Microsoft reveals how much money Game Pass actually makes

Microsoft has revealed Game Pass earnings data to Brazilian regulators to help build a favorable case for the upcoming merger with Activision-Blizzard.

[Jin_Sakai]

“Xbox Game Pass generated $2.9b revenue in 2021”

I can only imaging what they’d make when Activision/Blizzard games hit the service!

[sparky77]

Wow that's a lot of $1 subs if true.

I guess it really must be profitable already.

[abstractel]

Profitable? How much of that money is going to all the game developers they must be paying? That's what I'm curious about.

[Lifexline]

Yeah and this isn’t even including the pc game pass which I’m sure is a good chunk as well.

Game pass is the future they have around 20 plus subscribers and are making that much no wonder they are really going all in with it.

[MrBaskerville]

I guess you could hire 500 gamedevelopers for around 189 million dollars a year, don't know how many they have, probably 1-2000. Rough estimate based on my own salaries in the business. So that's probably feasible, question is what the upkeep is for the service is. I would suppose that there's more to it than hiring developers.

[FPS_D3TH]

Damn people still refusing to subscribe unless the pass is $1? Lmao can’t imagine being that poor while taking gaming this seriously

[Michiel1989]

@Mrbaskerville an average of about 380k per year per head? damn son

[MrBaskerville]

@Michiel1989
Danish wages. I might be going a bit high, it's possible that danish wages are higher than us, because stuff is expensive af around here and we pay lile 40% in taxes. So perhaps it should be divided by 3 or something. Dunno, what's the average pay of a gamedevloper in us?

Just calculated, 380k pr year is a pretty low yearly salary around here. An entry level game developer would get something in the ballpark of 470k around here.

[zekk]

While revenue is great (ability to collect on what is owed). But that doesn't mean that they are making a profit. Revenue does not take into account the liabilities (what is spent).

[strifeblade]

So your saying they have 250 million subscribers at 1$ each for a year? Last I checked the subscriber count is 25 million plus. Lot of an chair analysts here who don't know how to count.

[fr0sty]

Microsoft is inching towards not having a need to sell hardware anymore, and just becoming a gaming service. I called it years ago. Look at how much they make (lose) on hardware vs. their services, which are the only profitable part of the Xbox division.

That said, it's also the beginning of the end of dedicated consoles... I still see it taking another 10 years or so, but before long all these game publishers will just be rental services, and you'll be able to play them all on just about anything. As much as we'd like to see them keep selling dedicated consoles, the money doesn't justify it as streaming tech improves over the years.

[purple101]

At the exchange rate to UK pounds and taking at full price of £14.99 a month, that's

fourteen million five hundred thousand subscribers.

Impossible to know how many or what percentage are on a 1£ free trail ) exploit / conversion from gold when they had that offer Vs what percentage are actually paying the 14.99. so could be more than 14mil subscribers. Maybe 20mill.

Interesting though as those cheap conversion tricks run out how many will keep paying the full price.

[Knushwood Butt]

It's ￡14.99 a month in the UK?

I paid just over that to upgrade from PS Plus to Extra for a year.

[Mr_Writer85]

@Orchid
"Making 3bn a year in 2022"

$3b in revenue is impressive.....But it's not profit, how much of that $3b was spent on acquiring games to its service?

Game Pass is great value for gamers, only a fool would argue different.

But is it sustainable? What happens when prices go up and sub numbers fall? What's the next step?

I believe that MS will bow out of the console race in the future, they may produce a "fire stick" for games, but I believe the end game is to be the Netflix of gaming.

I wouldn't be shocked if MS not only bowed out of the console race, but also eventually released an app on all platforms including current rival consoles.

[CaptainHenry916]

And don't forget a lot of the subscribers don't pay each month. They wait until a game they're interested in gets on GP and sign back up. I'm one of them. Last game I played on there was Gears 5 and Ori. The next time I activate my subscription will be for Starfield. I'm willing to give that game a try on PC GamePass. Not to mention sometimes I use my Microsoft reward points to get free months without paying anything

[purple101]

Sorry it's 10.99 month UK. And 15 USD.

You can also save if you buy a 12month pass at a time. But one point stands which is how many keep it going after initial conversion tricks or free trials.

[Orchard]

@CaptainHenry "And don't forget a lot of the subscribers don't pay each month."

3bn dollars says otherwise.

