subscribers one year. Or Phil saying that they need 80 million subscribers by 2027? If they added all of the plus members to GP, they would probably still be short of that number.

I don't know if Sony has a goal for their Plus numbers but you can tell from their actions that they are tying to upconvert the members they already have. I think by the numbers they have at least 30 million regular subscribers that they will try to convert to Premium members. PSPortal is part of this too and so is steaming in general.

For both, but especially Microsoft, they can reach their goal by leaving hardware behind and becoming an actual streaming platform... something that it seem Sony is keen on doing as well. If Microsoft can reach its target through steaming, it can reach it at all. Either, I don't see them leaving gaming anytime soon.

[MrBaskerville]

We still need to see how gamepass fares in a scenario where MS releases those 4 big titles every year that they are gearing up to. And how it looks with cod. If these things don't give them a significant boost, they might throw in the towel.

But I do think they will get a boost when they eventually get the machine up and running.

[crazyCoconuts]

When the growth curve is really steep it's when companies throw sustainable business models to the wind. The fact that it's slowing down is good news, as it forces them to have reasonable and sustainable prices. I'm thinking this should prevent the future where the quality of games goes down and we all are playing GaaS.

[Hedstrom]

I think gaming subs struggle with kids. Parents doesnt want to have to pay a monthly bill for their kids. They rather just buy a game now and then for them.

[JEECE]

Lol now they don't even have to do that because kids now don't play games, they just play one F2P game (usually Fortnite). So you just get them gift cards for microtransactions for their birthday or whenever they get a good report card or whatever parents do now and they're good.

[shinoff2183]

My son will play some single player games inhave around. I was proud when he played through and liked dragon quest 11. Made my day. Anyway aside from a few games I've seen him play, fallouts, and a couple others. I see him and his friends hoping around from online game to online game. They will play one for a few weeks then hope to another for a few. So I think your spot on with that. I'm just glad my kid enjoys some single player games cause I've seen a lot of younger players only playing online

[ChasterMies]

On PS5, a PS+ subscription works for everyone using the system. My kids have freeloaded games off of my subscription for their entire lives.

[Profchaos]

Pretty sure switch and Xbox are the same as long as it's your primary console

[Profchaos]

100 percent this even as a gamer I don't want to spend a monthly sub for the family to play games it's bad enough for Netflix I'd rather be like hey it's Christmas here's Mario or something not paying for your gaming habbits like it's a phone bill

Subscription fatigue is real and it's hurting a lot of people out there who start to tally it all up Netflix, Disney, prime, Spotify etc soon enough you're spending over 100 bucks on just video and audio streaming so many people I know are making the choice to move away from subs and or slim them down I actually know a few people that have cut the subscription cord to return to piracy after a decade of Netflix

[EvertonFC]

100 bucks ? I'm paying about £50 for Spotify, Netflix,Amazon, history ch, Disney and appletv.
I pay monthly and I dip in and out, I have each subscription about 3 or 4 times a year.
I pay about £350 for the entire year on subs and get way more for my money than I did a sky box or TV licence which was about £1400 a year.

[Lexreborn2]

Every business thinks a subscription is a good idea until you realize not everyone can afford 10 subscriptions plus! There will always be a sub the majority will use example Netflix over peacock, prime video, Crunchyroll. Having multiple consoles you might only want the sub for one of them but online for the other. But after a while paying for so many subscription is a LUXURY not truly affordable

[MrDead]

Hopefully it'll mean all these publisher acquisitions that serve no one but shareholders and CEO's will be a disaster and make these "services" unviable because they haven't succeeded in forcing gamers onto a certain platform.

[Zenzuu]

Good, subscription based service for gaming is not a good thing and hopefully never will.

[Barlos]

100% agree. However I feel they're going to start locking more and more services behind subs, and when that happens, I'm out.

[Rynxie]

It will be their only option. Basically what's happening with the TV and movie subs, will happen with gaming and MS will be the cancer that starts it. I doubt Sony will let MS gamepass on their consoles, unless MS agrees to pay some hefty fees every year. Because letting gamepass on PlayStation will definitely take PSN subscribers away from Sony. As gamepass is a medium to stream all games, not just Ms exclusives. It'll basically be a Ms store in PlayStation. That's like Walmart opening sections in bestbuy and selling Walmart merchandise.. Why buy physical PlayStation games, why subscribe to PSN, when you can just get gamepass on PlayStation? Sony will not agree, and this will cause MS to lock features and even games behind game pass. Which, Sony will also have to follow suit and lock games and features behind PSN.

