Microsoft says Xbox Game Pass has paid “hundreds of millions” to game developers

Microsoft tends to be silent when it comes to providing any statistics about the economy Xbox Game Pass. But it recently stated that since the start of the subscription service, it has “paid developers and publishers across Xbox hundreds of millions of dollars in Game Pass licensing fees.” However, this number is still quite ambiguous.

What the Xbox Game Pass numbers mean, though vague

at Posted on the official Xbox BlogChris Charla, General Manager of Content and Programs Regulation, wanted to reveal the success of [email protected] program. He notes that since the program began nine years ago to integrate indie developers into Xbox platforms, “independent developers have earned more than $2.5 billion in royalties and total revenue generated by [email protected] on Xbox for the past three years.

Going forward, he claims that many of the games on Xbox and other platforms “would not exist without the support of Game Pass members.” Promote that file [email protected] The program includes more than 4,600 developers from 94 countries, and 1,000 of them have signed up in the past two years.

From the comments provided by indie developers, Xbox is starting to open up when it comes to cross-play features. It also frames the service as a way to discover more indie games, as the average Xbox Game Pass owner “plays 30% more genres and plays 40% more games.”

At the same time, the numbers presented in the blog remain vague about the details. It’s not clear what the revenue distribution will look like across all games on Xbox Game Pass. Given that the service has 25 million subscribers and each subscriber conservatively pays $10 per month, it should generate about $3 billion. How much chop Xbox gets from this revenue stream is also unclear, although Xbox executives like Phil Spencer say the subscription service is “very, very sustainable” according to Axios.

In other news, the developers of Gran Turismo 7 are promising to fix the game with several updates, and the next Tango Gameworks game will likely not be the horror genre at all.