3bn also completely kills the argument about how 'most people subscribe for $1/month' or 'most people get it free via Bing Rewards'. You can't make 3bn in revenue if people aren't paying.

@TheWood "Its weird the guys in last place continually profess the guys in ahead of them should follow them."

But... the guys ahead of them DID follow them. the new PS+ is a reaction to GamePass.

[Knushwood Butt]

So paying a premium to get some (quantity and quality unknown) games day 1 on gamepass.

Isn't that the same as pre-ordering new releases, knowing they'll drop in price fairly shortly after release?

[MrBaskerville]

I've only paid for 1 month this year, have had atleast 6 months of trials.

[Lightning77]

They have 25 million subscribers reported in January.

[PapaBop]

Where did you get the 14.99 from? I have game pass on PC and it's less than £11 a month.

[Crows90]

@orchard
The new ps plus is not a reaction to gamepass.

Gamepass is a reaction to ps now and a deep realization that games barely sell on Xbox anyways.

Ps now existed before gamepass and therefore no iteration of it can be a complete reaction to a future product.

Mental gymnastics is strong with this one.

[Babadook7]

Figuring how much it made was always trivial. The unknown factor is 'how many millions does it cost?'

[RangerWalk267]

Not sure how you're getting down votes. You simply made a statement about the success of Game Pass 🤷🏽‍♂️

[oof46]

First time here?

[RAF-TECH]

You can’t say anything bad about game pass when the competitor is literally trying so hard to copy it…….

[Silly gameAr]

Which competitor is that? The one that just combined 2 services they've already had for years?

[Christopher]

Ugh. This is so monotonous of arguments in this day and age.

Sony started with PSNow in 2014. The first of its kind of streaming/downloading game subscription service from a console manufacturer.

GamePass came along in 2017. It became a better offer than PSNow w/day 1 games but didn't have as many games offered under it.

Sony updated PSNow to what it is now with more day 1 games, cheaper price than GamePass, and still more potential games overall.

Did GamePass invent the wheel? No.

Did Sony update because of GamePass? Yes.

Both evolved. Simple as that.

This argument over who was really first (it was Sony) or who is copying who (both are because that's how competition works) is dumb.

[KillBill]

It would depend on how many more subscribers they see. ABK will be earning even outside of Game Pass offerings.

[Terry_B]

“Xbox Game Pass generated $2.9b revenue in 2021”

Captain Basch lives! Thee Captain Basch fon Rontzenburg! ;-)

[Abracadabra]

That's a lot of money for revenue... but it would be interesting to see the profit.

[Knushwood Butt]

Yes.

Surprisingly few people seem to understand the difference.

[Michiel1989]

@again you're implying one of the biggest companies in the world doesnt analyze their products? just a whole division by itself?

[darthv72]

Its like understanding gross pay vs take home. When you apply for a loan, they always want to know your gross income, not what you bring home after taxes and deductions.

[n1kki6]

Because when you are taking out a loan they can get to that number using your credit report and evaluating your expenses. Jesus Christ. This isn't that hard people.

[Hofstaderman]

Agreed. Profit = Turnover minus money Microsoft paid to have the games on the service. It’s definitely not 2 Billion.

What I’m interested in is how much were developers paid to have their product on GamePass and how much copies they actually sold after having their game placed on GamePass. That too in the case of multi platform games how many copies were sold on the PlayStation platforms. That would be very telling.

[NotoriousWhiz]

It would be very telling, but there is no way either of them gives us that information. Best we can hope for is that it comes out in court for some reason.

[tay8701]

yah profit is what matters. how much did their studios spend this yr? i was expecting more revenue honestly, but there are probably alot of those cheap $1 subs.

[oof46]

2.9 billion of them, to be exact. (Eye roll)

[ABizzel1]

Well I assume it's safe to say GamePass is profitable, it's just the return on profitability isn't nearly as high as Software sales have been for some publishers which is clearly why Sony and Nintendo have no desire to follow this path.

GamePass has around 6 games per month, so AT WORST breaking even would mean spending around $40 million per game added to GamePass which they clearly don't. Based on previously shared information $1,000,000 is a higher average that indie games get paid to be on GP, and with a focus on 1 AA game per month, I'd say a the average month for GamePass pays out about $20 million per month MAX for games. If a AAA release gets thrown in then maybe add $50 million onto that month (we'll say 4 AAA releases per year). That's $440 million paid out per year, and we can round up to $500 if some major 3rd party release(s) didn't want to join GP, so MS had to pay more.

