Game Pass Remains Profitable Despite Microsoft Spending Fortune on Games, Says Phil Spencer
Phil Spencer revealed how much Microsoft spends annually on third-party games coming to the Xbox and PC Game Pass offerings.
Microsoft may not be the gaming market leader when it comes to console sales, but one of the things that certainly makes the American company a true industry giant is Game Pass. The subscription - which enables you to play a ton of different kinds of titles for relatively little money - is very popular. Phil Spencer revealed how much it costs to maintain it.
In an interview with Windows Central Xbox chief executive Phil Spencer revealed that adding third-party games to the Game Pass library costs the corporation about a billion dollars a year..
"We put a lot of money into the market - more than a billion dollars a year to support third-party games available through the Game Pass service. Game Pass is one of the things that, as you know, we have built over the past five years, and we continue to develop it. It's on PC, it's in the cloud. It's an important part of the identity of our consoles. And I think it will remain that way. We will continue to look for ways to innovate in our game portfolio and on our platform," he explained.
Considering how much money it consumes annually to maintain Game Pass, the question arises about the profitability of the service. It turns out that this is not money thrown down the drain, as the the company is still making a profit from it.
"Game Pass is a service that is financially viable, which means it makes money," he added.
During the interview, there was also the topic of the possible introduction of Game Pass to PlayStation and Nintendo platforms (rumors on this topic surfaced last week). The head of Xbox addressed these reports, saying that the company is not planning such a move.
