According to Axios journalist Stephen Totilo, Xbox Game Pass it would have missed the growth target expected by Microsoft regarding the amount of subscribers for the second consecutive year.
According to the data collected by the newspaper in question, Microsoft had established a growth target of 73% in the fiscal year ended June 30, 2022, managing to reach only 28% growth, therefore missing the target by a considerable margin.
It would be, moreover, the second consecutive time what happens: even the growth target expected for 2021 was not reached, after the previous year, in 2020, the growth of Xbox Game Pass subscribers had exceeded expectations.
The target was also linked to the incentives provided for the CEO of Microsoft, Satya Nadella, and other high-level managers, which obviously have not taken off, but the question obviously has great importance for Xbox in general, given that the Game Pass represents a element of great importance in the videogame division.
In a recent interview, Phil Spencer reported that the growth of Xbox Game Pass subscribers on consoles has slowed recently, while there has been a sharp increase in PC Game Pass subscribers.
Phil Spencer, head of Microsoft’s Xbox division
According to the head of the Xbox division, this slowdown on consoles would be physiological, due to the fact that it has already reached a large pool of users.
A 73% subscriber growth over the year is indeed a target that seems very high even for a successful service, and the fact that there were no huge caliber releases over the year, largely shifted to 2023, made it even more difficult. In any case, we are waiting for more precise information on the amount of Xbox Game Pass subscribers, considering that the latest data dates back to January 2022 and spoke of 25 million subscribers.