Microsoft’s Efforts Pay Off As Xbox Game Pass Subscribers Skyrocket

Microsoft has been making major moves to bring greater value to its Xbox Game Pass subscription services ahead of the Xbox Series X launch – and it seems to be working.

Since April, the service has seen its subscriber skyrocket roughly 50%, from 10 million to 15 million as of Monday, the Verge reports. This potentially sets the company up for a strong, subscription-based future in the video game business after a generation of waning software sales and perpetual losses to Sony and Nintendo.

Microsoft’s biggest moves to bolster Game Pass came within the last month. Earlier in September, the company announced a major partnership that would bring EA Play games – including the likes of “Madden,” “Battlefield,” and “Titanfall” – to the service at no extra cost by the holiday season. Then, also on Monday, Microsoft acquired ZeniMax Media for a staggering $7.5 billion, bringing the catalogs of Bethesda, Id, and more to Game Pass.

The service is also primed to offer major new titles to subscribers as soon as they launch moving forward. This could include first-party titles from Xbox Games Studios, like “Halo: Infinite” in 2021, as well as future titles from ZeniMax companies, like “Starfield” and “The Elder Scrolls 6.”

Game Pass offers subscription tiers for consoles and PC starting at $9.99 a month, with a higher $14.99 a month tier that includes more perks.