That's $2.9 billion in revenue, drops to $2.4 billion and then you have to take marketing, servers, employees, etc... out of the budget, but even still an absolute worse-case scenario that would be the remaining $1.4 billion, and therefore, GamePass should easily be making $1 billion in profit IMO after all expenses as a worst case scenario. Which honestly isn't bad.

But again it shows why Sony and Nintendo won't do this. They have some franchises that earn $1 Billion or more on a single release.

[LoveSpuds]

Wrong comment chain, deleted.

[GamingSinceForever]

So let’s say they were making $1B per year. For that reason I can’t see them making COD exclusive anytime soon because they spent almost $70B on the Activision deal and the shareholders want to see an ROI sooner than the next 20 years or so.

[ABizzel1]

@GamingSinceForever

There's two things wrong with that.

1. Microsoft bought Call of Duty, not Xbox. Xbox as it was from the original, 360, and XBO are dead as a brand. The Series Consoles are Microsoft platforms, not Xbox platforms. So MS has no issue taking a loss if need be in order to help facilitate a monopoly-like structure in the future if possible.

2. They expect to see a huge boost in GamePass subscribers if/when they bring CoD to GamePass. There would likely be an increase of 5m - 10m subscribers moving to GamePass for CoD, which again would increase revenue, and more gamers could very well consider GamePass as time goes on if they put CoD behind the paywall getting them up to 20 million new subscribers.

3. CoD won't likely be an annual release under MS, and as a result they likely aren't going to keep the majority of teams working on all these annual CoD titles. I wouldn't be surprised if they have Warzone as the main CoD multiplayer from now on, and just release traditional CoDs every 2 - 3 years. That would save them billions in development cost, and Warzone would print money anyway.

So more subscribers and income from GamePass, along with lower developer cost and savings would allow them to on paper hit that goal.

[n1kki6]

You are grossly underestimating marketing, servers, employees, etc...

Mix in game pass deals and it gets way higher.

For example netflix turns 5B profit on 30B revenue. You are trying to sit here with a straight face and tell me MS is on a 30% profit margin with GP already?

Last year they didn't even report profit or margins an gaming separately, I was mixed in with the following

Windows OEM Pro revenue growth
Windows OEM non-Pro revenue growth
Windows Commercial products and cloud
services revenue growth
Surface revenue
Xbox content and services revenue growth
Search advertising revenue, excluding TAC, growth

https://www.microsoft.com/i...

They were however excited about a 10% margin

[MrBaskerville]

I guess there won't be any profit until they exceed the price of all the studios they bought. Probably gonna take a couple years to recoup the price of Activision.

[TheGreatGazoo30]

MASSIVE AAA games cost $100-$150 miion to make (total over 3-5+ years)... So $2+ billion covers the cost of roughly 20 of those games per year (including marketing). Obviously many AAA games cost in the 40-50 million range to produce. RDR2 was over $300 million but that's rare.

Its easy to see why companies love subscription models. Easy, predictable, revenue to fund content.

[crazyCoconuts]

Indeed. Also, I believe "faturamento"/gross revenue can include discounts, so all the super cheap upgrades to get game pass for multiple years and $1 promotions would show as full price in revenue. If you take the ~$3B / 18M estimated subscribers, you get a number that's pretty close to "list" price of ~ $14/month, so I'm guessing that's how they're reporting it. So in short, that number is highly suspect when discounts are taken into account...

[Orchard]

Pretty impressive numbers - almost 30% of their overall revenue. And that number doesn’t even include PC subscribers - only console.

I’d be interested in seeing the profit margins (although I get that Cade wouldn’t be interested in that when trying to determine market share) - profits must be good though, there’s no way the catalog costs anything close to even 1bn.

There are some legs on this GamePass thing.

[gangsta_red]

"There are some legs on this GamePass thing."

Agreed, how long has GP been running strong now? Still waiting to see when it's not sustainable...

[Orchard]

5.5 years it looks like. Still blows my mind that it’ll have everything Zenimax and Activision in it going forward.

Also, clarification on my above comment - 20% not 30%. Cellphones are hard.

[EvertonFC]

It's not been sustainable since it came out, it's just MS are willing to bleed money from there 2 trillion they have in the bank until subs are 50m/100m when it is profitable.

[mkis007]

Still blows my mind that it’ll have everything Zenimax and Activision in it going forward.

Why have they still not added skyrim anniversary?