I have no doubt, that when Sony refuses game pass, Ms will keep Bethesda, Activision and other games exclusives to gamepass out of spite.

[Profchaos]

100 percent it's destroyed Xbox sales over time with a large portion of players adopting a I'll wait for GP mentality and the quality has clearly dipped on day 1 first party games as they are now all about content consumption over a gold standard game.

I recall having a Xbox 360 at its peak 2006 to 2009 and it felt like a premium system there was really competitive games like mass effect you couldn't play anywhere else they were premium products and I'd be there day one cash in hand today not so much even the most hyped game they made felt incomplete I have a feeling ms forced Bethesdas to drop starfield earlier and "fix it in post" as it's close enough we need content for the quarter

[ShwaaMan]

It means every subscription service(and there are too many to count now) is upping their prices and dropping content to keep making record profits. It means there will be a breaking point eventually. It means companies aren’t ever going to understand this because the only thing that matters in late stage capitalism is next quarters profits.
I mean a f****ing asteroid the size of Earth could be heading our way in the next 6 months and they would STILL only care about quarterly profits before it gets here.

[TiredGamer]

“Record profits” adjusted for inflation?

If nothing else, subscriptions need to be sustainable and worthwhile to a company or they will die. Revenue does not equal profit. Profit is the marginal benefit from running a business, and growing costs requires growing sales to counterbalance. No growth in sales but growth in costs is a death spiral. That’s the biggest obstacle for MS with Gamepass.

[ShwaaMan]

I apologize if I’m misunderstanding your point, but if it was an inflation issue they wouldn’t be posting profits across the board, they would be breaking even.
So yes, adjusted for inflation because the excuse corporate America has been using as “inflation” is really just price gouging and good old fashioned corporate greed. Infinite and exponential growth is not a real thing, it is not sustainable and never has been, which is why we’ve seen the middle class all but disappear in the last 20 years.

[TiredGamer]

The point that I’m making is that inflation reduces the buying power of the dollar, meaning that every year, you need to earn more “profit” to even out for the decreased buying power. So that, if my profit was $100 in 2024, that would equal a profit of say, $80 in 2017.

So essentially, if profit numbers aren’t increasing (setting records) year after year, it’s likely that the real profit, in Present Value dollars, would actually be less than in previous years. Just as a $15 minimum wage today would be equivalent buying power to an $8 wage in 2001.

So if we don’t adjust for inflation, it’s very possible, depending on the company, that these record profits may or may not actually be higher actual profits than in previous years.

[DivineHand125]

What they can do is to offer additional benefits to draw in more people similar to what Amazon does with their subscription service.

[DivineHand125]

What they can do is to offer additional benefits to draw in more people similar to what Amazon does with their subscription service. Amazon is currently sitting at $200 million subscribers.

Game pass for example can boost their numbers by adding WOW subscription to the service. Current Wow subscribers doesn't necessarily have a game pass subscription and bundling Wow with a game pass could have them switch over and increase the numbers because game passes have other benefits that they currently do not have with their current plan. Non-wow subscribers on Game Pass could get exposed to the MMO and will be more likely to stay subscribed to the service all year round if they end up liking it.

Sony can do something similar through acquisitions to attract the holdouts to their subscription service.

[GamingSinceForever]

Didn’t Sony just announce a record number of subscribers a couple of weeks ago at CES?

[Abnor_Mal]

I believe that was just their platform being used for the month of December, they saw 123 million users. There was no mention of their PS. plus subscription service.

[GamingSinceForever]

Oh ok.

[EasilyTheBest]

Microsoft has plenty of plans to get more Gamepass Subscriptions. They will eventually have their own Game Store on Android Phones & Tablets from what I've heard so that will probably offer a Gamepass Subscription just for Mobiles etc.
There's a long way to go yet but a big game release every 3 months will make a huge difference too..

[ocelot07]

How would it make a huge difference? I can only speak for my self. But I only sub to gamepass for 1 month at a time. Even then at the cheapest possible price via key resellers. I only sub when a new title I want to try releases on it. Last time I subbed was September for Starfield and October for Forza. Not subbed since.

