Xbox Game Pass remains profitable despite the fall in sales of own titles

Until recently, it was believed that Microsoft’s business with Xbox Game Pass was profitable by including costs such as third -party rates, marketing or maintenance of the platform, but without taking into account the lost sales of their own games. However, Chris Dring, founder of The Game Business, explained in the social network X that Xbox Game Pass is still profitable even if they are counted These losses.

Internal studies obtain income from other ways

Dring explained that, a year and a half ago, Xbox asked what elements were included in the service accounts. Then they explained that the First-Party games have their own results account, since they obtain additional benefits through other channels. This could imply that Game Pass was profitable by itself, but also that some internal studies were reduced their margins or not even obtained direct benefit.

This situation changed when Xbox titles also began to be launched on other consoles, which allowed to improve margins by premium sales. As we have been able to know, even adding the losses for unrealized sales and microtransactions, Game Pass remains a positive source of income for Xbox.

Despite this, the debate on the impact of Game Pass on the industry is not settled. At the beginning of the year it was estimated that the titles included in the subscription They can lose up to 80% of their sales planned in premium format on Xbox consoles. Examples like Senua’s Saga: Hellblade II (also available in Nvidia GeForce Now), Indiana Jones and The Great Circle either Starfield They illustrate this tendency not to stand out in sales lists.

On the other hand, it has been seen that a multiplatform game available in Game Pass can benefit from higher sales on other platformspartially compensating those initial losses. The global profitability of the service seems, for the moment, to resist this delicate balance between sales and subscriptions.