[Orchard]

You'd have to ask Zenimax/Microsoft that - but I suspect it's probably related to some legacy licensing.

And yes, Zenimax and Activision games going into GP day 1 is huge.

[n1kki6]

They are paying the salar for 23 studios to operatate. Its poinless to speculate. Wait for the annual report. The overall gaming number is what is important here. But the expenses for a studio, plus marketing is not cheap.

[rlow1]

I figured that they would be doing well and I imagine they are making a profit from those numbers. Especially since those numbers represent just one quarter. But without more info it’s anyone guess.

[lodossrage]

Sustainability and profitability aren't the same thing.

Even last November Microsoft admitted as much:

https://www.essentiallyspor...

But to be fair, that was literally almost one full year ago. But the fact that they can tell us how much revenue they made without saying if it's profitable or not leaves me to believe the profit isn't there yet.

[Crows90]

If there was good profit they would've mentioned it. They didn't. As usual they mislead.

[oof46]

They aren’t “telling” us. This is from the CADE report.

[Deathdeliverer]

I said it a while ago, this is just a refresher for it to stay at the forefront. The price hikes will be swift and they will be constant. Think of the money they spent on Bethesda and what they are spending on the pending Activision. Let’s say realistically, after all the bills are paid, they take home 30%~50%. We will give it the very unlikely 50% as the true take home. Thats 1.5b. Cool. They will get their money back on the Bethesda deal in a few years and that’s not even putting anything down on the Activision deal. By the time Activision is paid off and out the red with everything going to game pass it will be YEARS. So how do you, as a business, increase the rate at which that bill gets paid back? You guessed it. US! I can already see the email.
“We have increased our day one offerings and are providing experiences you cannot get anywhere else. With that in mind, we have kept our price the same since the launch of the program but unfortunately this is no longer feasible to continue offering the exclusive services we provide. Starting on XXX prices will raise from $14.99 monthly to $24.99.”

Watch what I tell you.

[oof46]

Fear mongering and whataboutisms. If they raise the price to the point people don’t see value in it, they’ll unsubscribe. It’s not that hard.

[Deathdeliverer]

@oof46

Subscriptions condition you to over look them. Why do you think there’s so many apps and services trying to help you find all your subscriptions? It’s people, like my wife, that are so conditioned that she’s so used to having what she’s subscribed to that value isn’t even considered. It’s regular now like the light bill or the mortgage. That’s what conditioning is. The people that have very little disposable income as is will definitely be at a crossroads. People that can afford a few trips to a fast food joint and little splurging are the ones that will convince THEMSELVES they need it because value is secondary. To be honest you seem like you are already deep in sub territory lol.

[oof46]

Nope. You’re generalizing and using false equivalencies. When they tried to double the price of Xbox Live, people spoke up. If they had kept it, the numbers would have plummeted.

What is true for your imaginary wife and others is not true for the vast majority. If they raise the prices, and I and others don’t see the value, we’ll unsubscribe.

Either that or everyone will go on the $1 deal, which is another generalization the CADE document has debunked.

[JEECE]

They will raise the price, but it will be more incremental than that. Like it will change from 14.99 for a month to 19.99. They saw what happened when they tried to raise the price for Gold all at once, so this time it will be little increases here and there.

[Deathdeliverer]

That very well may be. They might give it a little increase every year. 5 at a time. Keep in mind though that these are the same people that tried to DOUBLE the price at once last year. That’s what caused the outrage. They wanted to start cutting into that deficit IMMEDIATELY. That’s why I feel like it isn’t beneath them to do a bigger increase at once. Faster that price goes up, faster that return is made.

[gold_drake]

i wanna know what they have to pay for stuff to be day one from 3rd party devs.

the revenue is quite alot, but id be nice to know the actual profit from it

[a7madRyan]

A little less than call of duty made in 2021, those numbers are bad and remember its from coz covid time with big releases like halo and forza, i think in 2022 its going to be worse, that why the need to buy activision blizzard

[moriarty1889]

Wonder how much of that goes to devs who launch their games day and date on GP as opposed to selling them in stores day one. That is the question.

[RAF-TECH]

That’s nice and all,,,, I just want COD and all the future acquisitions on game pass.

Thank God Microsoft is a trillion dollar company…..

[oof46]

Impressive. 2.9 billion subscribers all on the $1 deal. /s

[EvertonFC]

Don't they have to minus what they have to pay to the Devs and pubs ? Serious question as most analysts say it's bleeding money ?