If they do release a new game every 3 months. That's only 4 months sub per year for people like my self.

Surely they need people subbing each and every month's for years on end?

[EvertonFC]

Exactly, it's how I do it too fella, I get GP at Xmas, late spring and late summer so 3 times a year for me.
Works well for me and I do the same for the TV subs too about 3 or 4 times a year.

[StoneTitan]

so can you give us some examples of mobile games subscriptions that are big? I mean who in their right mind would buy gamepass for candycrush?

[ApocalypseShadow]

Correct. Mobile gamers play because it's mostly free to play. Or you buy something that you can keep and play it unconditionally.

Introducing a subscription to play games on mobile will backfire.

[TheEnigma313]

PS is fine, it's xbox that is putting all their eggs in the subscription basket.

[ChasterMies]

GamePass growth slowed a few years ago. PS+ is still growing. I don’t know about EA and Ubisoft’s subscription services. They seem like bad deals anyway.

[EvertonFC]

EA Play still has the same games on it, doesn't change it or add much but it's only £4

[dveio]

My take on it (subject to change):

Build a subscription service that includes a catalogue of classics and/or hits that have already been sold long enough to (over-)reach their the profit margins. Include demos, cloud gaming and, here and there, some suprises.

Finally re-arrange the over-priced structure of digital games distribution, go ahead and pionieer a system allowing players to re-sell digitally purchased games.

Keep physical games distribution.

That's it.

Bloating up subscription services with 10.000 of games, barred behind licensing issues, and artificially keeping digitally purchased games locked behind its current Terms of Use will not be something I can see surviving.

[UltimateOwnage]

This is great news.

[Hedstrom]

Dual post!

[anast]

Sony will be fine, they have games. I would be worried about Xbox though.

[gold_drake]

well, one side is heavily focused on sub services. while the other two are still actively selling games.

[Solitariussaint]

Hopefully this means the Xbox brand is dying. Xbox is a cancer to traditional videogames.

[anast]

The will go through a change but not die. Xbox will be all mobile and streaming soon. The diehards will complain and follow and the others will just play Xbox while they are waiting for a doctor's visit.

[Profchaos]

Microsoft seen to have a belief that they can use gamepass as a method to attract non gamers into gaming like some Grandma might for the first time ever decide that hey you know what looks cool gears of war and I can play it on my iPhone as if it was 2006 and they are selling wii bowling.

The casual market didn't stick with Nintendo when the Wii gave way to mobile devices why would they want anything to do with cloud streaming and how would that appeal to them..

Microsoft has essentially tapped out the market share of core gamers as it stands this isn't Netflix the numbers are never going to be as large as Netflix yet they believe as many people will want to play their games as watch friends over and over

[jznrpg]

For Sony it is an additional income to selling games. For Xbox it’s main way to make money. Who’s this hurting ?

[Jigga69]

What does that mean ? That means Microsoft go Third Party.

[DarXyde]

It's not that hard to increase subs in my opinion.

If you lock the right games behind sub services, people would likely pay to play them. If I recall, gaming is the largest entertainment industry, exceeding music and movies. And keep in mind, when Netflix cracked down on account sharing, their subs increased. I think there's a case to be made here where people would begrudgingly take up the service.

But you can't just come out with one big game like Elder Scrolls VI. That would be like the time Kanye West released one of his albums exclusively on Tidal hoping for more subs. It didn't happen: it's one album. If you swarm the service with content you can't get anywhere else? You'll see subs increase. Microsoft likely understands this and they're planning such a move.

Another way: have more games that are shorter. I think part of the reason Netflix and Spotify are so popular is because of breadth of content of course, but also the chance to see a movie/listen to an album that's kind of... Just meant to be experienced without overstaying its welcome. Difficult to put into words. But there's less investment of time and money in those types of games. People can be a bit ADHD, so a shorter commitment across many games, I think, would increase uptake.

I hate all of this, by the way. I have two subs for the wife/kid (Spotify and Netflix) and four for work (Parallels, analysis software, Telegram, and private email account). In no way do I want this model to succeed. But I am mentioning these things because I think we'll see implementation of at least one of these approaches going forward.