Soon, we can go back to talking about games 🥲

Shows just how bad the Xbox One gen hurt them, I definitely remember one point late in 360's life they announced they had 40m Gold Subs, so the fact that Gold converting into Gamepass Core only brought them up to 34m, means they lost at least 6m Gold subs since 360, probably more since this 34m includes PC only and Cloud only users in addition to those who use only console, 2 of them, or all 3 of them. 

This also suggests there isn't much Gamepass growth left to be had on Xbox console hardware, with hardware not selling much dang near everybody who wants multiplayer/Gold or Gamepass on Xbox hardware will have it by now. Growth from this point on will require either improving Xbox's hardware sales situation, or continuing to win over more PC Gamepass and Cloud gamers. Will be difficult for sure to cross the 40m sub hump on Gamepass, but hopefully 2023's exclusive lineup as well as CoD 2024 being day one Gamepass can get some growth percentages going again.

In gaming news, No Rest for the Wicked is actually looking incredible! Showcase on March 1st for the game. Too bad Moon Studios founders turned out to be pieces of shit, otherwise they would most likely have continued their relationship with Xbox. Still looking forward to this game!

Just saw the podcast. Lol, there's a serious problem with misinformation in game journalism or MS changed some of their plans seeing the response to rumores. Maybe a mix of both?

The growth is pretty meh but at least they reconfirmed it's profitable and even doubled down on it today, zero changes to Game Pass, it was always pitched as an additional source of revenue anyway, not the main source, 15% of MS Gaming Content and Services revenue IIRC. Porting things to other consoles could also be a way to subsidise Game Pass and continue giving us awesome content for it.

But there's other ways, PC has obviously been a slow growth, I don't know what they can do there other that put Game Pass on Steam but it's still in their back pocket, it can happen at any time, Gabe has said he would be fine with it, Lol. xCloud is more a long term future thing and probably won't have much affect on Game Pass for now. I wonder if part of the reason for the beefy consoles will be to swap Xbox Series xCloud server blades out as well and upgrade them to this really powerful hardware since Xbox Series server blades seem a bit weak compared to the competition.

Not worried though, still getting Game Pass goodness, still sustainable, still profitable and ABK should cause a growth.

Yeah, there is definitely still room for growth, even if alot of it won't be on console. I remember back in January 2022 Xbox announced they have 120m monthly active users between console, PC, and cloud. We now know that only 34m are paying for Gamepass Core or above. That is alot of potential room for growth. I do think we will see Gamepass eventually hit 40m and then 50m, it's just going to take longer than Microsoft originally expected, they foolishly thought they had a chance of 110m Gamepass subs by 2030, and I just don't see them getting anywhere close to that this decade. 

My guess would be something like 38-40m later this year on the back of the 2023 1st/2nd/3rd party exclusives, ABK games on Gamepass including CoD 2024 day one. 50m by the end of 2026. Maybe 60m by the end of the decade if they are lucky and cloud grows alot. 

Since these Gamepass numbers include Live Core, it means it actually shrunk since last year, doesn't it?

Not that I know of. The last updates I can recall were 25m January 2022 and "over 30m" in August 2023 from an Xbox employees LinkedIn profile. The over 30m in August was right before Gold converted to Gamepass Core, so they gained 3m+ since August between new subs and converted Gold subs. 

Lol, Jez is such a clown. While looking for the most recent Gamepass numbers before now, I found a Jez written Window's Central article about the "over 30m" on the Xbox employee's LinkedIn profile, and in that article Jez claimed that Xbox Live Gold had 60m subs, some of which would convert to Gamepass Core. Xbox never had that many Gold subs afaik, the most I can remember is 40m back in late 360 life, Xbox said they had 60m total Xbox Live users on console at one point, but that was free + Gold Xbox Live accounts, not just Gold.

https://www.windowscentral.com/gaming/xbox/xbox-game-pass-has-over-30-million-subscribers-according-to-linkedin

"Yesterday, Microsoft officially rebranded Xbox Live Gold to Xbox Game Pass Core. Xbox Live Gold has roughly 60 million members, although again, exact figures can be hard to lock down. If Microsoft now considers these 60 million users as being part of Xbox Game Pass, the total footprint of the service will utterly swell. Xbox Game Pass Core only features 25 games from the wider Xbox Game Pass library, designed to be more of a taster for potential converts. However, for most users, it will be more cost-effective potentially to move to Xbox Game Pass Ultimate, which includes Xbox Live Gold's legacy multiplayer service as well as hundreds of games across Windows, Xbox, and cloud endpoints."