[TheLordOfStuff]

Yeah they didn't say profit, they said revenue so who knows how much if any they actually make.

If I sell something for $100 but it costs me $95 to make it I have $100 in revenue but $5 in profit

The fact that they lump xbox with office in financial reporting says they don't make profit or it is so small that they don't want shareholders to see how little it makes after what has been spent so far, shareholders dgaf about gaming, if you invest 1b in something and make 10k profit, they'll want that potato dropped quick smart.

[darkrider]

The numbers are low. There no spin here. 2.9 billion with all first party games day one... They will need to increase vastly the price and that's why Microsoft is buying publishers... Sony does one billion just with Cod... That's why they also want Cod...

[Extermin8or3_]

You are thinking about this wrong. What if MS don't care about it making a profit yet but want to use it to force out their major competitors over time simply based on how much cheaper games pass is for the individual than buying games. MS can afford the losses and the financial hit because they make so much money in other industries. Their gaming competition cannot afford to do such things and as such over a few years will be either forced out if the industry or become a small minority of the market unable to afford what it once did and limited as a result.

[darkrider]

Business doesn't work that way. No matter how much money others divisions make. The reality is that this number is very low. This is why Microsoft doesn't show numbers and spin numbers. The competition doesn't need to make this, because their big games make billions.

I can't even believe this number. After 5 or 6 years I thought it would be higher. Don't see any future except if they can reach fast 100 million or more subscribers. The amount of money spent to have triple AAA games 3rd party games even indies at 600k, plus marketing, plus paying all the studios... And the 2.9 billions isn't profit... Scary stuff. No spin possible.

[EvertonFC]

And you want to support that model ? What a tool.

[Bathyj]

So Xbox should make back the money they've spent in just under 30 years?

[andy85]

That implies no expenditure, which is most of that 2.9b. They'll never make the money from it back but they likely don't care, everything else props up the gaming division. It's just about getting more numbers on GP

[TrueStoryGuy]

It wouldn't surprise me if they're still losing money every year from this service. You have to take into account server costs are through the roof, and the money that has to be paid out to publishers to keep the games on the service. Every service has to remain aware that people will unsubscribe without new content, or without the content that they subscribed for originally.

[RauLeCreuset]

"You have to take into account ... the money that has to be paid out to publishers to keep the games on the service."

Which cannibalizes 3rd party licensing fee revenue Xbox receives when they take a cut of the sale for 3rd party games on their platform. It's simultaneously creating additional expense while reducing existing revenue. The cannibalization effect will be more significant for Day 1 releases.

[Extermin8or3_]

OK 2.9billion in revenue but what really matters is what profit it makes as the profits are meant to be what allows you ti reinvest into new games (unless you have deep pockets and can for the time being to wedge yourself into a market take large losses subsidised by large profits in other departments that dominate other industries *cough* windows, MS 365 AND Azure servers *cough*. Realistically for a smaller company let's take Sony who rely heavily on gaming or Nintendo who basically only do gaming stuff. The profits one year need to typically be sufficient to maintain all your studios and pay staff, invest in r and d for new technology and games, create new ip and roll out several games a year like clockwork. I'd say you are targeting at least one 1st party AAA title a quarter plus 3rd party titles coming to the service on a constant basis to ensure people remain subscribed. That is not cheap. Not in the slightest.

The profits and the revenues and the expenditure are data all necessary to be able to judge matters and to tell if this is a reasonable service that others can come in and compete against or if its only something a Behemoth like MS can afford to start and is aimed simply at muscling their completion out the market because its impossible for them to compete on the same level because of the extremely High cost of entry.

Just as a point if comparison as of April 2019 God of War 2018 had already made 500 million dollars... 0.5 Billion. In revenue so essentially that 1 title that cost 150-200 million to make and market I believe. It essentially made 1/6th of thr revenue games pass had. Those figures aren't encouraging for the sustainability of games pass. If MS Put out a respectable 4/5 AAA games a year plus marketing that woukd be 1-1.5 billion right there in costs. That's before they pay a single developer for their game. A leak recently I belive showed them offering 180 million for a relatively obscure indie title to come to games pass so all the larger titles and day 1 3rd party titles are costing way more than that. Then you have general upkeep costs on what almost 20 studios now. I can't se how this thing is profitable.

[Braindeadninja]

You are saying AAA development n promotion cost 150 to 200 million dollar but microsoft gave 180 million dollar for indie game? Do indie game make 180 million dollar profit on there own? Why will microsoft pay so much for indie game?

