It’s impossible to pinpoint just one thing that has led Xbox to be in the state it’s currently in. However, if there’s something that’s going to shoulder a significant chunk of the blame moving forward, it’s Game Pass. More specifically, Xbox’s unrealistic expectations of what Game Pass was going to become.
Xbox finally confirmed the bad news the game industry has unwittingly been waiting for on Monday. The fate of five of its studios is now very much up in the air, and thousands of Xbox employees have lost their jobs, with thousands more layoffs still to come.
Xbox Expected A Lot More Of You To Have Game Pass By Now
In the aftermath of Xbox confirming its studio sale and layoff plans, the Wall Street Journal shared details about Game Pass’s current subscriber count. There are currently around 30 million people signed up to Game Pass. What’s interesting, worrying, and explains why Game Pass hasn’t been the juggernaut Xbox needed it to be is the much larger subscriber total Xbox expected the service to have hit by now.
Game Pass Has Reportedly Cost Microsoft $300 Million In Call of Duty Sales
Call of Duty has always been a big seller, but not when it’s on Game Pass.
According to legal documents shared during the Xbox acquisition of Activision Blizzard, the console company predicted that 77 million people would have signed up to Game Pass by now. That is a staggering figure, and one that demonstrates how delusional those in charge of Xbox at the time were when it comes to what they expected the Activision deal was going to do for the brand.
Game Pass Subs Have Gone Down
Game Pass subs haven’t just fallen short of where Xbox expected, and presumably needed, them to be in 2026, but they’re not even close. Less than 40 percent of the way to the lofty goal Xbox set for itself. In fact, if WSJ’s 30 million figure is accurate, Game Pass’s subscription total has actually gone down since the last time Xbox reported official figures.
Last we heard, 34 million people were subscribed to Game Pass. This latest report, while not directly from Xbox, claims that number has dropped by as much as four million. Although not an official number, it was recently revealed by Xbox boss Matthew Ball that millions of people unsubscribed from Game Pass when the service’s top tier almost doubled in price.
Game Pass prices have since been cut, although not to where they were before the price hike.
The future of Game Pass is currently unclear. Xbox-published games will no longer be included on day one, as Call of Duty titles will be added to Ultimate a year after they’re released. It also seems as if there is no guarantee State of Decay 3 will be a day one Game Pass title, although that should really be expected with developer Undead Labs one of the five studios affected by this week’s “Xbox reset”.
- Number of Devices Concurrently
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Five, with Friends & Family (in limited countries)
- Number of Accounts
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1 Primary Account Holder
