By using this site, you agree to our Privacy Policy and our Terms of Use. Close
Dulfite on 01 February 2021
Edit Thread
Mar1217 said:
Dulfite said:

When was the last time it was for that cheap? I haven't seen it in a while. I doubt many of us are using the cheaper entry fee. They are making TONS of money off it per their newest financial report. There are also now 18 million subscribers as of the last call. Even if literally everyone was paying 1 dollar, that's $18 million a month or $216 million a year. But we know a lot of people are paying the full $10 for regular or $15 for Ultimate, so let's just go with conservative numbers. Let's say only 8 or the 19 million are paying $10-15 (let's average it to $12.50) and the other 11 million are only paying $1 (which I highly doubt btw). That's $132 million a year from the $1 group and $1.2 billion from the full paying group for a total of a little over $1.2 billion a year. Again, I think that is a very conservative number. And yes, I'm aware they have to offset cost of purchasing expensive studios, securing third party games on Gamepass, etc. But there are other areas they are generating money from having Gamepass. They make a LOT more money off selling PC's with windows/office 365. Historically, Sony and Microsoft haven't made much and have usually lost money for each console sold. So every console that ISN'T sold because someone bought a PC (such as myself, when I was about to buy a Series X but then decided to buy a more expensive gaming laptop), creates a lot more money for them because of all the other, non gaming software that they make money off of.

Last Holiday and it's honestly hard to miss since they advertised it heavily during that period. Not only, at times you could also see offers for 3$/month for a 12 month subscription to Gamepass which was common when they launched the programm. 

Still, I also think it'd be absurd that most people have bought it when it was on sales so yeah, it must be doing them a fair share of revenue, yet one thing they never disclose was the operational cost. Since the catalog gets bigger, it is bound to also inflate the operational cost just as much.

Also we have to take into effect, the impact the program has on regular digital/physical sales for these games which lowers their potential of revenue in the traditonal sphere, simply redirecting this lost revenue  into another stream. Technically, Gamepass has to make up for a lot to even be much profitable imo.

I believe I read that Gamepass has actually lead to more people buying the games outright because there is more awareness in the market in general of said game. Also, because people are getting it for "free," they are more likely to spend money on the stuff that isn't free (cosmetics, dlc), further increasing the profits of the developers and perhaps Microsoft.

But again, that isn't even the main benefit of Gamepass to MS. I personally believe the main reason Microsoft has Gamepass is to increase the awareness and buy-in of their other products and software. Office 365 costs a LOT on an annual basis. In 2014 they only had 4.4 million 365 subscribers. In 2018 they had 155 million 365 subscribers. If Gamepass can lead to more people purchasing PCs (where MS makes profit from Windows licenses), more people getting 365 subs (MS making more profit), using Skype, etc. that will be the real value of Gamepass to MS.