[Extermin8or3_]

Honestly I have no idea why they gave so much money for an indie game. No way would I expect the indie title to have made 180 million but it just goes to further support my assertion that there is no way in hell games pass is profitable nor is it anywhere near being so.

[anast]

So how much do they actually make?

[Kaze88]

And the actual profit?

[Star51]

Lol. What profit? MS will never show the important financials. Probably cost them 4.1B. We'll never know.

[Master-Tonberry]

But fails to reveal how much it costs.

[thesoftware730]

Seriously, why as gamers do you guys care so much? We are consumers of a product, and if as a gamer I can play games for as cheap as possible, then that is what I care about. The current economy with all the inflation is hard enough for most people, and gaming is not essential, so let us be happy that for the most part, people can still find a way to support their hobby. PS+ and GP are excellent services for non-collector gamers, kids, young adults, and college students.

MS, Sony, and Nintendo have been running multi-billion dollar companies for a long time, I'm sure they all know what they are doing when it comes to strategies, money, and bottom lines.

[Bathyj]

Why do we care? because we gamers and we love gaming. When the biggest company in the world is buying everyone and then giving everything away for free it cheapens the value of the games to the point where the competitors will not be able to sell them eventually thus ruining this industry. Do you really want a future with only Microsoft the company that hasn't been able to release steady quality games in 10 years?

[thesoftware730]

That is a baseless opinion, they are not buying everyone. They are not "Cheapening the value" of any games that I have seen, in fact, I have seen very high scoring, well received games on the Xbox Platform and have personally played some.. Where do you get this silly notion that MS will be the only gaming company?..that sounds like fear- mongering nonsense. MS releasing quality games are again subjective, I can name some, but it wouldn't make a difference to you.

[Bathyj]

I'm talking about cheaping in a monetary sense. If you sell eggs for $5 a dozen and that's what everyone else is selling eggs for and then someone else comes along and sells eggs for 50 cents a dozen because they're so rich they dont have to turn a profit then the market value drops and it's very hard for the others to make a living. I don't know what you do for a living, but how would you feel if suddenly someone was willing to do your job for a 10th of the price. You might feel different about this wonderful notion of gamepass.

[Bathyj]

And yes they also have infrequent good games. Where have you been for the last 10 years?

[Spenok]

Revenue does not equal profit.

I'm interested to see if they made any profit. Not how much money they've generated.

The fact they didn't tell us the important number doesn't have a good look. But who knows. Maybe they're making stupid money off it.

[CPTN MITCHELL]

That's generated not income which is completed different, from that 2.9b deduct payments to developers, employees and so on then you have a total. So I don't think they're making any profit

[Chriswheeler22]

Soon be time to hike the price and pump out content that compliments the model well instead of quality games.

[XBManiac]

In a perfect world, without expending on anything, they could buy another Bethesda in 3 years.

[JayRyu]

So it's sustainable for MS. I'm good with that.

[CrimsonWing69]

All I can is Gamepass has saved me money and allowed me to play some awesome games and some on Day 1. I’m pretty happy with it.

[TicklefistCP]

Game Pass discussions always bring out the people who care more about the bottom lines of mega-corps more than their own.

[Gamesual1]

From the chart in the article, it also seems that Game Pass is neck and neck with PS Plus in market share for gaming subscription services.

[ChiefofLoliPolice]

Ok the 2.9 in revenue is all well and good but what matters at the end of the day is profit.

Revenue - Expenses = Profit.

[SpineSaw]

Does Microsoft mention how much they spend to make that 2.9 billion?

[Father__Merrin]

2.9 billion revenue out of that vast chuck is paid to developers. Its not bad but not what n4g has led us to believe that it is an all conquering "skynet" like service

[DivineHand125]

I know many of us would like to know how much of that figure is profit as Microsoft keeps info about the Xbox Division a secret. If we can guess that Xbox game pass has about 100 games and Microsoft pays out an average of 1 million per game then it would mean a little over 100 million is being spent to acquire games to the service and the rest is profit. If this is close to what is actually happening then I can see why they are so invested in the service and these large acquisitions. If anyone has more insight on how the figures actually work reply.

[Kyizen]

Any reoccurring revenue is worth it. Takes Apex vs a $70 game. It is f2p but even if 10 percent of users are whaling it is making so much more than if it sold as a 70 dollar game